“What about you?” I ask instead. As far as I know, Tyli isn’t seeing anyone. “You meet anyone at the house?”
She lifts one shoulder in a cocky shrug. “I met a few boys.” Then she winks at me and turns to leave. “Be careful out there,Estelle.”She calls me by my middle name, something I drunkenly told her one night when we played beer pong with vodka.
“Text me if you need me,” I say with a smile in my words.
Estelle was my mother’s idea. I don’t hate it, but it’s a name I feel like I haven’t grown into yet.
Another rumble of thunder sounds outside as Tyli disappears, but she doesn’t come back. I snatch up my phone from the table when it glows again, then lean back in my seat, one foot on it, knee bent, other leg stretched out. I’m in a white sweatpants and hoodie set tonight, my hair loose and swept down my back. Relaxed with no makeup on and definitely not ready to see someone like Storm Leary, but he’s one of the three people who texted me.
Another is Caspian.
And Dax.
My heart thuds seeing Storm’s name but my texts and previews are hidden so I torture myself and don’t open his first.
Caspian
How would I go about inviting Henry up here to stay with me?
I snort at that. Caspian is emotionally dead and psychologically distant but deep, deep,deepdown inside his heart, he cares or he wouldn’t bother.
And he asked me instead of Heather because he knows Heather has a lot on her hands with Rome,andHeather would crucify him for being so inept.
Heather is generous and kind and patient. But not with Caspian.
Say ‘hey, I’ll fly you up to see me on *insert dates here*’
With Henry, it needs to be all figured out or he’ll decline. He still might, but that’s the best way to lure him in.
I open up Dax’s text with a little trepidation just as I hear rain start to lash against the window panes of the library. The background sound is relaxing and even though I meant what I told Tyli about not being afraid to walk in the storm, I don’t want to soak my bag. It has my MacBook in it.
Dax
I don’t know what happened the other night but can you please stop ignoring me? Are you still at Ely for the weekend?
He sent the text an hour ago, around eleven, which isn’ttoolate, but pretty close to being a hookup fishing line. If we’d already hooked up, I probably wouldn’t mind.
Hell, even now, I consider telling him to come to my place.
I need to get laid. Maybe it’ll stop me from thinking about a certain blue-eyed monster of a boy.
But before I reply, I open up Storm’s text.
Storm
I made plans for us tomorrow night. I can come over now, or in the morning.
Frowning, I see the link he sent in the second text. It doesn’t look like it’s going to blow up my phone or anything so I open it.
It goes to a landing site for a nineties concert. In Raleigh. A four hour drive from here. Nineties cover bands and nineties actual bands, still performing.
The butterflies in my belly tap dance all along my insides and I push my tongue into the inside of my cheek to stop from smiling my face off.
But would that mean we spend another night together?
And why is he planning dates for us?
I’d rather hook up than pretend we might get married or something.
