Penny for Your Thoughts
an excerpt

Penny for Your Thoughts
Zack has a couple of kegs in his trunk. The rest of the guys brought liquor of one kind or another. I brought nothing even though I could have swiped some from the garage. Don has a ton of stuff back there that he uses for promotional parties.
We hit the seawall, and I see cop cars everywhere. “Play it cool, guys,” Zack says.
“They’re gonna search us for sure,” Shep says.
“No, just don’t bring attention to yourselves.”
There’s seven of us crammed into a Honda Civic. I think any cop worth his badge can figure out that we’re going to the Kappa party and we’re under age.
I hear a siren close to us, and fear takes hold of me. A cop motions to Zack to pull over. We’ve hidden the alcohol under blankets, but if he makes Zack open the trunk for some reason, we’re toast.
The cop asks to see Zack’s driver’s license. I remember the fake IDs, and I hope to God that Zack’s license is real. Zack seems calm about the whole thing though.
Zack gives the cop his license, and then the cop looks at it and then looks inside the car at all of us. He looks real hard at Ben, Shep, and me. I figure that’s because we’re younger.
“So what you boys doing here in Galveston? Nothing to do in Houston?”
“We just like the beach, sir,” Zack says.
“Yeah, beach is real popular this weekend. Wonder why,” the cop says.
“Great weather,” Zack says.
“Oh so that’s the reason,” the cop quips. “Didn’t think about that. Hey, Lex, Zachary Colgate here says the weather is perfect for swimming,” he says to the cop a few feet away from him and the other cop laughs.
“Yeah, been hearing that a lot,” Lex says.
The officer hands Zack back his license. “We know what’s going on here,” he tells Zach. I start to sweat. At first, I didn’t care if I got in trouble. I wanted to get into trouble. Screw Mom and Don. But now, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t need the drama, and I certainly don’t need anything more on my record. “So, here’s what you need to remember. You get drunk and you get back in this car, we’ll catch you. You have any kind of sexual activity in public, we’ll catch you. You’re too loud, we’ll catch you. You piss off any of these shop owners, mess with their properties or disrupt their business in any way, we’ll catch you.”
“Officer, you will not have a problem with us.”
The cop puts his face up to the window and looks back at Ben, Shep, and me.
“How old are you boys?”
I want to lie, but I tell the truth. He’s looking straight at me. “Fourteen,” I say.
“Fourteen. Fourteen over here, Lex, The three in the back.”
Lex shakes his head like he’s tired of all this mess. “Maybe, they’re here to hook up with these twelve year olds in this other car, “ Lex says.
The cop gives me a weird smile. “We don’t even know them,” I say.
“If you’re smart, you’ll make sure it stays that way.”
I gulp and nod. The way he’s looking at us like he’s hungry and we’re dinner scares the shit out of me.