Hot Laps by Shey Stahl Page A

of us and kept talking, as if we said nothing.
    “What are you doing with the jelly?”
    Casten waggled his eyebrows, smiling wider than before. “You’ll see, pretty girl.”
     His hand raised and brushed away from my clothes what I assumed was specks of ash
     from the bonfire in the field.
    Pretty girl?
    I liked that. I liked it a lot.
    My eyes caught his in the light. I felt warm and cozy all over, my hand in his. I
     don’t think I’d ever held hands with someone, aside from Anna.
    It felt nice.
    When we got closer, I saw Noah out there leaned against a U-Haul truck.
    With his arms crossed over his chest, Noah grinned wide and gestured with a tip of
     his head inside. “They gave us two free boxes!”
    Casten looked at the boxes and then to Noah, straight faced. “Did you tip Kevin for
     getting them so quickly?”
    “Yeah.”
    Casten and Noah lifted boxes and started carrying them to the pool a hundred feet
     away, so Nathan and I did the same.
    I did find out about that jelly.
    Within ten minutes we stood beside the pool with hundreds of boxes of grape jelly.
     The boys contemplated how exactly it was going to work considering it was still filled
     with water.
    “You’re going to put jelly in the pool?” I asked, not entirely surprised.
    “That’s the plan.”
    “Won’t your parents kill you for that?”
    Casten looked up to the sky, as if he had to think about it. “Last time I threw a
     party I landed a car in this pool. I think jelly is a lot safer.”
    Noah scratched his head. “There’s roughly thirty-four-thousand gallons of water in
     there … that’s like nearly four million ounces so,” he looked at the jar in his hand,
     “that would be like three-hundred-and-sixty-thousand jars of jelly. Give or take.”
    Casten and I looked at each other, drinks in hand, too drunk to add any of that up.
     It’s not like I would ever been able to add like that any other time either. Sober
     or not.
    “How should we do it?” Nathan put his arm around me and Casten, leaning forward between
     us. “Drain the pool?”
    Casten immediately shook his head stepping away from Nathan and pointing to the water,
     and then regarding Nathan again. “No way. Have you ever drained a pool before?”
    “No.”
    “We’re not doing it.” Casten seemed adamant and I was beginning to understand that
     if Casten told his friends no, they listened. He wasn’t into peer pressure.
    “Okay,” Nathan seemed annoyed with Casten, but his voice evened out. “Well, what do
     we do then?”
    “What if you just pour it in there with the water?” I suggested, timidly holding my
     drink at my lips and talking around the red Solo cup. “It’d be like a smoothie.”
    Just then Anna came outside in her bra and underwear ready to swim. “Are you putting
     that shit in the pool?”
    “Yeah.” Casten, Noah and Nathan said together, watching Anna twirl around to the music
     from the band in the field.
    Anna’s eyes went wide. “I wanna be the first in!”
    Cole came outside next. Gone was his hat and shorts leaving him in black boxer shorts.
     “We doing this shit or what?”
    I had a feeling this had been planned for a while since all these guys knew about
     it. And where would this many jelly jars be purchased just before a party? It was
     definitely planned.
    Cole stopped beside Anna and looked at us. With a beer lazily at his side, a lit cigarette
     hung from his lips.
    Casten reached up and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “You look ridiculous,”
     he seemed aggravated with Cole. “Stop that shit. And put that fucking camera away!”
    Cole ignored him and wrapped his arm around Anna but did set the camera down on the
     ground. “Just dump the jelly in the water.”
    “Yeah,” Rosa came stumbling out of the house, dancing with floaties on her arms. “Pour
     that shit in!”
    So we did.
    Naturally they didn’t have the three-hundred-and-sixty-thousand jars so they dumped
     what they had.
    Five hundred jars