“I’d love that.” I always liked Sophie.
“Then maybe we could go out for drinks, you and I.” He stares at Haze as he speaks, testing the water, checking to see if he’s the possessive type. Haze doesn’t object, but the frown covering his face should be enough answer for him.
“What about me?” Allie pouts. “Can I go out for drinks, too?”
Caleb wrinkles his nose. “Nah, you’re already too thirsty as it is, Al.”
Allie rolls her eyes, and Caleb pulls her into a hug, tousling her hair as she wrestles him.
“What were you guys doing just now? Do you have a ride?” Caleb asks, freeing Allie, who elbows him in the stomach. He eyes my luggage on the floor, probably wondering why Haze doesn’t have any.
“No, actually, we were going to get a cab.”
“What? Nonsense, Winter. I have my car. We thought we were picking you up. We should do something to celebrate your return.”
“A cab is fine,” Haze cuts in, dropping a somewhat awkward pause in the middle of the conversation.
Okay. He really doesn’t like him.
“You think we’re just letting you date Winter without a best-friend interview? I don’t think so. You’ve got some answering to do, mister.” Allie attempts to sooth the tension weighting on us to no avail. I can read how Haze feels about this in his eyes.
No, his gaze says.
Please, mine replies.
Haze sighs. Just like that, I know that I’ve won, but I can also hear his “Goddamn it, you’re lucky I love you” from a mile away.
“Fine. But only if you’re paying,” I say, and my friends laugh.
“Come on.” Caleb leads the way to the exit.
“For crying out loud, it shouldn’t be legal to be that attractive.” Allie’s voice cuts through the deafeningly loud music filling every inch of space in the overcrowded bar. Analyzing the stage planted on the other side of the room, I watch the band create magic and absently tap my fingers on the wooden table. The massive golden sign stuck to the wall above the stage draws my eye. Dolores’s. They renovated the pub. God knows it didn’t use to be this nice.
When my friends said they wanted to celebrate my return, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that we’d end up here. We spent the day driving around town, gave Haze a frankly poor tour after we stopped at my parents’ house to drop my luggage, went out to eat for lunch and here we are, at 10:30 p.m., sitting in an orange leather booth with two empty beer jugs on the table.
Caleb, Allie, and I used to hang out here all the time back when we were sixteen-year-old fetuses. To our defense, we didn’t come here to drink—okay, fine, maybe we did once or twice—we came for the bands, pool tables, jukebox, and their out-of-this-world nachos. I glance up at the handwritten menus on a chalkboard above the bar. They changed it. That’s a shame.
The owner’s a friend of Caleb’s dad, which is how we managed to get in then and how we got in now. To think that in just a few months, I’ll be nineteen—the legal drinking age here—and able to get in everywhere. Surprisingly, I don’t dread my birthday this year. Maybe because I have Haze now. Part of me knows, whatever happens and no matter where we are four months from now, I won’t be spending my birthday alone.
“Earth to Winter?” Allie waves in front of my eyes.
“Mm?” I bring my attention back to her.
“I’m telling you this guy is too good to be true. He’s either cheating, trying to sell you into human trafficking, or gay. I don’t make the rules.” She sticks her hands up.
“Duly noted.” I grin. She doesn’t know that I’ve already seen the worst of the worst. Throw a psycho brother, tragically murdered little sister, and coldhearted parents into the mix and you’ve got yourself a spectacularly damaged guy. But I don’t mind the damage. There’s no disaster, no tragedy, no baggage in the world bad enough to make me run.
Not when it comes to Haze.
My gaze lifts to him. To his tall, broad-shouldered frame leaning against the bar. To his obviously sculpted biceps accentuated by the cut of his shirt. He’s still wearing his stupid sweatpants and white T-shirt, and yet he manages to look like that. He’s waiting for the beer jug we ordered way too long ago, so beautifully unaware of the girls gawking at him it’s almost laughable. The busty blonde bartender has been making eyes at him for fifteen minutes. She should be drooling in her margarita mix anytime now.
“You need to tell me everything and I mean everything. You can’t just show up with a drop-dead boyfriend and not give me an explanation,” Allie slurs, all the drinks she’s had beginning to set in. I’m starting to feel it, too.
“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything, I promise. But not here.” I do want to tell her, just not now. Maybe during a sleepover when it’s just the two of us and I know for a fact the boys won’t come back midstory. Caleb left twenty minutes ago to take a phone call. I’d rather not have any of them show up while I’m squealing to Allie about my first time with Haze.
The bartender finally decides to do her job and comes around with our order. She makes “fuck me” eyes at Haze while bending forward to place the beer jug on the counter in front of him. Since she’s rather shor
t, her breast comes flush with the bar, pushing her assets up and giving Haze a plunging view. A raw edge of jealousy burns through my chest.