xi

By the end of the day they've formed a fairly tentative plan and Todd is starting to remember what a truly excellent schemer Steven Meeks is. All through math class he's getting texts about timing and security cameras and a pdf with what he thinks might actually be the blueprints for the golf course.

He's pondering how in the world Steven even got his hands on those when he, quite literally, almost walks straight into Ginny who is leaning up against a bank of lockers across from his math classroom. She doesn't look angry exactly which is a good sign but she has an expression on her face that he can't quite place.

"Hey." Todd says, some relief dripping into his voice without permission.

"Hey." Ginny says, one arm cross over her chest, the other dangling, fingers worrying the hem of her shirt. "So I was talking to Gerard earlier and he said that I should give you a break because you have a lot of feelings, really intense beautiful emotions according to him, but you're not always the best at expressing them. Something to do with a traumatic event in your childhood and a fear of rejection, according to Knox."

"Um." Todd says.

"See, his point exactly. So basically what I'm saying is that what you did at after-prom was really uncool but I understand that you were really upset and that I forgive you and I want to help you find Neil."

"Oh. Well good. And I'm am really sorry, for freaking out and leaving you there." Todd says, much less eloquently than he would have liked to be. Ginny hugs him them, so sudden he thinks that she probably hadn't planned it ahead of time. The top of her head barely comes up to his collarbones and Todd puts on hand on her back awkwardly. He's never been great with physical affection, but it's...nice.

"Okay." Ginny says pulling away, her eyes a little more moist than usual. "Okay, great. So what's the plan?"

Todd fills her in while they walk to his locker. As far as plans go it's not that complicated. The real issue with getting to the cave is that they need to get onto the course after hours. Which doesn't seem like a huge deal considering it's not like golf courses usually have strict security measures but Brooklea has a bit of an obsession with keeping people out. Todd's pretty sure it's a side effect of the whole upper class white privilege thing but mostly it's just inconvenient. He knows at least 4 people who have been arrested for sneaking onto the course. It's a stupid thing but people get dared to do it all the time, like the harder they try to keep people out to more they want to get in.

"Okay so what, Steven's gonna get us in?" Ginny asks, pushing the door that leads out to the student parking lot.

"Kinda. Mostly I just need to know where all the security cameras are and where they point so I can figure out how to get to the cave without getting spotted." He had filled Ginny in on the importance of the cave, though he had maybe downplayed it a little bit, making it sound more like a place they found once rather than their childhood hide-out. It doesn't feel like lying so much as it feels like he's protecting something. Some idea he has of him and Neil that can only exist if he keeps his memory perfectly preserved.

Ginny is practically bouncing with excitement. "Okay, this just got very Mission Impossible. Please tell me I get to distract a guard with my feminine wiles. Actually, no Charlie's better at that sort of thing. Can I pepper spray someone at least? No, wait! Can I wear a cat suit?"

Todd just rolls his eyes and unlocks the van. Ginny climbs in without invitation and Todd likes that apparently they've reached a new milestone in their friendship. One that apparently gets unlocked after you have your first fight and make up. "I feel like I should be a little bit concerned about how much you like breaking into things."

Ginny shrugs, the grey seatbelt obstructing the movement somewhat. "Me and Neil used to do stuff like that all the time. I think for him it was a bit philosophical, you know, like we're so obsessed with putting up barriers and he wanted to break them down. To go places just because someone didn't want you there. For me, I guess it was more just for a lark." She hums thinking about this, "And I liked the way Neil got about it. I mean, he always just gave off this air of confidence. I can't even tell you how many places Neil walked into because he just acted like he was supposed to be there. That's how he ended up in the mall overnight."

Todd's heard the story. Sort of. He's heard the rumours at least, that Neil managed to get locked into the mall overnight last year. Having climbed onto the roof with Neil for a benevolent prank Todd believes it now but he'd never been sure before. He nods though, like this had always been his truth.

"Anyways, I dunno. It's just fun." Ginny has her head against the glass of the window, rolled down only an inch so that some of her voice seems to sneak out of it.

They don't talk for the rest of the drive to Steven's house, a low sprawling thing that seems like it belongs in California and not Vermont. Mr. Meeks has always been kind of obsessed with green-energy so there's the familiar film-strip of solar panels along the sides of the driveway as well as on the roof. The neighbours threw a fit when they were installed, claiming that it would ruin property values and attract all sorts of crunchy granola types. This prophecy has yet to come through.

Charlie is already there if his car in the driveway is anything to go by. Todd hates his car. An actual hearse that Charlie has repainted in a bright aqua that makes him think of bad high school movies set in the early 60's. Todd manages to make his exasperated sigh sound more like a yawn but Ginny catches it anyways and raises an eyebrow. "No complaining. You ruined their date night."

"Date night?" Todd asks

"They were going to go see that stupid Purge movie, you know with that one actor...omigod what's his name. Evan? Ethan?" She snaps her fingers. "I can see his face perfect in my mind. He's all sort of homeless looking in real life. Blond."

