Saturday, very early morning

Perton Hill turned out to be a park in Perton, not even that far away from home. Since they had left the club fairly early, they had plenty of time to stop at Julia’s home—her father’s, to be exact—to grab some liquor for the road.

“What do you wanna do?” Julia asked, handing him the bottle of scotch she had taken with her. “Vandalize something?”

“Drugs? Aside from weed?” Layne chuckled, but they all knew they could knock on any door and there would be about a 50/50 chance they could buy a variety of drugs.

“Catch a knife with your foot kinda crazy?” Santino joked, and since he was finally back to joking around, Noah couldn’t help but laugh at his suggestion.

“Get shitfaced drunk, and wake up in the morning thinking: what the fuck have I done?” Noah said, and they all seemed to think it was a great idea to just let alcohol lead them into whatever adventure awaited.

Since Julia’s father owned a club, and he hadn’t been home, Julia had been able to steal plenty of alcohol to actually get shitfaced drunk. There was no way her father would notice a few bottles missing from the amount they had stored at their penthouse.

Santino suggested a drinking game and they ended up doing truth, dare or drink, which basically meant that they all kept taking shots straight from the bottle, or listening to Santino’s explanation behind rumors, laughing so hard that Noah nearly threw up at some point. Layne too had some crazy stories, mainly about things they had done with their team, like steal something from their rival school Davis High, on the other side of town.

It didn’t take too long, before Noah leaned against Layne to slur out a suggestion: “how about we steal something from them, right now?”

“You wanna break into their school and steal something?” Layne laughed, still nodding his head as if he agreed to the idea.

“Their football trophy from last year,” Santino said, slapping his hand on the ground excitedly.

“Guys, we’re not gonna break into Davis,” Julia laughed, “it’s at least an hour walking, sober.”

“Right,” Noah sighed, laying down on the ground with a sigh. “I wish we would’ve gone to Mercury, I wanna swim.”

“We can swim,” Santino mumbled, plucking grass from the ground. He looked at Noah when he looked back up, while Julia and Layne were staring at Santino curiously. “If we cross the bridge we get back to Cedar’s gate. Plenty swimming pools there.”

“Yes!” Layne jumped up, and since he had already started walking in the direction of the bridge, he had decided they would indeed go for a swim. They drank more, smoked some weed, and laughed. What it was they were laughing about? Nobody knew. But in that moment, Noah felt free, and more alive than ever. He skipped along with Julia when she hooked her arm into his and laughed when they nearly tripped because they couldn’t coordinate their steps.

“What about Mr. Ferris?” Layne said, waving an uncoordinated hand, “he’s pissing money and still bitching at us in class every fucking week. I bet he has a nice swimming pool.”

“I’d say yes,” Julia whispered, as if she was telling a secret. “He lives two blocks up North.”

They all followed her towards a mansion that was just outside the gated community where Julia lived, and she went ahead, leading them to the back by walking through a park. They crawled through the bushes, used a tree to climb over the fence, and stripped down to their underwear before they dove into the refreshing water.

It didn’t sober them up all the way, but it did wake them up a little. It just didn’t sober them up enough to think about their actions, or more so, about the noise they were making. It didn’t last more than five minutes when lights went on at the upper floor, and they all hurried to grab their clothes, the backpacks Julia had taken for the liquor, and rush around the house, through the front gate, and back into the streets.

“Get back here!” a heavy voice called after them, while they just kept running, trying not to laugh too hard.

They kept running for three blocks, before they felt like it was safe enough to get dressed and walk further away. They walked around town for a while, avoiding Perton since they had already seen three cop cars heading in that direction, and avoiding Cedar’s gate in case Mr. Ferris had called the cops as well. Or was on the watch himself, Noah felt like he would be crazy enough for that.

Eventually, they went to Julia’s home, played some pool, and played videogames on her brothers Xbox before they decided it would be time to go home. Julia let them out after making sure they didn’t want to borrow bikes. Since they drove past Layne’s home on the way to Noah’s, he said his goodbyes before he snuck into his house, trying not to wake up his parents.

And suddenly, Noah found himself alone with Santino again.

“Where do you live, actually? I mean, you don’t have to walk all the way to my place if you don’t live nearby.”

“It’s about ten minutes walk from you. It’s not that far off route. Besides, your parents don’t want you to go home alone, right?”

“Uhu, but doesn’t that count for you as well?”

“I seriously hope my dad thinks I’m in bed already,” Santino mumbled with a smirk decorating the corners of his lips. “If not, it doesn’t matter whether or not I come home alone or not.”

“At least I can sneak in over the balcony.”

“Yeah, I once tried sneaking in by climbing onto the garage.”

“Didn’t work?”

“Well, at least we discovered where our roof was leaking.”

Noah snorted, pushing him with one hand before they both started laughing. “Did you really fall through?”

“Nah, just a foot. The roof was bad anyway. It’s been replaced since, so I could try again. On the other side, I can just head over to Karen, sneak into her room, and pretend I was planning on sleeping there all along. My dad really won’t know if it was agreed on or not.”

“You can also just stay at my place, really.”

“Didn’t I do that the other day?”

Noah snorted, as he stopped walking before they would be in hearing distance from the apartment. “Invitation stands.”

“Hmm…” Santino hummed, stepping ever so slightly closer, “tempting…”

Noah swallowed when a silence fell, and they just stared at each other. Santino’s eyes kept flickering down to his lips, and Noah had trouble not to drown into his eyes. He really had no idea who initiated it, but the next moment they were kissing, and Noah just wanted to drag him to his room for a rerun from last week. Things were already complicated, so how bad would it be to just allow him to enjoy Santino’s body one more time? What could he possibly ruin?

Their friendship was still fine after last week, and Santino had already decided to ditch Karen for him earlier that night. Noah knew their relationship was based on lies and deceit. Karen was practically blackmailing him. It meant nothing to Santino. He didn’t like her like that. He probably didn’t even like her at all.

“My room?”

Santino simply nodded, and they silently hurried back to Noah’s room, following the same route they had used the week before.

It was just for fun, right?