CHAPTER SIX

In true barbecue fashion, the action wasn't in the cafeteria. Instead, it was off across the tarmac, out in the desert behind an open gate in the fence. Cooking meat lent the air a mouthwatering scent, and groups of people clustered together, chatting amongst a small circus of folding tables and chairs.

I caught sight of Hunk first. He was standing in a worn apron before a row of dinky little portacues, flipping chicken and vegetable skewers with a pair of metal tongs. His forehead gleamed with sweat, and when he saw me, he waved. I rushed to wave back and awkwardly tripped over my own feet in the process. Aside from the odd flat patch where the tables and chairs sat, the ground was pitted and rock-laden.

Reaching a circular area where someone had erected a circle of stones for a fire pit, I sat down on a rock. Part of me had feared being mobbed again, but thankfully, few people had looked my way. It was what I imagined to be a typical party—people drinking beers, others drinking soda, and everyone caught up in their own business. I sighed in relief, all the while knowing that left me with another problem: figuring out what to do.

Saying I hadn't been invited to parties as a kid would've been a crime-worthy understatement. I had been the kid other kids avoided inviting like I had the plague. I'd had a sneaking suspicion that just mentioning my name would've killed a party dead. So now, as a kind-of adult, I had no clue what to do at a—party, barbecue, whatever—or how to enter into a group conversation. Nor what to do if I couldn't enter one. Was it taboo to sit at a party and watch YouTube videos on your phone? Would they kick me out?

With a hum, I leaned back. I spotted Katie some ways away, but she was talking to a man with sandy hair who could've been her male twin. Probably another Holt, I thought. Their similarities were too uncanny to be anything other than family resemblance. Besides, the thought of talking to her alone made my fingers twitch.

I got up out of the chair and walked towards the edge of the action, shielding my eyes from the sun as I stared out over the desert. The sky was a deep blue, a bank of dark clouds hanging far off in the distance. Buttes and high, rocky cliffs dotted the heat-hazy horizon. My shoulders sagged, my body relaxing at the beautiful sight.

Standing on the edges of my boots, I climbed atop a rock that overlooked a shallow valley, my eyes scanning the horizon. That was when I heard it—a hushed voice.

"It's not my fault you missed your chance," Lance said from somewhere below me.

I blinked, glancing down, and saw Lance and Keith directly below me. Keith's hand was balled in the neck of Lance's t-shirt, the tendons in his wrist standing out under his skin. The latter's hands were in his pockets. Instinct taking over, I shrank back from the edge. What the hell? Were they fighting? I thought they were friends—but then again, didn't boys fight their friends all the time? Wasn't that what boys did?

Then again times two, I thought, feeling my forehead prickle with sweat. Maybe I shouldn't be holding others to the standards of my drunken former peers. These weren't high school students on a secret bender—they were Garrison members. Actual military personnel. Adults—or at least, we were supposed to be.

"I didn't miss my chance," I heard Keith growl under his breath.

"Dude, you're backsliding—" Lance didn't sound bothered or even offended. He sounded bored, and my brow furrowed. "—ever since Shiro's wedding, you've been—"

There was a scuffling sound and a squeak of rubber on stone.

"Don't bring up Shiro."

Slipping off the rock, I walked over to the slope's edge. Picking my way down it, I frowned. I had no clue how I was going to stop them, or even if they needed to be stopped—not to mention what they'd think of me after—but I wasn't going to let them go at it down there. If the wrong person caught them, everyone here would get in trouble. Not to mention that one or both of them might get hurt. Another set of scuffling sounds rang out, and I stopped, one hand still in a hold.

"Keith, get your shit together, man," Lance said. "Go chat up that babe you found—" I blinked twice. Babe? "—Take her out or something. Quit coming after me because you're shaking in your boots."

"I'm not shaking," I heard Keith say, but I heard footsteps receding away in the opposite direction.

I stayed where I was. Which one of them had left? And what did Lance mean that Keith was shaking in his boots? How often did this happen? My head swam as I tried to make sense of what I'd just heard. Who was Shiro? And, who had Lance meant by that babe? Did Keith already have someone? Was I misunderstanding?