Todd shrugs, he's never been particularly good with the names and life details of famous people, he can barely remember the names of people he goes to school with on the best of days.

Ginny throws her hands up, "I'll remember in the middle of class tomorrow or something. I hate that."

Meeks' cat is lying on the walkway up to the door and Ginny crouches down to pet his stomach. "Who's a good kitty?" She says, only she doesn't do it in that high pitched voice people usually use, she says it very seriously. "What's his name?" Ginny says scratching him behind the ears.

"Leonardio DiCatprio." Todd says.

Ginny stops petting the cat to look up at him, "For serious?"

Steven opens the front door, "Are you mocking my cat?"

"Leonardo DiCatprio?"

"Blame Charlie."

"When did you get this cat, yesterday?"

Steven adjusts his glasses, "Our parents are friends he used to come over all the time. Well when I say friends I mean mortal enemies who are in the same book club. His name was just supposed to be Leo but then Charlie came up with Leonardo DiCatprio and it kind of stuck."

"He does kind of look like Leonardo DiCaprio"

Charlie appears beside him, "My ears are burning." He's ditched the insanely oversized cardigan and his beret. "Leonardo!" He crouches down and the cat jumps up from where he's lying at Ginny's feet and slinks over to Charlie who scoops him into his arms. Leonardo purrs rubbing his face against Charlie's shirt, who seems to be rather nonchalant about the cat hair.

"Time for secret spy stuff?" Ginny asks, brushing off her knees.

They follow Steven into the house which is all warm wood and light. Todd can hear the distinct low tone of Meeks' dad on the phone in his office. They end up in the kitchen where Steven has spread out actual fucking blueprints of the gold course on the low island.

"How did you get these!?" Ginny says fingering the edge of the paper. "Omigod, is this the moment when you tell us you're a secret agent. Possibly from the future. Possibly an alien. Possibly an alien from the future."

"My boyfriend is not an alien." Charlie protests and then pauses, turning to Meeks, "You would tell me if you were an alien right?"

Meeks doesn't even look up from the blue prints. "Not your boyfriend. Not an alien. Not from the future." He visibly hesitates, then looks up. "But even if I was an alien from the future it's not like I would tell you." Ginny elbows Charlie and they have a brief nonverbal conversation with facial expressions that Todd doesn't follow, and going by the look on Meeks' face he doesn't follow either.

"Alright. Anyways, I got the blueprints from my dad. He did a job on the course a few years ago and he left the pdf on the desktop." Steven's dad works as a consultant for an architecture firm, mostly with green building initiatives, solar panels, energy efficient insulation and windows, things like that. "Okay so I've marked where all the security cameras are." He points to the red circles drawn on the blueprints in what looks suspiciously like crayon. "I wasn't quite sure where the cave was. You said it was near the ninth hole right?"

Todd takes the blue crayon offered to him. "It's over here," he circles an area, "I'm pretty sure at least."

Steven nods, brow furrowing in concentration. "Okay, we should be able to figure out a path from the parking lot to there without you being spotted by the cameras. Theoretically."

"Theoretically?" Todd says, "Yeah, not to sound petty or anything but I could theoretically get arrested."

"Don't worry, we have a back-up plan in case all goes to hell." Steven says, not looking up from where he's drawing a path on the blueprints. He stops, tongue sticking out from between his teeth, and quickly erases. "But, like, I'm sure it will be fine. Probably."

Ginny's hopped up onto one of the low counters, her bare legs dangling. "So what's the back-up plan?

Steven and Charlie exchange looks again but this one is easy to read. "Really?" Todd asks, exasperated.

Charlie grins and it's a bit freaky how excited he looks,"Aww, don't sound so glum. Your life in my hands? What could possibly go wrong?"

Four hours later Todd is sitting in the backseat of an aqua hearse with Ginny beside him, seriously questioning the direction his life has started to take. Two weeks ago he never would have thought he'd be planning to sneak onto a golf course in order to find a clue in some sort of teen runaway scavenger hunt. For crying out loud two weeks ago he wasn't even friends with Ginny and he thought Charlie Dalton was one of the worst things in the world, right up there with Fox News. Now he'd probably rank him closer to movies with incorrect subtitles, no fat sour cream and paper cuts. Annoying, but not life destroying.

Though if he has to listen to Charlie's weird music in his death car for one more minute he might strangle him to death.

"Do we have to listen to this?" Todd says, knowing he's whining and not really caring. He's been sitting in this car for almost an hour and a half, running the plan over and over in his head, but now he's just getting antsy. "Like what even is this?"

"It's the Vitamin String Quartet's Tribute to Lady Gaga." Charlie says without any hint of irony.

"How are you even real? Did you walk out of an episode of Girls?"

"Boys," Ginny says looking up from Cosmopolitan, "Play nice."

"He started it." Charlie huffs but he reaches over and turns off the cd, so it's something.

