"Trent, you're killing me," Melody complained. "How is it this hard to get a guy's attention with my tits literally out?"
"Sorry," Trent replied, looking back down at her. She stared up at him, her head in his lap, her shirt pulled up. "It's not you."
"Clearly," she muttered.
"I didn't mean it like that."
She sighed. "I know. It's fine. I'm not really mad, or even really annoyed, just...I feel bad for you! You're working too hard, and after all that insane shit you did! The fucking marathon to save a house?! Trent, you need to just let it go for tonight."
"She's right," Bea said.
"Yep," Ann agreed from the driver's seat.
"Uh-huh," Mae said.
"You really should relax," Claire agreed. "Here." She took a puff on her pipe and then passed it back to him.
"All right," he said after considering it for a moment. He took two puffs and then passed it back to her. "Should probably put it out, though."
Claire sighed. "Yeah, that would be the responsible thing to do."
They were rolling through Possum Springs, near the edge of town now, in Trent's jeep. It was shading towards evening and he was in the trunk area with Melody, both of them trying to relax. It had been almost five days since he'd fucked the shit out of Candy. They'd been mixed bags of days, in the sense that Trent shifted between working his ass off and relaxing with Melody and the others. He'd been kind of desperate to finish the editing on the shorts and novellas after Tabby had gotten them through an editor with a surprising speed.
His birthday was the day after tomorrow. It'd be a Tuesday but that was fine, apparently. A lot of people had said they'd come by at some point. Enough that Trent had actually asked Candy if she wouldn't mind potentially opening up her house and their backyards for extra space. She and Stan had agreed, and it had been very tempting to ask her for sex again during that conversation. He could tell she was tempted, too.
But there was work to be done. With everything happening, work on Demontower Three had grinded to a halt. As it was, he'd managed to finish all the planning for it, finally, but he was barely a third of the way done with the actual writing of the novel. He knew he was being somewhat unrealistic, in that he was pushing himself and expecting too much too fast, but he was feeling the pressure and wanted to get at least something off his plate.
He still needed to keep writing Bea's fan fiction, he needed to get ready to novelize Gasmask, and then there was the final Demontower novel to consider. But at least the shorts and novellas were done. Well, not done done, but he'd done his job well enough to kick them back to Tabby and let her look over them and make any corrections. They'd do this probably for one more iteration, and then he'd actually be able to wash his hands of them. For now, anyway. He had the sneaking suspicion that he was going to have to write a few more set in between Three and Four.
"Hey," Melody said, taking his hand and putting it on one of her boobs, "focus."
"Sorry," he repeated. "I'm here. Just...got a lot on my mind. Balancing writing and then this whole thing with the city council…"
"Yeah, we should probably be preparing to take that seriously," Ann murmured.
"I've been getting some preliminary work done," Bea said. "Sketching out ideas of how the website's going to be set up, trying to gather all the data, looking at the current website and figuring out what needs to stay, what needs to go, what needs to be updated, what they really should've thought to put in there by now, but haven't. Honestly, I'm fucking raring to get with that website. I'm going to burn it all down and then recreate it and it's going to be epic and so slick."
"I fucking love how into this you are," Trent said.
She laughed. "Well, this is becoming my field and not only am I finding that I'm really liking it, I'm finding that I especially like it if it's going to something I care about. As much as I hate Possum Springs, I care about it."
"Yeah, I think it's pretty great, myself," he replied.
Mae laughed. "That's because you met us when you first got here. I think you'd be pretty unhappy right now if you hadn't met us."
"Fair point."
"What's this party about?" Claire asked.
"I think it's the first summer vacation party. It'll be rowdy because there's probably going to be a bunch of teens fresh out of high school there, and then some college kids back home for the summer," Bea replied.
"Wonder if anyone I know will be there," she murmured. "It's still weird going to parties like this. I'm fucking thirty."
"It's not weird if you aren't weird," Mae replied.
"I am weird," Claire said.
Mae laughed a little. "I mean-you know what I mean, Claire. It's not like there exists this cutoff age for going to parties in the woods. I mean, the only reason people worry is because they don't want adults telling on them for drinking booze or smoking a little weed."
"Given they live in Possum Springs, I can't blame them," she muttered.
"Exactly. And the only other reason it'd be weird is 'cause older dudes show up and hit on high school girls," Mae replied. "Which obviously you won't do."
"Yeah. Ugh. But you're right, I guess. There's not really a reason I shouldn't go just because I'm thirty now."
"That reminds me," Trent said suddenly, "when's your birthday?"
"Trent!" Melody cried.
"What!?"
"Stop worrying about things!"
"I will...I would like to know, though."
"November seventh," Claire said.
He pulled out his phone and made a quick notation of that. "Okay."
"You are so weirdly responsible," she murmured.
"Too responsible," Melody said.
"You are a little obsessive sometimes," Ann murmured.
"How much longer are you here for?" he asked.
"...wow," Melody replied.
