“I singed my eyebrows off with one of those things when I was, like, twelve,” Steph said.

“How did you even do that?” Irvine said. “I feel like the first rule with these things is, like, you run away from them.”

It was clear to me that Steph didn’t know how much to look at me. She kept glancing up directly at my face and just as quickly moving away. I noticed the slope of her shoulders, her protruding collarbone. I found myself looking away too.

At some point Irvine broke off and looked at me with a serious face. She inclined her head away from the circle and I walked with her to a spot a few feet away.

“Hey,” she said quietly. “Like, I figure weed isn’t the thing you were in rehab for, but your dad told me specifically to keep an eye out for you and drugs, and so, like — ”

There was that “your” again, the same one Dad had used when talking about his dead mother in the diner. Your dad. My employer. I watched her trail off and start waving her hands in frustration. I guess weed makes some people anxious.

“Yeah, I won’t tell him,” I said.

“Okay, I mean — that isn’t what I meant, I mean, I didn’t do something bad, did I? By giving it to you?”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, looking at me with a serious expression. “Okay.”

We got back to the circle.

“Nice night, huh?” Steph said.

“Yeah,” I said.

When I looked back at Steph, she was looking at me, and when neither of us looked away, she leaned in and kissed me.

I wasn’t sure how long it was going to last. It lasted a while. I remembered how much I liked kissing girls. This time it was a little different — Steph took the lead, leaned way in, bit my lip a little bit. She placed her hand above my belt and a little to the left. On my waist, I guess that was my waist. She started drooling all over my face. I wondered if Irvine was watching. I sort of hoped she was. I felt vaguely like I was proving some kind of point to her. Eventually, Steph pulled away from me and wiped her hand on her mouth.

She giggled and leaned into me once she had lit another cigar-ette.

“Cute,” she said approvingly. “Nice to have you back.”

Irvine was looking everywhere but me. Then Jean lit the bottle rockets and we all looked up into the sky.

Ponytail

Ponytail

It was an unseasonably warm day in February, and I was walking through slushy sidewalks to the train station after work with three of my coworkers. Two of them were talking to each other about EBT.