I was about to turn away, to go back to the barbecue when Keith came flying around the edge of the rock and almost collided with me. He lurched backward, and his eyes widened in shock as he came to a skidding stop. Staring at him, I chewed my lip, and he awkwardly turned away from me, then turned back.

Clearly, he knew that I'd been listening, and clearly, he wanted to leave. But, what was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to tell a self-deprecating joke or something?

Nice going, Rí. Eavesdropping is real charming. As are awkward silences.

Rocking on my feet, I stuck my hands in my pocket and looked away.

"Do you..." I said, clearing my throat. "Want to go for a walk?"

"What did you want to talk about?" Keith asked, kicking a rock with his shoe.

The barbecue was not quite a speck yet, but we'd been walking in complete and utter silence for quite a while. I stopped next to a tall cactus, staring at it. I'd never seen anything like it up close before, and if these had been normal circumstances, I would've asked him what kind it was. But, these weren't normal circumstances, so I pried my eyes off its spiny body and turned back to him.

"I didn't want to talk about anything," I said. I couldn't think of anything to say that would diffuse this wet blanket of awkward, so in stereotypical me fashion, I just let my thoughts fall out of my mouth. "If it were me, I wouldn't want to go back to the par— barbecue right away, that's all."

He stared at me, but I was beyond feeling anxious. In fact, between listening to the two of them fight and him catching me, my body was completely and utterly numb. What was going to happen now? Was he going to yell at me too? Storm off and leave me out here? Play polite for the duration, then never talk to me again?

"I'm fine," he said, in the same prickly tone he'd said I'm not shaking with.

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. I didn't buy it—not even cruel kids said things to each other for no reason. It was always prompted by something else, some sort of observation, or maybe something grating on their nerves. But I didn't know this guy's story, and it was absolutely, one-hundred-and-five percent not my business—especially now that I might've seen interest where there was none—so I shook my head.

"It's fine," I said. "Not my monkeys, not my circus, y'know?" I picked up and threw another stick. "But just so someone says it—there's nothing wrong with not being okay for a while."

I turned to him. He wasn't wearing his suit today. Just a black t-shirt—unbelievable in this heat—and a pair of black leggings, which I tried not to look at too closely lest I find myself distracted. His upper eyelids drooped as he sat atop a small boulder, staring back at me.

"Is my accent too thick?" I asked, offering him a tight smile.

"Do you ever listen to yourself talk?" He asked, and my heart stilled in my chest.

Here it came, I thought, my stomach dropping. The insult, the disparaging comment, the mocking soliloquy. But no way was I going to take that lying down—not from someone who was clearly playing games in an attempt to get me to back off. I knew that one. In fact, I'd been that one before I decided to at least try and get better.

"I've heard that one before," I said stiffly, turning back to the desert. I picked up a third stick and threw that, too. "I've come up with an answer no one expects."

"What?" He asked, his voice hesitant.

Keeping my legs where they were, I turned the top half of my body back to him and raised my spread hands on either side of my face. I crossed my eyes, stuck out my tongue, and blew a raspberry at him. His eyes flew wide, and the serious frown he'd been wearing disappeared.

"That," I said with a forced smile, and his brow furrowed as he barked a laugh.

"What the heck?"

I scooped up another stick and walked back to him, sitting down on the rock beside him. Our elbows bumped, and I tried to ignore my tingling weenus as I offered the stick to him. He took it, albeit slowly, giving me a curious glance.

"You grew up out here," I said. "Didn't you, Mr. Serious?"

"Yeah," he said, raising an eyebrow at the nickname.

He tossed the stick through the arms of a nearby cactus, and it tumbled end over end into the dirt.

"Nice one," I said.

"Why?"

"You said your Pops—" The word felt strange in my mouth. "—had a shack next to an overhang—overlook? No, overhang—or something."

"Outcropping," he corrected. "And yeah, he had a place. Empty now, though."

