“The video?” I ask. However I approach this, I can’t be too aggressive. “I know Nat was keen to talk to you about that. How did it go?”
There’s a flash of understanding in his eyes then. He stops fidgeting. “It wasn’t good,” he says, a demonstration of regret creasing his features. “I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of what happened, but it’s not easy. I leave my phone lying around parties like these all the time. Anyone could have gotten into it. Sucks for someone to betray my trust like that.”
Were I more like my sister, perhaps I would believe him, but instead, I’m having to hide my clenched fist behind my back.
“Damn, you really can’t trust anyone these days,” I say. “Obviously, poor Nat’s a mess, but has anyone stopped to ask you how you’re doing?”
He blinks, eyes widening. “Wow, you’re— Wow. No. People don’t tend to care about the guy’s feelings. But thank you. I’m a bit shaken up, but I’m okay.”
And like that, he melts. The guarded hiking up of his shoulders softens into a more relaxed stance, and following his lead, his friends adopt his new casualness. This is good. This is necessary. I’ve no intention of spending more time with Luca one-on-one beyond this, but I need to be able to remain in his periphery for my plan to work.
“All right, boys, shots!” Luca announces. I hide the unspoken question that threatens to sing through on my face. Do any of them really need them? Not one of them is anything close to sober, and if I’m right about Luca’s heart condition, I’m surprised he’s willing to drink so much, but his recklessness is of use to me. I don’t complain when he hands me one of their oversize plastic shot glasses.
The boys quickly re-cluster in smaller groups, shots done. Some of them leave the kitchen. There’s a guy with a mullet I have my eye on. I’ve noticed him dipping his finger into a baggie a couple of times already, sucking the crystals off. His slightly leery, slack-jawed grin and dilated pupils suggest a malleability and hunger that I can work with. I decide to make him my friend for the night and corner him to talk. He studied biomedical engineering. He is also on the football team. There is a whole heap of uninteresting information I glean that I swiftly forget.
In any case, he is accommodating, and I float in and out of groups by his side; allow him to speak at me in corners of rooms; fall in and out of rounds of shots; strategically move whenever I feel there is a kiss incoming. There’s a hairy moment in which we’re heading to the kitchen for more shots. I hear the unmistakable timbre of Natalie’s voice on the way, undercut by Emily’s heady laugh. I make my excuses in this moment and flee to the bathroom. Nat will inevitably know I was here, but she doesn’t need to see me right now. At least while I wait, I’m able to solidify my plan.
We’re back in the kitchen a few minutes later, ostensibly chatting, materially waiting. I notice Luca reenter. I almost want to tell him what I’m planning for him, just to see him scared, but I say nothing.
“More shots?” I ask Mullet. He’s absolutely fucked on the cocktail of whatever he’s taken but is obliging. I gesture to the bottle as he beginsto pour. “Anyone else want one?” A couple of people nearby give enthusiastic yeses, and the first part of my trap is laid. “Might as well do a few.” More pouring. “Could you do a couple of those MD ones you guys were doing? One for me, one for you.”
He looks at me quizzically for a moment. I’ve refused any drugs up until this point.
“Just a light one for me, thanks. If I do too much, I want to kiss everything in sight.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I watch as he tips the remaining crumbs of crystals from one baggie into one shot glass, and then opens a new baggie and tips almost the entirety of it into another.
“Isn’t that quite a lot?”
“Oh, this stuff is a bit shit. You need quite a lot to feel anything.”
I shrug as hands reach onto the counter for shot glasses, disappearing, reappearing, re-pouring. “Okay. A normal one for courage, first.” A plain tequila goes down my throat. I wince and then look over my shoulder. “Oi, shot king! Luca. Want one?”
He gives me a hazy smile, eyes half-closed. “Always.”
Mullet is already deep in fits of laughter with some nearby friends. I pick up my shot glass and another and head over to Luca. I ham up a burp as I approach.
“You know what, that tequila’s sent me west. Have both of these—I’ve got to go.”
It’s so easy. He just smiles, puffs up his chest, and says, “Sure.”
I give him my spiked one first, quickly pushing the second into his hand with a slightly furry-looking lime wedge to chase away any potential aftertaste.
“Fucking hell,” he says, grimacing.
The words have hardly left his mouth before I’m out the kitchen door. I’ve barely taken two steps when I find myself barreling into a chest. I look up to find glossy copper hair and an accusatory frown.
“What are you doing here?”
Emily. Shit.
“The same thing as you. I need to make sure she’s okay.”
She casts a look over my shoulder into the bright light of the cheaply furnished kitchen and sniffs. “Your sister’s in bed. I took her back in an Uber—she’s good. I just…I wanted to come back to have a word with that bastard. I’ve been looking for him everywhere. I didn’t expect to find him doing shots in the kitchen with you of all people.”
I send a glance behind me, cursing the time I’m lingering. “I was palming off my unwanteds on him. And what good would you talking to him do?” I ask. Emily looks hard at me then. It’s easy to underestimate her, but when it comes to defending her friends, to defending my sister, she’s a force to be reckoned with.
