Late to the Party - Kelly Quindlen Page 0,52

her hiding spot. I kept moving forward, the blood rushing through my body, my breath coming in gasps. I hadn’t played a game like this in years, but the thrill of it came right back to me, wild and dangerous and raw.

“Whoa!” someone gasped, emerging from the trees and nearly running into me.

It was Lydia. She grabbed my hand and pulled me off to the left, and I barely had time to register the electric buzz of her hand before I heard one of the boys shouting behind us.

We ran wildly, breathlessly, her messy ponytail whipping in front of me. It was a full minute before Lydia stopped, pulling me into a dense cluster of trees. She kept hold of my hand as we crouched behind a massive tree trunk and clicked off our flashlights.

Our panting gradually lessened. Crickets were trilling; a bullfrog croaked in the distance. My eyes adjusted to the pitch darkness, finding Lydia’s silhouette mere inches away.

“Sorry,” Lydia whispered, grinning apologetically down at our hands. “I grab hold of people when I’m nervous.” But she didn’t let go.

I swallowed. My heart thumped erratically, and not from Manhunt.

“It’s kinda scary out here,” Lydia went on. “But peaceful, in a way.”

“It makes me feel so awake,” I whispered.

She gripped my hand harder. Our eyes met in the darkness.

Crack!

My heart reared at the sound of a snapping twig: Someone was prowling our way. We took off running again, and there was a crash of footfalls as one of the boys chased after us.

“Give it up!” he shouted. It was Cliff, bounding through the woods behind us.

I caught a glimpse of glowing light and raced toward it, Lydia following in my wake. We crashed back across the open field, drawn by the fire, praying that base was only yards away.

“YES!” came Terrica’s voice from across the field. “Come on, y’all!”

We were halfway there when another figure emerged from the woods, cutting into our path: It was Samuel, tearing after us with all his might. There was no way we’d both outrun him.

“Keep going!” Lydia shouted behind me, and I pressed on, racing toward Terrica and Natalie. A second later, Lydia let out a war cry, her voice crazy and shrill in the nighttime air as she whipped around and staggered to a halt, her arms held out like a linebacker’s. Surprised, Samuel tried to skid to a stop, but his momentum was too forceful: He bowled right into her. They crashed to the dirt, yelling and sputtering, just as I reached the safety of base—and Terrica’s and Natalie’s outstretched hands.

“YES!” Terrica shouted, pulling me in for a hug. “The majority of us made it—WE WIN!”

I looked around and laughed. Leo was only a few yards away from us, hovering near the firepit. He totally could have chased me down if he’d wanted to, but he seemed more interested in the beers he was pulling from his backpack. The fire crackled and danced in front of him.

Ricky came hustling out of the trees, asking what had happened, as the girls and I jogged over to check on Lydia and Samuel. Cliff had pulled up behind them and was standing with his hands on his hips, shaking his head in defeat. Lydia and Samuel were sprawled on their backs on the ground, coughing and laughing.

“Goddamn, woman,” Samuel was whining, his voice strained. “What kinda motherfucking sacrifice—”

“You’re the one who rammed into me!” Lydia panted, her hands on her belly. “Fucking freight train—”

“Lyd, as admirable as it was to offer yourself up like that,” Natalie said, plopping down on the ground next to her, “I’m pretty sure you could’ve just kept running.”

“I know,” Lydia said, still panting, “but I thought some drama would be fun. Either way, we won, right?” She spun her head around until she found me. “And Codi got to be the victory runner.”

I laughed, dropping down next to her. “Yeah, I gotta say, it felt pretty heroic.”

The others joined us on the ground, all of us coming down off the high of the game. Terrica hovered over Samuel, who wouldn’t stop whining about his bleeding knee. Cliff wanted a play-by-play of the game, while Ricky kept lamenting that no one had caught Lydia and Samuel’s collision on camera.

“It sounds funnier than it was,” Natalie promised him, “but here, it basically looked like this.”

She pulled me to my feet and mimicked running into me, just as Samuel had done to Lydia, except she flapped her hands and kicked her feet up