“Nowhere.”
He snorted.“Yeah, looks like nowhere.”
I ignored him, grabbing the second water Thorn had set down earlier and finished it in one go before setting the glass back down.
“Jude,” Thorn said.
I didn’t look at him.
“You good?”
“Yeah.”
“Bullshit.”
I dragged a hand over my jaw, exhaling slowly as I turned back to the bar.
“Another water,” I said.
Thorn raised a brow.“Not beer?”
I shook my head.“Yeah,” I muttered.“Water’s fine.”
He didn’t say anything else, just grabbed a glass.
I leaned forward, bracing my hands on the bar as I stared down at the wood.
Ever had ignored me, and that bothered me way more than it should have.
Chapter Seven
Ever
Giant beer pong was somehow both dumber and more competitive than regular beer pong.
The setup took up one whole side of the Social Club near the giant games section, where the noise from the bar blurred with the crack of pool balls and the occasional cheers from the axe lanes.Six garbage cans on each side had been painted red to look like oversized Solo cups, lined up in a triangle on the floor with enough room between them that nobody could accuse the game of being easy.Instead of ping-pong balls, we used red rubber kickballs that had a bad bounce if you threw them wrong and rolled off toward the pinball machines if you got too wild with it.
It was ridiculous.
And, apparently, taken very seriously.
“Okay,” Alice said, holding the kickball against her hip and narrowing her eyes at our side like she was sizing up an enemy in battle.“Let’s all remember who taught who how to play this.”
Lark barked out a laugh beside me.“Nobody taught anybody.You just yelled the rules and made us start.”
“That’s called leadership.”
“That’s called being bossy,” Wren said from the other side, resting her hands on her hips.
Alice pointed the ball at her.“You wound me.”
“Probably not enough,” Wren muttered.
I snorted and bent a little to brace my hands on my knees, already smiling despite myself.
The teams had somehow become me and Lark on one side and Alice and Wren on the other, which made absolutely no sense considering Alice had started out trying to claim me for her team, but Lark had looped her arm through mine and said, “Nope, she’s with me,” and that had been that.
So now I stood shoulder to shoulder with Lark, staring down our makeshift battlefield while Alice bounced lightly on her feet like she was training for the Olympics and Wren looked about five seconds from hustling all of us for money.
