The bonfire roared, enveloping the desert night in tongues of burnt umber. Silhouettes danced in the firelight, singing off-key to country hits. Tailgaters lay on dusty blankets in truck beds and gazed up at the stars, red Solo cups full of cheap beer beside them. The shadows of cars stretched across the sand, their bodies ringing the bonfire like sentinels.

Vincent was sitting in his own car with the door open, blasting the radio. Only on bonfire nights did he ever listen to it. There was something comforting about the advertisements between songs, about the announcer’s voice cutting through the darkness. He wasn’t the only one playing music, far from it. There were stereo systems jury-rigged in the back of pickup trucks, blasting good ol’ boy country. There were Spotify playlists of outlaw country crackling through open windows, but the jumble of rhythms was perfect. Vincent basked in it, his own Top 40 contribution the king of them all as far as he was concerned.

“V, get me more beer,” Vincent’s best friend, Whitney, yelled over the radio. She was leaning back in the passenger seat, her feet propped up on the dashboard.

Vincent twisted around. “Your legs work,” he yelled back.

Whitney grinned. “But yours work better,” she whined. She held out her cup to him, and he swiped it from her, the last dregs of beer splashing onto the console between them.

“Look what you did,” said Vincent, pointing to the droplets spilled on the console.

“I did no such thing.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

In unison, they stuck their tongues out at each other and then laughed. “Fine,” said Vincent. “I’ll be right back.”

“Hell yeah!” Whitney exclaimed, pumping her fist in the air.

Rolling his eyes, Vincent made his way to one of the many beer kegs set up on folding tables. Everyone who went to the bonfire, mostly teenagers and young adults, chipped in for the beer, and some unlucky soul had to cart them all the way out into the desert. Usually it was Bradley Davis, a beta who pretended he was an alpha. No one really cared who brought the beer so long as it showed up. Bradley Davis hated the lack of recognition.

Bradley himself was getting some more beer when Vincent walked up to the kegs. “Hey,” said Vincent.

Bradley didn’t respond or even glance in Vincent’s general direction. That was pretty typical. Betas and alphas tended to stick to their own social circle, rarely letting omegas join. Not that Vincent wanted to join up with Bradley Davis and his meathead posse.

In a town of one thousand people though, it was hard to avoid certain types. Especially if you were all bound by the fact you could transform into literal honest-to-God wolves and could rarely venture out from your pack’s town. Or village, rather. No werewolf wanted the humans finding out that the people they thought were nutjobs, who believed in werewolves, were spot on. It would be like the Salem Witch Trials again, just with more guns and bombs.

Vincent shivered at the possibility. He would rather not see his town bombed-out, so he stayed put in Crystal Hollow and would until he died. Which was also depressing to think about.

So he didn’t. He went to bonfire nights and played the radio so loud it hurt his ears and then went home and slept until it was time for work. He had gotten a job two years ago at the town’s grocery store stocking and bagging and ringing people up. It wasn’t much, but he still lived with his parents and would until he found his mate—if he ever found his mate—or graduated college and found a job.

With more and more werewolves moving to human cities like Los Angeles and New York City to “make it big” or just escape their tiny villages, less and less mates were being matched. Half of the mating pairs couldn’t even reproduce anyway, so the number of werewolf babies was really tanking. Not enough to wipe out the entire species but if the trends continued, well, just ask Vincent’s dad. He had lamented about this very fact to Vincent more times than Vincent had fingers for, which was only ten but still. He talked about it a lot.

Vincent supposed he should care, and he did—somewhat. But he wanted to get away from here. The only problem was the humans. If they found out what he was, they would destroy his way of life. Come at him with torches and pitchforks and AR-14s, then do the same to his town. Vincent didn’t want that, so he stayed. Unlike Ky.

