Disclaimer: In case it is not clearly stated in the narrative, everyone in this chapter engaging sexual activity is at least 18 years of age.
Note: This is written in British/South African English, although almost all similar media I consume is American, so that will have its influence too. For the sake of keeping the note short, I'll post a comment to explain my use of language and obscure terms, if anyone asks or I think of something in particular.
***
I untwisted my hand from the knot of seatbelt I'd entangled it in, panting and exhilarated. Eric lifted his head from my lap and settled next to me on the back seat. He put a hand on my face to turn it towards him, and kissed me. I could taste the faint trace of my cum in his mouth.
"There." He grinned, and pushing away from me, climbed into the front seat.
"You don't want to-"
"I'm not going to jizz in my shorts, thanks." He turned back to me, his tone reassuring. "And I'd hate to mess up your car. It's fine. You'll get me later. Plus, we're going to be late. We should get going."
I grinned, and climbed into the driver's seat, feeling a little guilty. We'd hooked up a few times by now -- pretty much for the rest of that weekend after our date, and the whole of the weekend after that. He'd also stopped by at my place a few times in the middle of the weeks between. I still hadn't quite been ready to blow him, but he didn't seem to mind doing it without reciprocation, and we still both got to enjoy ourselves a lot anyway.
We'd just come from the restaurant where Louis had booked out a room for his eighteenth. He'd only wanted a small event, apparently, just people he liked and knew well. Which, after two more weeks of hanging out with him around the edges of AP maths, seemed to include me and Ellie.
It also included Sara, who was now officially dating John. Ellie had still been obsessed with their group dynamic, so she'd found out and explained to me -- at length -- that, apart from Melissa, John seemed to be Louis' best friend, so Louis inviting Sara made sense. As for us, she thought Louis had just been bowled over by our 'charming and brilliant personalities.' Hers, mostly, of course.
It didn't seem as if Frank and Jared -- from the balcony at Caitlyn's party -- had made the cut, so that confirmed Ellie's suspicion that they weren't part of the 'core' group. Jess had looked pretty upset the whole evening, so I didn't quite want to ask her about it. I wondered if Ellie had.
"Is Jess okay, by the way?"
"What? Oh, right," he said, buckling himself in. "Frank broke up with her, so yeah... she's not having a great time."
"Oh no."
"Yeah. I mean..." He shrugged. "Awful guy anyway. I didn't really like him."
I started the car, and put some music on from my phone.
"Ugh. What is this garbage?" Eric groaned.
"It's a band called the Noisettes, and they're amazing. If you don't like them, walking is always an option."
"Fine, I'll listen to your dumb music." He grinned, and reached across to rub the back of my neck. "Come on, let's go. We're probably already late."
Sara had offered up her house as a venue to go back to after we were done at the restaurant. The idea had Ellie's fingerprints all over it -- part of her convoluted plan to worm our way into the group, no doubt. It felt unnecessary, since things were going so well between John and Sara, but the plotting kept Ellie busy, so I didn't even ask. The two of us had both seemed to crack an invite from Louis anyway, without -- openly, in my case -- dating anyone in the group.
Most of them had set off for Sara's house on foot -- Louis and Melissa, Sara and John, Vince and Jessica. I'd needed to drive my car there, and when Eric mentioned something about needing to find an ATM and joining me for the car ride, Ellie had decided at the last minute not to accompany us, and rushed off to join the others. I hadn't realised that Eric was making up an excuse, and had something pretty different in mind. Not that I'd been willing -- or able -- to argue with him.
It didn't take us long to get to the house, which I'd been to before for a group project. Sara's parents were major hippies -- and very successful artists -- and they lived a very bohemian existence in a bungalow on the beachfront, just near enough the edge of Blue Mountain Beach's borders to be respectable. They were currently away at an arts festival, a fact which had probably triggered Ellie's plan for the evening.