I glanced at him. He was staring out over the horizon, a vacant look in his eyes. I yawned, wiggling on the boulder in an attempt to clear the tension in my body. Now that he didn't seem angry anymore, feeling was beginning to trickle back into me. As I finished stretching and clasped my fingers together, they trembled slightly.

"I like it out here," I offered. "It was sunny and hot back home," I held up a hand towards the sun, squinting at it, and felt him turn to look as well. "But it wasn't way blown open like here is. You can see pretty much forever—back home, there was all kinds of shite in the way."

Hearing his chuckle beside me, right next to my head, my body suddenly flared with heat. Just how close was I sitting to him?

"Where's home?" He asked, an amused curl to his voice.

"Alberta."

"Alberta, Canada?"

He sounded surprised, and I blinked at him. Maybe the program's origins weren't common knowledge after all.

"Yeah," I said, a touch of inadvertent defensiveness coloring my voice.

Did he think I was joking? Or was he going to argue with me, telling me I was lying because polar bears lived in Canada and it was always night? Was he going to ask me how the beer was or start ending his sentences with eh?

"It's hot there?"

"Yeah. Not as hot as here, but it gets up to thirty above in the summer."

He quirked an eyebrow.

"Only thirty?"

"Celsius," I said, knocking my elbow with his and trying to force him off the rock. "Besides!" I gasped, grinning as he began to push back. "Don't you know heat is relative—?"

I was winning. Or, I had been until, grinning himself, Keith braced his leg against the boulder and shoved me off. I tumbled off the rock into the dirt, throwing out my hands to catch my—admittedly, rather light—fall. I landed on my butt and sat up, letting out a mock groan of frustration. His eyes widened.

"I want a rematch!" I said, beginning to hold up a fist.

"Don't move!" He responded.

I stilled, my hand outstretched, and quirked a brow. He stared at me with eyes still widened, his lips pressed into a thin, white line. Huh?

"…What?"

Keith pointed silently to my hand, and I turned my head. It looked hairy, but not quite, and as I stared at it, my skin began to sting. I winced, and then it dawned on me. I looked down over my shoulder at the cactus I'd just fallen into, my eyes scraping over the bald spot where I'd gripped it.

"Well, shite," I said.

"Keith!" Hunk called when we returned. "What happened?"

"She fell in a cactus," Keith replied.

So much for the long pauses, I thought. We were walking side by side, Keith's hand gripping the wrist of my bristly one, keeping it held out in front of me. After the second time I'd almost stuck it in my pocket, he'd grabbed it, and he hadn't let go since. But, his touch was less "light caress" and more "man throttling venomous snake." My skin burned, and not because he was touching me—or because of the hundreds of needle-like spines sticking out of my palm.

"What'd you do?" I heard Lance say, his voice high with chagrin.

"Nothing," Keith said. "She was trying to push me off the rock."

"And you pushed her back? Dude."

I frowned as Keith pulled me to the now-lit fire pit by my wrist. His other hand pushed me toward a chair, and I sank down into it obediently, not even bothering to resist. This was not going to be fun or quick, and I knew it. My head was spinning, and I sucked in a breath.

"I'll bring you guys some food," Hunk said, and he and Lance walked off towards the portacues.

Keith, however, was peering down at my hand, and Katie was staring down at it over his shoulder. She gripped the meat of my thumb with her small, cool fingers, spreading my palm, and I flinched as one of the needles pulled at my skin.

"Here," She said, pulling out a keychain with an attached pocket knife.

She handed it to Keith before turning to go. Thankfully, he pulled the attached tweezers out of the end instead of the scissors or something even more destructive. His fingers were thin, his knuckles bony, and I focused on them instead of my pincushion of a hand, or what was about to happen to it.

"Nothing to be done, huh?" I asked, chuckling. "Just like breaking a toe."

"Yeah," Keith replied.

He had a lot of yeahs—soft, shy yeahs, snarky yeahs, curious yeahs… I had never known anyone who could take one word and spin it so many ways. Not that I knew him. Not yet—but I wanted to. Trying to push him off the rock had been fun, and he'd made a great shot with that stick. I watched his face as he stared down at my hand, pulling gently at the base of one of the spines in the center of my palm.