"What?" Trent asked, then hesitated. "Oh. Fuck. Okay, I promise that was not a question that came from a place of 'how much longer do I have to deal with her?', my thought process was 'Melody's right, I've been working too hard, oh man, have I been not spending enough time with Melody? How much time do I have left to hang out with her?'. I swear that's what I meant."
"Nice save," Mae said.
"I'm being serious!"
"I believe you, Trent," Melody said, laughing softly and taking his hand. "I'm planning on leaving the thirteenth. Day after your party. So roughly three days, if you factor what's left of today and however long I take to leave on Wednesday."
"Okay. Cool...um, where are you at on the whole 'catching feelings' thing?"
"I'll admit, I'm very curious about this myself," Ann said.
"I'm...still figuring it out, but overall, I'd say...better?" Melody replied.
"What does that mean in this context?" Mae asked.
"It means...I've had a good time, and I really like Trent, but I think that this has helped sort of clear my head? Like I said at the beginning, I know it can't really work. Our lives are too different, too far away, and I'm not sure I can long-term share you with other women. And now that I've been down here hanging out and actually living with you all for awhile, I've begun to emotionally internalize that. It sucks, because part of me just wants you. Just badly. But I'm...taming it. And I wanted to say thank you again, to all of you, for allowing me to indulge in this. And to let me fuck your boyfriend-sorry, fiance."
"Happy to," Mae said.
"Yeah, you're really cool," Ann agreed.
"And it obviously makes Trent happy," Bea murmured.
"I think it makes everyone happy," Claire said.
"Yep," Trent agreed.
"Also, just so we're on the same page, I don't feel neglected or ignored. You've been doing a good job hanging out with me," Melody said.
"Oh. Well...awesome."
"We're here," Bea said, and the jeep began slowing.
A moment later, they were parked in a gravel pit butting up against a clearing in the middle of a heavily forested area. There were already over a dozen cars parked and twice that many people scattered around the clearing. He felt almost certain this was the same place they'd been to before, but Bea and Ann had assured him it was a completely different place. Mae had commented that, truly, it was hard to comprehend just how much forest surrounded Possum Springs.
"All right," Bea said as she killed the engine. "We have arrived."
"Final check," Trent said, looking around as Melody sat up and pulled her shirt back down. "Everyone's phone is reasonably charged, on, and not silenced?" he asked, checking his own phone as everyone else did.
Everyone reported back affirmatively.
"All right. Weapons? I've got mace and my knife."
"I've got my brass knuckles," Mae said.
"Tazer," Ann said.
"Knife and mace," Bea said.
"I've got some mace," Melody said.
"I...shit," Claire muttered, patting her pockets. She sighed heavily. "I must've left it in my fucking purse, which I left at home. I'm such an idiot."
Ann popped open the glove compartment and pulled out a can of mace, then passed it back to her. "You aren't an idiot, Claire. You're forgetful. Like everyone else. Just use this."
"Thanks," she murmured, studying it.
"Okay, who plans to drink or get high?" Trent asked. "I might get a little high, but nothing serious."
"Do any of us drink?" Mae asked.
"I was planning on getting tipsy," Melody said.
"I'm straight edge for tonight," Bea said.
"Same," Ann agreed.
"I wanna get blazed," Claire said.
"Okay. Melody is with me and Ann?"
"Yeah, I can watch after Claire's dumb ass," she replied.
"You just said I wasn't an idiot!" Claire growled.
"Yeah. You aren't. But you are kind of a dumbass when you get blazed."
"Oh whatever. Like you aren't."
"I never said I wasn't."
"Okay, bicker later. It is...about eight PM now. We agree to come back here every two hours?" Everyone nodded in agreement. "Okay. We'll reconvene at the jeep at ten and midnight. Set alarms."
"I'm not complaining, but you are guys are, like, crazy regimented about this," Melody murmured as they set their alarms.
"We've dealt with too much shit since getting together," Trent replied. "I'm tired of serious problems cropping up and I want to mitigate them. Especially now that I've been shot and had someone pull an actual gun on me."
"That's fair."
"Yep," Bea muttered. She sighed suddenly. "I hate how often I am the source of the difficulties."
"Hot bad goth bitches tend to provoke that reaction," Trent replied. "Now, is there anything else?" No one had anything else to say. "Okay, let's go have fun."
They all piled out of the jeep. Right as they did, Angus and Gregg got out of their own vehicle. They met up and Mae and Gregg went off in one direction, Bea and Angus went off in another, and finally Ann and Claire went off in yet another direction. Trent took Melody's hand and began leading her over to the two big wooden picnic tables that had been arranged in an L and loaded down with food, drinks, and booze.
"What's your drink of choice?" Trent asked as they looked over everything on offer. He set down a six-pack of beer and two big bags of Doritos that he'd brought along to help contribute, since he had learned it was general etiquette.
"This won't be weird will it? Because of what happened with Bea? Or...I think I heard you and Mae had some trouble with alcoholic people in your lives earlier…?"
