“Don’t believe everything you hear,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” I lean in, my mouth close to his ear. “Because it’s all true.”
Gliding around him, I drift to the table, scanning the assortment of food. Footsteps follow me.
“You can’t leave me with that,” Liam says. “Now I want to know more.”
I pluck a grape and play with it for a moment, meeting Liam’s eyes before I take a bite out of it. He watches my mouth and grins.
“It’s a boring story.”
“Doesn’t sound boring to me.”
Liam’s smile fades, and he takes a step back. I look to the side, seeing Harley appear. Shadows cast over his face, revealing a dark tilt of his lips.
“Trust me,” Harley interjects, leaning forward. His teeth graze my skin as he takes the rest of the grape into his mouth. “It’s not boring.”
* * *
Two hours later, I exhale, watching the smoke wisp before my face, before I hand the joint to my brother. The air is thick in the room we’re in.
I’m on my back, legs propped on the wall inside Cameron’s bedroom. Cameron and two other friends of Sam’s continue arguing their latest conspiracy theory. My brain tunes in and out as if I’m driving further from the radio tower and am on the verge of dropping out of range.
“Are you ever going to talk to Dad?”
It takes a moment to turn my head and stare at Sam, who is rolling a joint between his fingers lazily.
“He doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“You haven’t tried very hard,” he points out.
“Neither has he.”
“He’s a proud, stubborn man. You’re going to have to make the first move.”
The room glitches for a moment, but when I open my eyes, everything is as it was. I tangle my fingers into my hair and slide them through, hitting a couple of snags on my way.
“He’s older. More mature.”
Sam snorts. “He might be older, but certainly not more mature.”
“How long are you back for?” Ethan, one of the other boys, asks, sweeping his hair back from his face and dangling over the arm of the Lazy Boy he’s perched on.
“I’m not sure,” I say, like I have ten other times tonight when people asked. “See what happens.”
“So you, like, really didn’t keep in touch with anyone? You just dropped off the face of the earth for four years and then showed back up?” Ethan’s blinks are slow, and his mouth is slightly agape. I can tell he’s feeling high, because he probably wouldn’t have said anything if he wasn’t.
“Yeah.” I reach for the joint, and my brother passes it to me.
“That’s pretty badass.” Ethan grins. “And you got super hot too.”
Sam groans dramatically, covering his ears. I smirk and tilt the joint towards Ethan in a ‘thank you’ gesture.
After another drag, I push off the wall and roll onto my feet. I salute the boys in the room, then make my way down the hall. The party is starting to fade now, but the music is still blaring from various speakers, the room a foggy haze.
Jess, Belle, Nick, John, and Shannon are standing around a pool table, talking and laughing with each other. They fit together, like someone designed them all to look similar.