Todd checks his watch again. They figured it will take him about 20 minutes to walk from the side parking lot to the Indian Cave, taking the route Meeks figured taking the security cameras into account. Todd's got a small paper map of the course in the pocket of his jeans and he keeps reaching into his pocket just to make sure it's still there. It's oddly comforting in the face of the insanity that is their current situation.

Charlie's cell phone vibrates loudly on the dashboard and he picks it up and stares at it intently for a moment. "Okay, Steven says everything should be good to go in about 10 minutes." They need everyone to be cleared out of the restaurant so no one sees him through the windows, but there still need to be employees in the building so Charlie's car isn't the only one in the lot.

The fact that his car is so recognizable is a double edged sword. On the one hand most people know that the Dalton's have club memberships and since Charlie and Steven have a...thing, it's not like it's that weird for him to be there. On the other hand, if the plan goes to hell there will be even more evidence point to Charlie.

That's their backup plan in a nutshell. If it looks like Todd is going to get caught Charlie is going to cause a distraction and throw himself on his metaphorical shield.

"Charlie." Todd asks, suddenly thinking of something he'd forgotten, "If we have to go to plan B won't that screw up your college plans? You could get arrested." He remembers that not having a criminal record was one of the requirements for his acceptance to Columbia.

Charlie drums on the steering wheel for a long moment before he answers, "Uh, probably not. But maybe. I mean, I don't have a criminal record or anything, plus the club probably won't press charges cause of my parents or whatever." He doesn't try to make this sound nonchalant, which Todd appreciates. Charlie's family may be disgustingly rich but at least he's aware of it and doesn't try to play off like he's upper middle class. He owns up to his privilege. "So, I'm thinking if I get caught I'm looking at a warning. Or at least let's hope so. I mean, I want to help find Neil, I really do. But I'd rather not fuck up my acceptance."

"Oh." Todd says, feeling a little bad for dragging everyone into this with him. He knows that they'd say they want to help and he knows that it's true but he really doesn't want everyone to get sucked into Neil's gravity if they don't have to.

Ginny looks up from her magazine. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Harvard would dump your ass faster than you can say 'Ivy League' if you get arrested."

"Harvard? You're risking getting kicked out of Harvard?" Todd says incredulous. It's not like he worships at the alter of Ivy League schools, but he knows the insane leg up it can give you. Jeffery probably wouldn't have gotten that internship, as hardworking and smart as he is, if he didn't have the whole Yale thing going for him.

Charlie doesn't seem phased by this. "I really only applied because Neil's dad was forcing him to and I thought we could at least suffer together. I didn't actually think I was going to get in. My dad probably made a 'donation' to the English department."

Ginny closes her magazine and puts it on the seat. "Oh stop. You're a genius and you know it. Stop playing humble, it's annoying as hell."

"I'm not-"

"Oh, what was that Charlie? I couldn't hear you over your insanely high GPA."

"Yeah, okay. Let's pretend the Harvard lottery isn't a thing. That's cool. I'm totally amazing and it was all my own merit and it wasn't possibly my family's money or me just getting really lucky."

Ginny looks over pointedly at Todd like 'Can you believe this kid?'

"Wait." Todd says, "Meeks, er, I mean Steven is going to MIT. Isn't that like right over the bridge?"

"Oh he knows." Ginny says.

"Shut up Gin. I swear to god."

"Oh come on. I'm just teasing. I know you didn't just accept at Harvard because the guy you had a crush on and are currently kind of sort of dating will be close to you. I'm just saying I know you thought about it."

Steven Meeks, being a lot of things but not great with timing of course chooses that moment to call Charlie's cell phone. Glad for the distraction, or possibly just startled Charlie lunges for it, putting it up to his ear before the first ring has even ended.

"Hey. Mhmm...Oh. Yeah-No I'll tell him." There's a long pause. "Really? Shit. Okay. No-no, I think it will be fine." Another pause. "That sounds great actually." Charlie laughs. "Yeah, now I really can't get arrested. See you in 30? Okay, bye."

He hangs up and turns around in the seat to look at Todd. "Steven says they've turned on the sprinklers over by the eighth hole so just watch out for that. I also have a hot date after this, so let's try not to fuck this up too badly, alright kids?"

Todd gets out of the car and Charlie comes around from the driver's side with a flashlight from the glove compartment. "Here. It'll probably be dark in there. You can also use it to signal me if something happens, but don't use it unless you need to." He opens the doors at the back of the car and Ginny crawls over the backseat so she's sitting in the elongated 'trunk'.

"Your car better not be haunted Dalton." She says sitting Indian style, palms flat on the floor behind her. "So, I guess I'll just sit here and be lookout?"

"Yup." Charlie says, "You can crawl through some duct work next time I promise." He's regained the cardigan and Todd kind of wishes he had a jacket or something. It's 9:30 so the sun has gone down and the sky is dark except for in the far western corner of the sky where the blue is slightly lighter.

"You ready for this?" Charlie asks.

"Probably." Todd says, going for honesty over bravado.

"Famous last words." Charlie says giving him a mock salute.

And with that Todd walks into the night.