“See.” Stanley points at me. He’s grinning the wrong kind of grin. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“What?” I widen them at him, losing all my patience. “What, Stan?”
He turns to Benson. “Tell him, Reeve. Tell him.”
Benson says, “You’ve been on edge all morning.”
Stanley points again. “You disappeared to the rink this morning.”
I look around at them. Benson, Rowan, Percy, Stanley. Lucy on Benson’s lap with her eyes politely on the saltshaker.
“So,” Stanley says, “we need an intervention.”
I push back from the table and stand. I’m going to leave.
“Sit the fuck back down.” Stanley is on his feet across from me. He is one inch shorter than me, and he is using all of his inches.
“Stan.” I shrug.
“You’re gonna wanna hear what Melly said.”
I don’t want to hear what Melly said. I don’t want to hear it from him. I don’t want to hear it from any of them. I want to hear it from her.
I sit back down and drop my elbows back on the table after a ten-second stare down with Stanley Ermington, my new fucking best friend. Right now, he feels like a pain in my ass.
Stanley sits back down. He clears his throat. “She told us a bit of information,” he says, “that you might want to know. But first –– tell us.”
Rowan makes a small sound. A disbelief sound. The Rowan version of come on.
“Everything,” Stanley says, “there is to know about Melly.”
“Why,” I scoff.
“Because she stood at the front door — and I quote — said to me and Rowan and Percy that we don’t know you as well as we think we do.”
I look around at them. They’re all nodding. Benson is listening to Stan in disbelief.
Stanley keeps going. “She said to us — you don’t know who I am?”
He pitches his voice up. He uses a high girl voice that is not even close to Melly’s, and I could lean across this table right now and put my hand around his throat for mocking her like that.
“And I said — I’m sorry, should we? And she said — well, she said we should ask you. So we’re asking you.”
I look at Benson. Benson knows the most of any of them. Benson knows that I knew her before. Benson knows a little bit of it — not the details, but the gist of it.
I look back at Stanley. “Why? Why should I tell you? Why do you even want to know?”
“One,” Stanley says, ticking it off on his thumb. “We have house rules. We live together. Two — you’ve been in a mood since the party she came to weeks ago, and —”
“Three,” Percy interrupts, quiet, from my right — “we have your back.”
Rowan nods. “Four,” Rowan says. “You went apeshit on that kid Thursday.”
Benson sighs. “Five.” His voice is gentle. “We have no idea what’s going on with you, man, but we can help.”
I lean back in the chair. They think they got me. They don’t. “No.”
Stanley inhales and his face twists. “We’re not taking no for an answer, Golding.”
