Author's note:

This chapter is one that I feel is important to the narrative of the story, but that I neglected to write chronologically. It's the 'Real' chapter 21, the chapter currently published as 21 will become 22 in the final publication, and so on and so forth.

To those of you who need a refresher, this is one chapter before Grace kisses Pearce for the first time, but several chapters after they get high and fall asleep in the same bed together.

Sorry for the out of order posting! We will resume chronological chapters next Friday - and hopefully there won't be any more late posting until the story is complete.

...

Some traditions didn’t change. As the sun dipped down for the evening and smoke wafted out of their firepit, Brains lifted his glass in a toast.

The Wasters, plus one, responded–Five high, glassy clinks and one plastic, sloshy, donk. Pearce had granted his approval for Grace to have beer, but the drinking vessel was non-negotiable, so she’d be sipping it through a rubber nipple.

Given the company, he’d even allowed her a fairly discreet outfit–her onesie was plain and could pass for a T-shirt, and the shorts she wore hid the bulge of her diaper well.

They were arranged in a rough pentagram around the fire pit in their shared backyard, in five disparate chairs they’d managed to scavenge from garage sales and straight up trash piracy. Melody had a bench instead of a seat, making room for her oft-rotating partners, but Grace had a comfy butterfly chair that sat a little lower and was immensely more cozy than the others.

“You can thank Pearce for the beers,” Melody said, taking a sip from her bottle, snuggled up against her conquest for the night on a reclaimed patio bench. They’d indulged in the good stuff–that is, a few six packs of Yuengling, instead of a case of Hamms. Hardly premium, but a step up.

“Yeah?” Melody’s date–some guy, Grace didn’t even know his name–said. “Thanks, Pearce, that’s awfully decent of you.”

The five of them–all the Wasters, Pearce included–chuckled.

When Melody’s date still looked confused, Pearce explained, “I lost a bet.”

“Well, he is participating in a bet and had to chip into the beer fund as part of the terms,” Brains added, supplying all the unnecessary context anyone could ever not ask for.

“Well, if it means I get free beer, I’m not going to complain. That why you’re drinking from a bottle, uh…don’t tell me, I know this…” Pressing his palm into his forehead as though trying to extract thoughts from his hand, he guessed, “Hope?”

Lowering the beer-filled baby bottle from her lips, Grace decided on giving the short answer. “It’s Grace, but, yeah about the bottle.”

“Grace, Hope,” he said, “I knew it was some Puritan thing. Let me guess, you’ve got like eight siblings, and they’re all, like, Peace, Chastity, Humility, whatever?”

Pearce puffed out his cheeks and exhaled before taking a long sip of his beer in a here-we-go way, but Grace wasn’t going to take the slight.

“It’s just Grace,” Grace said. “I’m an only kid, and my parents are atheist hippies.”

She was lying, but Melody’s one night stand didn’t get to know her life history. It didn’t matter where she’d come from, what mattered was that she was Grace, now, and she’d found the right family for herself.

“It’s not her birth name, anyways,” Brains added. “None of our names are.”

(Thanks, Brains,) Grace thought. (Nobody asked.)

Curiosity piqued, Melody’s date leaned forward. “Really?”

“It started out as a joke, but it stuck around,” Brains said. “Nicknames, sort of.”

He nodded. “You picked them yourself?”

Brains shrugged. “Kinda sorta. More like…they found us in highschool, if that makes sense.”

“Gotcha, so…Brains, came up with it in highschool, that’s easy–you’re some kind of genius.” He smirked. “Right? Straight A student, teacher’s pet, kind of a keener?”

“Oh, no, it’s because I was an alleged smartass,” Brains explained, snorting. “My grades were ass, but I always knew the right question to absolutely infuriate my teachers.”

“Nice, man, fight the system.” Leaning forward, Melody’s date offered him a fist bump.

“I’d feel a lot better about it if I had been infuriating the teachers on purpose,” Brains admitted. “And heck, maybe my grades would have been better if I ever got answers to the questions I was asking.”

The fistbump offer went unrequited, and after an awkward moment, he pulled it back, shifting focus. “Skipper, right? How’d you get that?”

“Just Skip.” They’d been so quiet, it was easy to forget they were there, but Skip spoke up when their turn came around.

(Here we go,) Grace thought. If it were just Brains, that would have been fine, but now that Skip had responded, the conversation was turning into a trend, and that trend was unlikely to die until they’d made the full circuit.

Speaking with the tone of a camp counselor trying to keep everyone involved, Melody’s date asked, “So, how’d that come around? Were you a hopscotch enthusiast?”