Ky, Vincent’s childhood best friend, had made a break for it with his brother to Albuquerque right after Vincent’s fourteenth birthday. One day, Ky had been at school, the next he had been on an escape route to Albuquerque with his beloved older brother, Nick, who had extreme anger issues. Nick had passed away from an early bout of lung cancer at twenty-five, leaving Ky on his own, so Ky had returned just over two weeks ago and broke the news to his family.

The funeral had been a week later, despite the lack of a body. Vincent and his family had gone, but Vincent had elected to stay in the back. He had seen Ky that day, and they had shared a wave. Beyond that, they hadn’t interacted. They hadn’t even spoken yet, and a sense of longing had clouded over Vincent, hanging off his body like a fog.

Sometime during Ky’s seven year stint in the big city, he’d grown into his body. He used to be gangly and awkward as if his limbs weren’t his but pasted on by Frankenstein, but that was what every thirteen-year-old boy looked like. Now he was tall and muscular and brooding or maybe he was brooding only because Vincent saw him at his brother’s funeral.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Vincent had half-hoped Ky might be at the bonfire tonight, but those half-hopes were completely dashed. It had been three hours since the bonfire had started, and people had stopped showing up.

So here Vincent was, alone, filling up Whitney’s cup with cheap beer. He walked back to the car, taking a sip of it. “I took a tax sip,” he said as he settled back into the driver’s seat.

“Thief,” said Whitney, grinning as she swigged it too, a tan imprint left on the side from her lipstick.

“Lazy-ass,” Vincent countered.

The roar of a motorcycle tore through the music and the crackling of the bonfire, and a single headlight floated down the highway. It turned onto the dirt path leading to the bonfire and parked right in front of Vincent’s car. He shielded his eyes from the headlight and silently willed whoever was on this damn motorcycle to turn it off. When they finally did, he heard Whitney say, “Oh my God, is that—”

“Ky!” yelled Sammy Briggs, two cars over. She was leaning out of her red truck, obviously baked, but with enough sense to recognize him. “Ky, whatcha doin’ here?”

“Hey, Sam,” Ky said in a deep rumbling voice that sent shivers skittering down Vincent’s spine.

Whitney climbed out of the passenger seat and leaned against the car, waving him down. “Hey, Ky,” she said, raising her drink to him.

Ky nodded to her. “Hey,” he said, “is Vincent in there? I thought this was his car.”

Vincent’s heart did a funny thing then. It leapt into his throat then back into his stomach and flipped a somersault. He told it to take a break from the dramatics. But had Vincent heard him right? Ky wanted to know if he was here. Him. Here.

He scrambled out of the car and waved, smiling. “It is indeed my car,” he said, cringing inwardly at how stupid that sounded.

Ky didn’t smile. He stuffed his hands into his leather jacket and sauntered over to Vincent’s side of the car. “How are you?” he asked cautiously as if Vincent might bite.

“Shouldn’t I ask you that?” said Vincent, wishing he had a leather jacket to stuff his hands in. It would make him look less… well, nerdy. He had Dwight Schrute glasses and freckles, a winning combination for nerdiness. Not to mention he had been at the top of his class but to be fair, his graduating class had been made up of thirty kids.

Despite his academic achievements, he had only applied for the University of New Mexico and, of course, gotten accepted. He was studying to be an English teacher because that had seemed like the easiest option. There was a community college in Clovis he could commute to (though that was a risk he didn’t like to think about), or he could stay and teach at the local school. Either way, it had sounded like something he would enjoy. And speaking of things he enjoyed…

“I’m fine,” Ky said, a bit stiffly. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it.

Vincent didn’t blame him.

“Okay, well, uh, there’s beer and shit. I think Sammy has some edibles and just plain old weed,” Vincent said. He glanced over at Sammy who was hanging out of her car, staring right through them. How she had recognized Ky was beyond him.

“Yeah, I can smell it,” said Ky. There was something disapproving in his tone, and whether it was personal or just his usual tone of voice now, it made an adjacent something in Vincent’s chest twinge. It was just beer and weed. What could Ky possibly have a problem with?

