She is shaking her head, a smile twinkling into her eyes, her fingers gliding the cubic zirconia ‘L’ that my mother had bought for us from a thrift store—over in Shadow Heads—across the silver chain clasped around her neck. I had the same one, but mine held a ‘J’.
They had been the last two.
L and J,us, written in the stars.
“It may have been why Colton was. But my brother was throwing fists for you, sis.”
When I don’t reply, grabbing for my own necklace, she pinches me again, and I’m about ready to pinch her back when she says with a quirk of her brow, “Do you need me to give you another lesson?”
Said lesson and her words from earlier in the day sift into my head.
“I just wanted to prove to you that my brother cares about you too. And see…” She pauses, throwing her hand in the direction he just left. “He does, that’s why he’s coming tonight. He cares about you so much more than you realize, Laik.”
I sigh, smoothing a palm over the small lumps of hair at the top of my head, twirling my ponytail around my hand.
“I can’t believe you told him that I liked Colton.”
I feel myself screwing my nose up, disgust the cause of an abrupt and violent shiver. Even speaking of it made me feel dirty.
Jade shrugs, follows it up with a weightless grin. “Well, proving my brother’s loyalty to you was worth the lie.”
Silence swells between us when I don’t reply.
I can’t help but wonder if he ever really had a choice.
Does Chase feel like he has a responsibility for me because I’m his sister's best friend?
Because my mother’s a drug addict, and my father killed himself, and aside from my nan, I don’t have anyone else I can depend on?
I didn’t want to be a thorn in his side, and yet I wanted to be the force that jammed it in there.
My cheeks heat.
“Do you wanna—” Jade starts to speak.
“Leave?” I jump from the counter, stumbling, my hip bone catching the corner of the vanity.
I palm it, chew on my tongue.
Jade nods, fingers lacing with mine and when she wrenches open the door, a weightless body falls.
The guy that had been beating at the painted timber stumbles to his feet and shoulder checks me as he walks past us. With no apology, he slams the door shut at our backs.
There’s a suspicious puddle of something on the ground where he was seated and we burst into laughter, tip-toeing our drunken asses around it.
Holding onto each other for dear life, we make our way down the stairs and when we reach the bottom we set out on finding the boys. Weaving ourselves through the room, I do my best to spot golden curls and a dark brown head of wavy hair to no avail.
“Can you see them?” Jade asks, squeezing my clammy palm tighter, chin raised higher as our eyes bounce from wall to wall, corner to corner.
I’m on the balls of my feet, my sight not as clear as it would have been if I was sober.
“Nope,” I shout over the music, noticing that Colton is also missing, along with Bryce and Aria.
I temper the shiver that serpentines my spine. Slipping my hand from Jade’s, I step in front and bend over, yelling over my shoulder, “Get on my back, take a better look.”
She does. I catch her legs and rise to standing. Jade returns to her feet when she doesn’t spot them.
“Well, we tried,” she says, pulling me toward the kitchen.