“It’s a bit unfair to say I got the nickname in highschool,” Skip explained. “Because I spent as little time in highschool as possible. I cut class so often, they had to open up special detention hours to fit me in. Rules, roles, people telling me when I can eat or go to the bathroom or just be a person–that kind of stuff makes my skin crawl.”

“So, skipping class, just became ‘Skip’?” The date asked. Skip nodded, sipping their beer thoughtfully, and the date just continued down the line. “Okay, Pearce, Pearce…I’m not coming up with anything for Pearce.”

“Hint, then,” Pearce said. “I changed the spelling, but it should be with an ‘I’. Pierce, like with a spear.”

“Oh, okay.” Nodding, he thought for a moment. “Another class smartass? ‘Piercing wit’?”

“Right word use, wrong direction,” Pearce said. “One of our teachers was fond of saying, ‘Nothing can pierce his skull’ every time I was just barely in earshot. I guess he thought I wasn’t good at paying attention or remembering information.”

The date the obvious followup question: “Were you?”

“Oh, absolutely, it took me three times hearing it to realize he was even talking about me,” Pearce said. “But hey–institutions, you know? I just wasn’t in an environment I could thrive in.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about those,” he said. “Let me know if your environment’s got room to spare–I hear ‘thriving’ is nice.”

Pearce laughed and shook his head. “I’ll let you know when I get mine, I’ve heard the same thing.”

Chuckling, the intruder amongst their social circle faced Melody on their shared bench. “What about you, babe?”

(Babe?) Grace thought, struggling to hide her eye roll. (They’ve known each other for like a day. Hell, they haven’t even fucked yet, and he’s calling her ‘Babe’?)

“It’s embarrassing,” Melody said, egging him on, goading him to make her tell.

“Oh, it can’t be that bad,” her date replied. “What, were you a glee club nerd?” Looking at her, Melody’s date kissed her forehead, getting obscenely mushy with the PDA around the bonfire.

“No,” Melody said, giggling as he started to get handsy. “Come on, it’s silly–”

“Oh no, not a glee club kid–you were in the band, huh?” He needled.

Melody fully laughed as his motions reached a point between fondling and tickling, and she yelped, “Keith!”

(Right, that’s his name,) Grace thought, finally interrupting the show. “She ratted out a bunch of cheerleaders who were smoking pot in the bathroom.”

The giggling stopped, and Melody shot Grace a look that said, ‘Buzzkill’. “I didn’t care that they were smoking pot,” she clarified. “But they were a bunch of catty bitches who had to be taken down a peg.”

“And that leads to ‘Melody’ because…?” her date asked, tilting his head.

Interrupting again, Grace said, “Think old private eye, mobster type stuff. She ‘sang a song’ to the principal.”

Melody furrowed her brow and opened her mouth, looking past her one-use lover with an expression that read, ‘What the hell, Grace?’, but her date kept his cool.

“I guess that leaves you,” he said. “Grace. Not Hope, not Chastity, hippy parents, so…hmm.”

“No,” Grace said, sitting back in her butterfly chair and suckling her beer petulantly.

“Gonna make me guess? Okay…well, we could go literal, like Skip. Ballet dancer, cheerleader–but you don’t strike me as the cheerleader type. So, maybe it’s ironic. Super clumsy?”

“No,” Grace repeated. “I’m not playing this game. I’m Grace, that’s my name, that’s all it needs to be.”

“Come on,” the date pushed. “Everyone else shared.”

Digging in her heels, Grace just said, “Good for them. Take no for an answer, Ken.”

“Keith,” he corrected nonchalantly.

“You were pretty comfortable sharing my history,” Melody pointed out. “When I’d said, ‘No’.”

“You were playing hard to get,” Grace said. “I’m saying No. Highschool was shit, and I’m not loving the walk down memory lane, reminiscing about the worst times of our collective lives.”

Raising his hands to placate her, the date said, “Okay, that’s cool–”

“I’m sorry,” Melody said, sitting upright, interrupting him. “Did you say, ‘Playing hard to get?’ What are you, some horny jock trying to justify a boner on prom night?”

“Weren’t you?” Grace asked. “Or was all the giggling and fake protests because you really, super didn’t want him to know the story?”

“Grace…” Pearce said, glancing down at her. “I think maybe we should cool off–”

“I’m fine,” Grace snapped at him. “I just don’t get why we’re dredging up old shit for mayfly man here.”

The date–Ken, Keith, Grace didn’t give a fuck–raised his eyebrows. “Mayfly? What does she mean?”