"We did, but it's fine. Everyone's comfortable with you drinking. I'd just appreciate it if you didn't lose control. That's really the only problem for me."
"I will keep that in mind," she replied, and grabbed a glass bottle of something called Goldslick from the cooler. "Will you?" she asked after trying to take the top off for a moment.
"Yeah," Trent replied, accepting it and studying it, then wrapping his shirt around the cap and twisting it. He tossed the cap into a small pile already gathered on the table and then passed the booze back to her.
"Thank you," she murmured with a grin before taking a drink.
Trent found himself scanning the crowd. So far, he hadn't gotten any bad vibes, but he had actual enemies now, people who might realistically show up with a bone to pick. He saw a handful of vaguely familiar faces. The two girls that Bea had interrogated when finding out who had been spreading rumors about her and Chris were here. That teen couple who had asked Mae for an autograph at Gasmask's showing was here. Beyond that, he either didn't know or was vaguely sure that he'd seen them around town but hadn't actually interacted.
All in all, a fine place to be.
He paused as he spied something near the far edge of the clearing.
"Whoa."
"What?" Melody asked.
"There's some kind of building back there…"
"Oh. Yeah? It kind of looks like an old restroom maybe."
"I want to check it out. Are you cool with that?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine with that," she replied.
He took her hand and began making his way towards the old structure after telling Bea what they were doing. For a moment, he felt a bit of concern about being seen publicly being any level of intimate with Melody, but something in his head just said 'I don't fucking care'. He also questioned the intelligence of going through a whole spiel about safety and then immediately going off practically on his own to investigate a dark, derelict structure in the woods.
But he felt at least reasonably confident that he could deal with anything if it came up.
"Hey, so, I've got a question," Melody said as they approached it.
"Yeah?" Trent replied.
"I'm hoping it's not a rude question, I'm really just curious, but...why are you the way you are?" she asked.
He stopped and looked at her. "Um...I'm going to need more to work with than that. That's incredibly vague."
"Oh...yeah, that's a good point. I mean: why are you so, like, overprotective and always freaking out over everyone and everything?" She paused. "...that came out meaner than I thought it would."
"It's fine, I understand the question. It's...I mean, I don't want to ruin the mood. It's depressing."
Melody was silent for a moment. She seemed to be considering something. Finally, she said, "I'll understand if you don't want to talk about it, but I'm willing to hear it, even if it's sad. People should talk about sad things, at least sometimes."
"I appreciate that," he murmured. "The short of it is: I grew up in a ridiculously toxic household. My father actively hated me and my mom and brother and sister were all extremely shitty to me, a lot. It seems obvious to me now that's where it comes from. I think...there's a part of my brain that got trained into thinking if I'm not constantly useful, I'll be either punished or abandoned immediately. I know this isn't true for the people in my life now, but it's baked into my operating system...I'm going to get therapy sometime this year. Hopefully. And I'm trying to deal with it. And I'm in probably as healthy an environment as I can realistically be, but...yeah, it's just a thing I'm going to have to live with."
Melody stared at him for a long moment. He began to feel a fear slowly welling within him. How many times had he seen this story play out online? Woman asks man she is intimate with to be emotionally vulnerable, he actually does, she very quickly begins to lose attraction to and respect for him, and soon leaves him. In a lot of cases, he assumed that something else was going on. The woman was shitty, the guy was shitty, other extenuating circumstances.
But it didn't douse the fear completely.
Melody hugged him. "You didn't deserve that, Trent," she said, squeezing him tightly. "You're a good person. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve that at all."
"Well...to be fair, maybe I became a good person because I was abused into it. Maybe I would've been an entitled shithead otherwise."
"No," she replied, pulling back and looking at him intently. "That's not how it works. I mean, sometimes maybe, just due to statistics, but no. I've seen people who had it all and were still entitled shitheads. And anyway, it doesn't matter, Trent. You didn't deserve it. End of the sentence. End of the thought. All that shit about 'tough love' and 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'? It's fucking bullshit. Often times, what doesn't kill you just leaves some sort of long-term damage that you now have to deal with forever."
"Yeah, that's true," he said.
"...fuck, I feel like I made you sad now. I shouldn't have asked."
"No, it's fine. I'm actually not that upset about it right now. I mean I was already a little down. I think I get more obsessive about taking care of things and people when I'm feeling depressed or anxious. I'll be all right."
"Hmm." She stared at him for a moment, twisting her lips, then a small smile touched her face. "So I don't mean to be the girl who thinks that sex solves everything but...would it make you feel better if you got to cum in my pussy?"
"Uh…" He looked around. "Yes. Yes it would, actually."
She laughed. "Good. Come on."
"Wait," he said as they approached the open doorway to the abandoned building. He listened closely and heard nothing, then pulled out his cellphone and turned on the flashlight. "Okay, come on. Let's find a place for a quickie."