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not that I care if he knows, but it’s not really an explanation I want to get into with a bunch of kids from Derek’s school or mine listening in.
    “That’s a story for another time…hey man, did I hear you’re coming with us?” Derek replied in my stead, saving me from talking with my mouth full and artfully changing the subject back to the desert by directing a question to said Shark, who’d still managed to pick up on my discomfort and was curious to know the reason for it.  
    Letting go of his obvious intrigue for the time being, Tristan just narrowed his eyes at me a little and simply answered, “Yeah, I am.”  
    “Right on. So just a little heads up, the adults don’t really give a shit what we do as long as we aren’t obvious about it and we’re safe, so if you wanna drink you gotta figure out a way to camouflage it somehow.” I told you, teenager heaven. “This year’s gonna be a blast too. MaryAnn and Brandon are coming with me, my kid brother has a friend coming, and oh! Hey Camie, did you hear? Julia and Parker are bringing friends too…I think the teens might actually outnumber the adults this year…”
    Julia and Parker are more cousins of ours. They’re twins and are juniors at a different school from both Derek’s and mine. I’m doing the math in my head in regard to the adults vs. teens and I’m pretty sure Derek is right. I fear for the adults. So with that in mind and listening to Derek and Tristan swapping ideas on the best ways to covertly drink in front of the adults, then discussing what kind of speed and stuff their bikes are capable of, and Tristan inviting Derek to the river the next time he goes, I started giggling to myself by picturing Derek in a tux at my wedding. Obviously that’s going to be years from now, I am only fifteen, but really, it seems like Tristan is already part of my family and I’m nothing if not a positive thinker! I crack myself up.
      And then—because you know, the evening was thus far drama free—it had to happen…
    Tristan was bowling and his phone was sitting in front of me on the scoreboard console when he got a text. Because his phone is similar to mine in the way that incoming texts just show up on the screen, I didn’t have to open it or touch it at all to read the text from Samantha, the original reason Derek refers to Tristan as “The Shark.” Apparently Tristan wasn’t all that clear in his dismissal of her last month when she’d told him to K.I.T.—you know, “keep in touch”—ugh. Not only that, but from what she said, she’s here ...

    Samantha: want to get out of here? josh and i r thru & i want 2 get laid.

    You can imagine I probably didn’t have the most pleasant expression on my face when he came walking back up after having finished his second ball.
    “What?”  
    I can’t justify being mad at him but I’m far from being happy, so I just got up to take my turn. “Nothing.”
    “Bullshit. What’s wrong with you?” He asked as I picked up my ball.
    “You got a text,” I told him without looking back while I made my approach to bowl the first ball of my tenth frame. I really had to try very hard to not decipher which of the girls hanging out in the neighboring lanes Samantha was so that I could hurl my eight-pound bowling ball at her head.  
    Did you know that latent anger is good for bowling strikes? Well, it is.
    After watching the ten pins go ricocheting off each other and the side walls for the third time (If you bowl a strike for your first ball on the tenth frame, you get two more balls…so, I ended up getting three strikes.), I turned around to see that instead of looking at me, Tristan was looking in the direction of the other lanes, appearing to be about as unhappy as I am. Maybe. I don’t know though…getting a turkey was great but I’d still like to see what kind of damage a bowling ball to the head does. Seriously, I had to force myself to not pick up another ball and follow his