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I turn to Constin, trying to look busy while Dylan does her thing and I make an effort to look like I’m not keeping an eye out for her.
A girl named Ava stares at Constin, and I remember her from when I went to school here. She stands in a pinstriped bikini with a group of people on the deck, playing with one of her braids as she looks at him.
I lift the cup to my mouth. “She’s interested.”
“I’m not.”
I glance at him and then quickly at Dylan, seeing Kade press into their group and force her back away from them, back to the pool wall. He doesn’t touch, and her lips move calmly as she speaks.
“You can’t have Dylan,” I say to Constin.
He looks around the party, still avoiding my eyes. “If you ever figure out what I like about Dylan Trent, you’ll finally understand me.”
“You won’t tell me?”
He hesitates, raising his cup to his lips. “No.”
I look at Ava and then Dylan, wondering what the difference is. Both are beautiful, and I didn’t know Ava well, but she was always nice. Maybe a little more pink going on, with her swimsuit and the bandana tied in her hair… Definitely more makeup.
But if he hasn’t spoken to her yet, I have no idea what he finds in one that he’s not seeing in the other.
“You can’t have Dylan,” I say again.
He takes another drink, casting his eyes from lawn chair to lawn chair and face to face. A guy films his friend jumping into the pool, while two others funnel a beer. A group of young women film themselves dancing, and a guyin Crocs urinates on the tree my dad planted with my mom right before Kade and I were born. Food, liquor, and music overflow, everyone wears sunglasses even though it’s night, and none of the keys they had in that bowl when we arrived were for cars that were used, stolen, or paid for out of the drivers’ own pockets. They were supplied by doting moms and dads.
“You know, I thought I understood you,” Constin tells me. “Some rich kid slumming it for kicks or under some misguided notion that it makes you noble to reject the comforts that not everyone gets to enjoy.”
I glance at Dylan to see her lift her chin as she talks to Kade.
“But it was all bullshit, of course,” Constin continues, “because you’re never really suffering if you know that you can run back to the mansion at any time.” He still doesn’t look at me, just studies the party. “But now, I think I misunderstood you. I see all this, the house you grew up in, the fuckin’ laze and people choking on their own egos, and I think no wonder you came looking for us.”
I go still, a little glad and a little sad. He sees what I saw. The boredom of people who value nothing, but…it doesn’t mean I was right, either. It just means I didn’t see it, and I wasn’t finding what I needed here.
He walks away, leaving me alone, and it finally occurs to me why my grandpa might’ve left Weston to fend for itself.Hard times make strong people.
He says it all the time.
Of course, Weston loves a good party as much as we do. They love to drink and fight and go to bed with people who make them feel good, but the difference is Weston doesn’t trust anyone easily. If you’re their friend, you earned it.
I don’t want to leave my school there.
“What the fuck is he doing?” Farrow grits out suddenly at my side.
I follow his gaze, seeing Kade fall in behind Dylan as she leads the way out of the pool. He takes her hand, both of them disappearing into the house.
I tip my head back and close my eyes.
“Hunter,” he says.
I hand him my drink and walk away. “Don’t follow me.”
“What?”
But I’m gone.
I follow Dylan and Kade into the house, and I don’t see her take him down to the basement, but I know that’s where they went. Through the entertainment room, past the bar and the people playing a video game, down the hall, and into the liquor storage room way at the end.
“I can’t,” I hear Dylan say.
