I climbed in my truck and put my palms against my cheeks to cool my flush. It wasn’t just the summer heat or the stifling hot barn that was coloring my cheeks. There was something electric about being here. I felt like that time I’d drunk half a bottle of Mrs. Middlemore’s homemade peach wine.
I looked back out the window, toward the grassy fields, the wooden fence penning in the horse pasture, the stables that I’d just left.
The thing was, if I let myself fall into these things, get comfortable here … if I let myself want what I wanted and reach for it, what was to say it wouldn’t all be ripped from me again? That a chasm wouldn’t just open up wide and take what was left of me? I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let myself get hurt all over again.
I looked back down at the blinking light on my phone, the text I still hadn’t replied to.
I shoved back the frizzy hair curling around my face and reapplied my lipstick in the rearview mirror.
On my way,I texted back, and pulled onto the highway back to campus.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Later that night, I attempted to navigate through a sea of bodies around the Phi Katharos house. While nobody was vomiting in the corner or twerking on the back wall just yet, there were more people than I expected.
“Cella!” a voice said when I made my way in. Paul. I remembered him from our brief meeting my first time at the house. He was happier than I thought he would be to see me. “Come out to let loose, I see. Basile was hoping you’d show up.”
“Hey, Paul, looks like you’ve been enjoying yourself.” From his unfocused gaze, it was clear he must’ve been pregaming for a while.
“Libations are in the other room. Help yourself to whatever you like, but watch out for Alex’s moonshine, it will get you fucked up. Me, I prefer to sail on stormy seas.” He winked.
“I’ll head for safer waters,” I said with a grin.
Inside was smoky and electric. The stereo crackled, the bass boomed. Though I’d never been much of a partier, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. The smell of beer and cologne and body spray, and the buzz of excitement. Hoping to see that person you wanted to see.
Then I blinked, and the song was over.
Someone was slumped over on the staircase. As I moved closer, I noticed they were wearing a T-shirt with an xkcd comic on it, jeans, and sneakers. Grant. But what was he doing? Everyone was moving around him like they didn’t notice him there, even the brothers. A little early to be that drunk, I thought, but then his eyelids did that fluttering thing when someone just starts to fall asleep. All of a sudden, his head jerked back, and his eyes flew open. He whipped his head wildly from side to side.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Did anyone see me?” he asked, his eyes wide and terrified. “Basile, or anyone else in Phi Kat?”
“Sleeping? No, I don’t think so.”
He nodded, the tension easing slightly from his shoulders. “Good—good.” Then he stood and quickly ran his fingers through his hair. Without another word to me, he hurried through the crowd.
A staircase didn’t seem to me to be the best place to fall asleep, and I didn’t know why anyone would be upset about it, but before I could linger anymore on the odd behavior, Basile caught my eye from across the room.
“You came!” His eyes were tinged hazy red, and his smile was completely relaxed, even warmer and wider than usual. “Do you have a drink? Can I get you anything? Paul’s fired up the grill out back, though I cannot in good conscience recommend you eat anything he tries to cook.”
I could smell the faintest hint of weed on him. I laughed. “I’m good.” I shook the drink in my hand. “I just grabbed a beer from the cooler.”
“You want something stronger? One of the perks of living here, the guys keep a stocked liquor cabinet.” He looked around for a glass when raised voices sprung from the back of the room.
Two guys arguing loudly, two brothers I thought I recognized. One shoved the other, and Basile blew out his cheeks. “Oh boy.”
“Go, it’s okay,” I said, waving him away. “I can fend for myself.”
“I’ll see you later?”
“Definitely.”
He disappeared into the sea of bodies, and I looked around the house, drifting to the edges of the room.
The music was a mix of Top 40 and the odd nineties favorites; “Jump Around” by House of Pain was playing currently. I couldn’t hear anyone, and they couldn’t hear each other, and I was more than happy to drift through the crowd, nodding along to the beat, sipping my lukewarm beer, except I was here for information. I was here to talk, so I needed something stronger. There was a substantial bonfire out back now; I could see it in flashes out the window as the crowd parted, even though it was so hot outside I could have melted.
The light was on in Basile’s office, and I skirted closer to it, my curiosity piquing. The door was cracked, but no shadows moved inside. Basile wasn’t in there, but he wasn’t in the back corner of the room anymore either, so I moved toward it. I could just slip inside while no one was looking …
