“You have a glimmer.” She rests against the counter next to me, poking a finger into my ribs. “I honestly could tell you more about Tate than I could tell you about, well, you.”
I lick my bottom lip before bringing the bottle to my mouth and polishing it off.
I don’t talk about Tate that much, right? Is this how all my conversations with other girls go? I haven’t really tried dating anyone in a while or even cared to hook up with anyone, but would I succeed if I did? Or would they all think I’m in love with my best friend?
“I didn’t mean to hit a sore spot; I just, I was curious.” I force a smile to tell her it’s okay. “She sounds awesome. Like an amazing friend.”
“She is. I don’t know who I’d be without her.”
“Does she know that?” Becca’s eyes narrow, and I feel naked. Like she’s seeing right through me, right through the smoke and mirrors. “Because if someone talked about me the way you talked about her, I’d want someone to tell me. I’d want someone to tell me they don’t know what they’d do without me. It might change things. Make a difference.”
Okay, is this chick from the future? I don’t know how she’s read me in just an hour of conversation.
“I should go find her.” I push off the counter. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, that’s fine.” She waves her hands in front of her face. “Truth is, Logan wanted me to talk to you because he was attracted to your friend Marcus and didn’t want me to be left alone. I just got lucky that you were a hockey player and not one of the complete assholes that make up our football team.”
“Yeah, we don’t know how Marcus is friends with them. There are a couple good ones, but most of them are, well, assholes.”
“Go find your girl, Fletcher. I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“See you around, Becca.”
Jere.” I stop him as he heads toward his room, hoping that he’s seen Tate around. The party was so crowded to begin with that even though it’s starting to die down, it’s now just the size of one of our typical parties.
I’ve been searching for Tate for the last ten minutes, and even though our house isn’t that big, with all of the people, there’s a chance we keep missing each other.
Jere is the first of the guys I’ve seen on my search, so that theory is pretty plausible.
“What’s up, Fletch?”
“I was just wondering if you’ve seen Tate.” I rock back on my heels, hoping the answer to my question will be yes.
“I actually just got back from bringing her home,” he replies. “We left about an hour ago.”
About the same time I went off to talk to Becca. What were you thinking, Fletch? Leaving your best friend sitting in a crazy party all by herself.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. She was bored, and, well, you were kind of occupied.”
The tone in his voice almost seems like a jab. I guess I don’t blame him, though. If Tate had made me go to a party and then left meto talk to another guy, I’d hope everyone would be pretty pissed about it as well.
I guess when Marcus asked, I didn’t really think the whole thing through. Honestly, if I were talking about Tate as much as Becca said I was, I should’ve just brought her over and introduced the two of them.
“Becca and I aren’t like that. I was just trying to help out Marcus.”
“I don’t know. It didn’t look like that to me. You guys seemed awfully cozy.”
“Even if we were, it’s not like Tate and I are—”
“Maybe not. But she’s your best friend, and you left her high and dry.”
Out of all of the guys to get this kind of talk from, Jere is the worst. He’s the dad of the group, our voice of reason, and he only has conversations like this with us if we’re really fucking up.
It doesn’t help that Tate and Jere have always been the closest in the group, aside from me and her. She always told me that he felt like a big brother to her. I guess when your actual older sibling isn’t around that much, you have to turn to someone else for that wisdom. Hell, I have several older siblings I could turn to, but none of them gives advice as well as Jere.
“Should I go over there?” I ask, leaning against the wall. “Or do you think I should give her a night to cool off?”