“I’d say, ‘Ask Melody tomorrow’, but it’ll be hard to do that after she deletes your number.” At his expression, she added, “Don’t take it personal, you’re not special.”

“Grace!” Melody snapped. “Are you fucking serious right now?”

“Grace,” Pearce added, not harsh, but more assertive. “Let’s go inside, okay?”

“I’m fine,” Grace shot.

“You don’t seem fine,” Brains threw in.

Skip just took a drink–they had no commentary to add that would help.

“Look,” Ken-Keith-Kyle-Whatever said, “I don’t mean to be the asshole here–I don’t know what’s got your panties in a twist, but if you’re going to be pissy–”

“She’s not wearing panties,” Melody sneered. “Pissy is probably accurate, though. She’s crabby because she’s got this asinine bet, and instead of being a big girl and dealing with her own shit she’s making it our prob–”

“This isn’t about the bet!” Grace yelled, sitting forward. “I just didn’t want to talk about this and your fuckdoll kept pushing, and–”

A hand touched her shoulder. “Grace,” Pearce said, simply. “We’re going inside.”

“No we’re not,” Grace snapped. “You’re not the boss of me, and–”

“Grace,” Pearce repeated, firmly demanding her attention. “Do you want me to explain this out loud?”

It took Grace a second to understand, but Melody wasn’t about to let it stay silent after things had escalated. “Make sure her diaper change takes a while, I want some fucking peace out here.”

“Her–” The date started, eyebrows raising as he looked between them. “Diapers?”

“I’d say, ‘Ask her’,” Melody grumbled, “But she’d probably just start yelling at us again.”

“We’re going,” Pearce said, standing up.

Grace wanted to object out of sheer stubbornness, but then she’d just be resigning herself to a time-out instead, so she begrudgingly stood from her butterfly chair.

“Do you get it, now?” she shot at the date, unable to resist getting in the last parting shot. “‘Grace.’ Take a look at how tonight went, and take a fucking guess where that came from.”

With that, she spun on her heels, following Pearce inside.

“I’m completely dry,” she said, once the door was shut. “I really don’t need a change.”

“You do,” Pearce said. “Grace–you’re not okay. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, but staying out by the fire was just going to make things worse.”

“I shouldn’t be the one leaving,” Grace grumbled, glaring out the window at Melody’s date. “He should, he’s the one who started this.”

“Well,” Pearce said, refusing to rise to an argument. “I can’t make him go anywhere, but I can make you go upstairs. If you’re feeling better when we’re done, maybe we can go back out, but I will happily just rotate diapers all night if it keeps you from getting into a verbal self-harm session.”

Grace reeled for a moment, surprised by Pearce’s words, almost disbelieving that he was just trying to keep her out of trouble. “But then you don’t get to hang out, either,” she pointed out, testing the waters. “That sucks for you.”

He shrugged. “You come first.”

Grace’s anger broke. She couldn’t maintain her fiery indignity, not removed from the source of her anger, not when Pearce was being this patient. Her shoulders slumped. “Fuck it, it’s too cold out for a fire anyways.”

“Let’s just stay in, then,” Pearce said. “Okay?”

“Okay.” Looking down at her bottle, she added, “I wasn’t trying to hurt myself; There was no ‘Verbal self harm’ or whatever.”

“I believe you.” Pearce assured her. “You weren’t trying to, but you get impulsive when you’re mad. If things kept going the way they were going, you and Melody would be on pretty thin ice, and I don’t think you wanted that.”

He was right, as much as Grace was loath to admit it. She would have to apologize to Melody, even if she doubted Melody would apologize for bringing another jackass sex toy around to their personal gathering of friends.

Looking down at her bottle of beer, she asked, “It alright if I keep this?”

“I’ve got something a little more herbal upstairs, if you prefer,” Pearce said. “Something to calm down, take the edge off?”

Exhaling in something approaching the shadow of a laugh, Grace said, “Sure. Just remember you’re responsible for making sure I’m fed, and I get snacky.”

Pearce laughed. “Okay–I promise snacks galore. Head upstairs, I’ll be right behind you?”

Grace nodded, but hesitated after taking a step. “Hey, Pearce?”

“Yeah?” he asked, looking back from his cupboard.

She didn’t particularly like admitting when she was wrong, but she was able to compromise, just a little. “Thanks for looking out for me. I know I was kind of having a tantrum back there.”

“Of course,” he replied, so casually it seemed like he really didn’t mind her behavior, or that she was dragging him away from their bonfire ritual. “It’s what a good babysitter would do.”