"You… break your toe or something?"

He glanced at me, then looked back at my hand.

"Nope," I said, thankful for the distraction. "Just dislocated it once. But my cousin broke his four times."

I sank down further in the chair. Did he really need or want to know about my cousin? Sometimes I felt so bad at conversation that I wanted to crawl into a hole. But, instead of staying silent or laughing at me, Keith pulled the spine he'd been testing out of my hand. I winced, and he dropped it into the dirt.

Easy peasy lemon squeezy, I thought, watching him line up for another pull.

"How'd he do that?" He asked.

"Couches," I said.

His eyes met mine again, and he raised an eyebrow.

"Couches?"

"Moving them, mostly," I said, sighing. "He had all these friends, and they were like, twenty-somethings—" I waved my other hand, trying to ignore the nagging voice in my head pointing out that we were also twenty-somethings. "—always moving from place to place. Accidents happened every time."

"You have lots of friends?" He asked.

"No," I said, barely noticing as he pulled out another spine. "I…"

I didn't want to go into it, and I didn't want to give him the wrong idea. But, at the same time, what kind of a loser just admits she has no friends? That wasn't going to help him like me, feel safe with me, or anything in between. Surely, he'd just wonder why, right? But it was a no-win scenario, so I answered anyway.

"Making friends is hard," I said, letting out a frustrated sigh.

But Keith's eyes didn't waver. He pulled a third spine from my skin, and I hissed between my teeth.

"Yeah."

We sat there in front of the fire pit for a long time as Keith pulled the needles from my flesh. Our conversation was clumsy but smooth, a series of statements batted back and forth with little silence in between. He told me about his dog, and I told him about the series of various pet replacements I'd had as a child, including my pet brick, Tony the Tiger. I informed him that yes, he was named after the 200-year-old cereal mascot, and Keith laughed, then told me about how he'd named the beans in his father's garden as a kid, only to find out they'd been eating them the whole time.

As dark began to fall and the storm in the distance began to thunder, Hunk brought us a single paper plate of skewers, silently sliding them onto a rock beside us. He winked and grinned at me as he snuck off. If Keith noticed the conspicuous lack of a second plate, he didn't say anything. Propping up my hand on his knee, he ate with one hand and plucked with the other, pulling the vegetables off the skewer with his teeth and setting them aside.

"Veggies not your thing?" I asked.

"Not bell peppers."

"I hate 'em, too," I said, popping one into my mouth.

He arched an eyebrow at me, but I only smiled. His knee was warm—and kind of bony, but I wasn't complaining. The jolts of electricity and cold stabbing I'd felt had given way to a different feeling. A strange tingling perfused me, and it was distracting, almost overwhelming, but our conversation anchored me. The sun soon set completely, and our fellow barbecue-goers clustered around the fire to roast marshmallows, but despite the motion all around us, I couldn't take my eyes off Keith.

But my hand was quickly coming to look a lot less like a porcupine and more like—well, a hand. I could feel time—or rather, my now very-welcome excuse to sit close to him—running out, and my head swirled with questions. Was he serving on the Atlas, too? Was he really a Blades officer? And, the one that was most important, but which I knew I would never be able to ask: Was he seeing anyone?

In the end, I wound up asking none of them.

"Last one," Keith said, much quicker than I'd expected, and my heart sped up.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but instead, I felt a prick of pain as he immediately pulled the spine from my palm. He slid the tweezers back into the green pocket knife and slipped it into Katie's hoodie, which was lying on the chair next to me.

"Guess that's it, then," I said, deflated and staring at my now-spineless palm.

Keith chuckled.

"Got attached to them, huh?" He said, standing up. "Just like Tony."

"Maybe," I said quietly, staring up at him.

He turned away, tearing his eyes from mine, and I blinked twice.

"Goodnight," he said, his voice a mumble, and then he was gone, loping off into the dark.

I sat there for a long time, my face flushed and tingling. Had it just been me, or had Keith's cheeks been a little pink, too?