“What is taking him so long?” I asked, leaning against Ari’s old Ford pickup. I didn’t want to come. In fact, I wanted to just go to the party where everyone else was, and dance. I didn’t want to be waiting for Luca to finish whatever he was doing with Papa Creepy.
“I don’t know. His dad is fucking weird. Have you texted Nik?” Ari asked, opening the door to slide back into the driver’s seat. I climb into the passenger—literally because it’s lifted so high—and shuffle around to face him while hitting the lock. This place wasn’t somewhere you wanted your back turned at any moment.
I slid my phone unlocked and typed out a message to Niko. We’re at Luca’s.
My phone started blaring seconds after I hit send. I knew this would happen, but I did it anyway.
Ari chuckled, shaking his head. “You’re in trouble.”
“I didn’t do anything. This was your guys’ idea, and also, how?” Niko was my best friend, undoubtedly the man I could always count on no matter what, Ari being a close second—and I mean a very close second since he and Niko are twin brothers—and then Luca a fifth, after my two other best friends Cece and Mira.
I tap Answer. “I don’t want to be here anymore than you don’t want me here, Nik. Don’t start on me!” Shoving Ari in the arm when he wouldn’t stop laughing, I glare at him. “And it was Ari’s idea for me to come instead of dropping me off first.”
“Why the fuck did Luca need to go home first, anyway? That’s an hour drive inland.” I could hear shuffling in the background, and someone yelling, probably Cece.
“I don’t know. He needed to pick up—”
“—drugs,” Ari yelled in the back before snatching my phone out of my hand. “He needed to pick up the snowman. We won’t be long, fuck. Go fuck your girlfriend or something. You know I won’t let anything happen to her.” Ari threw the phone onto my lap as the back door swung open and Luca was back, smiling behind a knotted ball of white powder.
I didn’t play often. In fact, I only really started this year, and only when I was with the guys. I didn’t really look into around the time I started, although it was sometime after Niko and I decided to swap virginities like they were an offering on a fucking smorgasbord. The we-don’t-talk-about-it list only had one thing on it. The night we fucked each other for the first time and swore to never speak on it again. I didn’t revisit it. Who wanted to remember their first time? No matter how hot Niko was, or even how good he was for a first-timer, the pain was too much and the hole that was felt in my chest since that day had only expanded as time went on. The no-talking-about-it rule suited me just fine.
I turned back in my chair as Ari hightailed it out of the gate. I pumped up the music, feeling myself warm up to whatever drama was going down tonight. Not that our town had a lot of drama. When your best friends were, one, Niko Davis, two, Cece Monroe, and three, Ari fucking Davis, you didn’t find drama at your doorstep. They didn’t even need Luca’s backup. But that didn’t mean other people didn’t have drama—because they did. I was the girl who loved to watch other people’s pain. It comforted me to know I wasn’t alone with mine. Avenged Sevenfold tore through the speakers all the way back to Halsin. It was well after ten by the time we drove through the sea of drunk people already spilled out over the front lawn of Niko and Ari’s house. Their mom, or Ma, as we all called her (and by we, I mean just Niko, Ari, and I), allowed them to have the house once a month for whatever they wanted. The fucking brats.
I jumped out of the lifted pickup and shut the door. People watched as I moved across the front lawn. I think they all secretly waited for me to erupt. I never did, but I understood why they did it. One time a guy grabbed my ass at Leon Ranger’s party and Niko may or may not have played how many times can I drift my Harley in circles around you while you lie blindfolded on the ground.
Niko was a fucking psycho with the people he cared about. That list was small, so he had a lot of pent-up psychotic pheromones to let out when he eventually did.
As I passed a group of football players, I snatched the rolled blunt from around Jeremiah’s mouth, winking at him as I made my way up the steps to the patio.
“Come on, Mer!” He waved his arms out in front of himself. “Why you gotta always do me like that?” Jeremiah was part of that circle I was talking about with Niko. He and Jer had been best friends since preschool. A terrifying bromance, really, since I was pretty sure the foundation of their friendship was built upon an entire enabling system. They did dumb shit together and then told each other it’s fine because they had each other. Toxic. Jeremiah was also possibly the only one who got away with casual flirting with me, since Niko absolutely knew that he trusted this man like a brother, or probably more than a brother.