“You can smell what?” Vincent asked.

“The beer on you.”

“Oh.”

“And the devil’s lettuce.”

“What?” Vincent had to laugh. He knew what Ky meant, and it had to be one of the funniest euphemisms he’d heard ever. When he looked back up at Ky who towered over him, he saw the ghost of a smile on Ky’s face.

Ky tilted his head. “You’ve never heard that? Really old people call it that,” he said.

“My grandma calls it that,” said Whitney. She was standing on the passenger seat side, her arms crossed on the hood of the car.

“Case in point,” said Ky, shrugging. Vincent noticed how broad his shoulders were, and he wondered when Ky had filled out so nicely. He was a mountain of a man with dark curls framing a jawline that put Michelangelo’s David to shame. His shoulders were linebacker-material, and his shirt was tight enough that Vincent could see his pecs.

Stop staring, Vincent chided himself. What’s next, drooling?

“I can’t believe anybody says that,” he said.

“Believe it,” said Whitney. “She’s only ever said it once or twice, but it definitely stuck out to me.”

“So where did you hear it then?” Vincent asked Ky. “Your grandparents live in another pack, don’t they?”

Ky smiled again, just a little. It was nice on him, that smile, and Vincent wondered how often it came out. Couldn’t be much since his brother just died. “The internet,” he said.

Oh.

“Right,” said Vincent. “The internet’s full of things that, uh, just, um… Well, they’re funny.”

What was literally wrong with him? He couldn’t speak to his former best friend to save his life, and he wanted to. He wanted to so badly. He desperately wanted to ask what Ky had been doing the last seven years, where he had gone to school, how he and his brother had done it. Vincent needed to know what Albuquerque had been like, what the outside world was really like. The words longed to stumble out of his mouth, but they felt clumsy on his tongue and between his teeth.

Ky stared at him for a moment and then the smallest teensiest smirk twitched at his lips. Or was Vincent imagining it? Because it was gone the moment Vincent thought he saw it. “I was just passing by,” he said. “Didn’t know people still did this.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bonfire and the gaggles of people drinking the night away.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” Vincent said, grabbing at what little bearings he had. “You should stay. I mean, it might not be your scene, but it’s…”

“Something,” finished Ky. He looked down at Vincent again, and Vincent’s heart did the same jump and somersault as before. His eyes were so deep they were almost black, and Vincent found himself hypnotized by them. “But no thanks, I have weed at home.”

“Oh,” said Vincent, trying very hard to hide the disappointment in his voice.

“I’ll see you at the mating ceremony, though,” Ky said. He stepped closer to Vincent, just a small step. “Right?”

The mating ceremony. Right. For every twenty-one-year-old in the town. That was when the magic that tied werewolves to the moon was the strongest, and it made for better matings. Some matings were bound to break, but the Crystal Hollow elders and the elders before them and the elders before them had found that twenty-one seemed to be the best time to pair werewolves together.

“Of course, yeah,” said Vincent. He smiled. “Maybe after I can come see your new place.”

He hoped that wasn’t too forward of him. Hoe wanted to be back in Ky’s life, back in that important spot he had once held before Ky had disappeared and left him friendless. Until Whitney, he hadn’t really found anyone else to talk to or that he liked to hang out with.

Ky stared down at him again for a moment, and Vincent was sure he’d screwed up before Ky said, “Yeah, sure. I’m not done unpacking yet, so it’s kind of a mess, but you’re welcome to come over.”

“Cool,” said Vincent. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Ky gave him a nod and then strode back out to his motorcycle. He didn’t put on any helmet, just heeled up the kickstand, and brought the engine roaring to life. He whipped the bike around and took off, that single headlight bobbing in the darkness.

When his engine was too far away to hear, Whitney knocked her fist on the top of the car and said with finality, “Damn, you’ve got it bad.”