Danny's face was practically smooshed against the window as he sat in the backseat of Archie's mother's car.
"I can't believe this is actually happening."
"Relax, D. I told you, this summer will be lit. You'll see."
"What's lit again?"
Archie's mom tried hard to relate to her son as she drove them from New York City to her brother's home in Green Grove New York. It was the only way she felt she could best monitor and control his behavior at this point.
"Mom, please."
"I believe lit means drunk and—"
"I'm just trying to convince Danny that we're going to have fun—"
"Community service in some dump of a town all summer sounds like a nightmare. I can't believe you got us deeper into this mess." Danny muttered.
"Oh and doing community service in the city would have been better? At least we don't have to battle for dominance with the rats." Archie defended.
"It was this or jail time," Archie's mom tried to help too, "and Green grove is not a dump."
The ending to their senior year of high school had been rough.
As finals loomed, Danny had thrown a party while his parents were away. He had never done anything like that before and took Archie's advice to do something crazy that he'd remember forever before they all moved away to do their own thing. He would definitely remember this.
The party was epic. Archie took the lead and invited absolutely everyone. Among his esteemed acquaintances were a handful of students who happily supplied alcoholic beverages for the event.
At some point, Archie decided he'd go pick up a few friends who couldn't find a ride. The problem was that Archie was smashed and ended up rear ending a police car of all things as he tried to drive across the city.
Shortly after that, NYPD arrived at Danny's house and arrested him for hosting an underage drinking party. He also had charges added for supplying Archie with the alcohol which ultimately led to him driving recklessly.
Archie was wealthy and his family attorneys worked to get him and Danny both probation and their sentencing reduced to seventy five hours of community service. They convinced the judge to allow them to carry out the community service time at Archie's uncle's farm in Green Grove.
Archie's uncle, Kyle Masterson, was the chief of police in Green Grove and agreed to put them to work on projects throughout the community all summer. The judge agreed and the deal indeed spared them jail time.
It felt like a win at the time, but now, as they left the city limits and approached Green Grove, all Danny could think about was having to spend his whole summer away from his friends scooping pig shit in some sleepy town where everything closes by 6 pm.
"I still can't believe they wouldn't let us walk for graduation." Danny grumbled, "Twelve years working toward that, I messed up one time—"
Not only were they banned from walking at graduation, they were both suspended for the remainder of the year. They took their finals in a conference room, passed them, and were ushered out the door a full two weeks before the last day of school.
"Dude, don't focus on that shit. We got the diploma, let's make the most of this summer."