The rest of the group must have been walking really slowly. By the time I'd pulled into the driveway, they'd only just arrived, and I had to wait for them to scuttle out of the way before I could park. Ellie lingered back with me as everyone filed through the small gate that led towards the beach area, looping her arm through mine and giving me a mischievous grin. "Have fun?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. We went to an ATM." I blushed slightly, but couldn't help but smile.
"Sure." She patted my arm, and then slipped away once we reached the sandy enclosure at the back of Sara's house.
John's hulking form was crouched over a firepit, sleeves pushed back off of his muscular forearms, and he was arranging some coals and firelighters in the center. He'd been the only one who seemed to have ignored Louis's suggestion that we wear beach friendly clothing.
Everyone else had given him good-natured ribbing when he'd rocked up in a button-down shirt and nice jeans -- for 'trying to impress his new girlfriend'. He'd only put up a token protest, explaining that he'd only skimmed the invitation. After that, he'd played along, and defiantly claimed that Sara was 'a girl worth impressing', at which point the teasing became about what a sappy romantic he was.
He looked up from the firepit as I rounded the corner. "Hey, Jay, can you bring me one of those bags of logs?"
"Um, yeah. Sure." I grabbed the bag from a pile that sat up against the house, and brought it over. I tore it open, and started helping John place them around the arrangement of coals he'd set up. Sara brought us things we needed as she flitted around, her blonde waterfall of beauty-queen hair flicking about as she played hostess to everyone. John lit the firelighters with a match, and then we delicately piled a few more logs over the whole arrangement and stepped back to wait.
"You've set it up all wrong," Vincent said, wandering over with a cocky grin on his face. He'd worn a shirt with a hula girl's torso on it -- which had drawn a groan from Louis and a laugh from everyone else when he'd walked into the restaurant earlier. "It's going to fizzle."
"Oh, fuck off." John laughed cheerfully, and then turned to me. "Ignore him. He's just bitter because he's been banned from anything to do with fires."
"Why?"
"He nearly killed us."
"Oh come on, that was like one time."
"It was like five times, you moron." Melissa wandered over to join us at the fire. Tonight she was wearing a short green beach dress that made her red hair seem more vibrant than usual. "And the last time you burnt off my goddamn eyebrows! I had to spend half a year drawing them on."
"But you looked hot." Vince grinned.
"I looked like my Great-Aunt Maud." Melissa tossed her hair in mock outrage. "If you think that's hot, I'll give her your number."
"Great. I've been looking for a sugar-mommy."
"Yeah, Maud's broke," Melissa said. "But she used to be an acrobat, and she can remove her teeth, so..."
"Louis! Melissa's doing it again." John shouted.
"Mel." Louis wrapped his arms around her. He looked great tonight. He'd ditched the glasses -- presumably for contact lenses -- and gelled his hair up into a fashionable mess. Following his own advice, he was wearing a t-shirt and boardshorts, but really nice ones, although the shirt had an optical illusion pattern that I found hard to look at directly. Everyone had been feeding him alcohol all night, so he was a lot more relaxed than usual. "You know John hates it when you sexualise the elderly."
"She's a woman with needs, Lou." Melissa chuckled. "Besides, Vince started it."
"Yeah, my bad. Great-Aunt Maud and I are in love."
"Mmm." Louis looked Vince's wiry form up and down, smirking. "Maud can do better."
"Ouch." Vince clutched at his heart and grimaced.
"I brought you a drink." Eric popped up next to me, and handed me a beer.
"Thanks."
Everyone gravitated around the firepit to watch the weak flames of the firelighters peek out from the gaps in the pile of logs.
"This isn't going to take." Vince said in a sceptical tone. "We have to-" Just at that moment, a large tongue of flame leapt out from the charcoal pile and began to char the edges of some of the logs.
"Yes, Vince?" John said, grinning very broadly. He held out his fist in my direction, and I bumped it tentatively with my own, grinning back at him.
