After releasing me, she scolded Alec. “Why didn’t you mention you were bringing anyone?”
He shrugged. His gesture was causal, but from the glint in his eye, I could tell he’d wanted this to be a surprise and he enjoyed catching his friends off guard.
I fiddled with my watch, not sure what to say or my place within the conversation. There was a level of comfort among Stella, Alec, and the rest of the band, the kind that made water gun ambushes one hundred percent acceptable and could only be achieved by spendinghours of time together. It made me feel like an outsider, despite the warm welcome I’d just received, and I found myself inching toward my own source of comfort: Asha and Boomer. Asha, however, didn’t seem intimidated by the tight-knit group. Or the fact that she was standing in a room with her favorite band. She tossed her braid over her shoulder, stepped passed me, and held out her hand to Stella.
“Hi. I’m Asha.”
“Stella,” Stella said, slipping a hand into Asha’s. “You were on the Skype call yesterday, weren’t you? Nice necklace, by the way. Love the hearts.”
Asha’s fingers brushed over the delicate chain at her throat, rattling the cluster of silver heart charms hanging from it. “Yeah, and thanks. Felicity made it for me.”
“Wow,” Stella said, her eyebrows jutting up. “You made that? You’re really talented.”
“Thanks.” Pride warmed my cheeks. I peeked at Alec, who was smiling and twisting his own piece of my jewelry around his wrist.
A quick pause in the conversation gave Boomer the opportunity to sidle up beside Asha. “Hey, I’m Boomer.”
Stella’s eyes went wide as she craned her neck. “Hey, nice to meetcha.”
“Be careful not to crack any height jokes,” JJ said, spinning around on his bar stool. He pointed a finger a Boomer. “That one has a veryshortsense of humor.”
I took my bottom lip between my teeth and tried not to laugh. Boomer wasn’t the most patient person in the world, and JJ clearly enjoyed pushing anyone and everyone’s buttons. I anticipated ascowl or some type of comeback—which, from someone as tall as Boomer, often came off more threatening than it was meant—but instead, he let a breath hiss past the half smile on his lips.
To no one in particular he said, “He’s relentless, isn’t he?”
The remaining three Heartbreakers chimed in at the same time: “Yup!”
JJ grinned like he’d won a prize.
Asha opened her mouth again, presumably to barrage the boys with praise and questions, but she was interrupted by a rapid clicking noise. It sounded like a large, clawed monster was charging down the hall in our direction, and I turned in time to see a gray mass gallop into the kitchen from a second entrance. It was a dog, the largest I’d ever seen, and I took a startled step back, accidentally slamming into Alec’s chest. He put a steadying hand on my shoulder as the monster-dog hybrid came to a stop in front of us and promptly started barking, the thundering sound reverberating throughout the room.
Oliver turned from the stove. “Poseidon, no barking!” The wooden spoon in his hand was coated with tomato sauce, which splattered on the floor, and in a flash, Poseidon was across the room and cleaning up the drippings.
“Whoa, he’s huge,” Boomer said. As soon as the words left his mouth, JJ pressed a fist to his lips to contain his amusement.
“Yeah, he’s a Great Dane,” Oliver said, scratching the dog behind its ears. “Sorry about that. New people intimidate him.”
We intimidated him?
After a few more minutes of friendly chatter, dinner was ready.Oliver had made spaghetti and meatballs—who’d have guessed he could cook?—and Stella added three more place settings to the table for Asha, Boomer, and me. Everyone sat down to eat, and Xander surprised me by dropping into the spot on my left.
“Hey,” he said in a tone equally as excited as Stella’s had been. “Sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself before. I was on salad duty. I’m Xander.”
I offered him a warm smile. “Felicity.”
Xander Jones instantly put me at ease. He was different from Oliver and JJ in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was because he seemed more normal—like I could show up for school in August, and he would be sitting in my biology class. His smile teemed with goodwill and friendship, instead of charm and the promise of a wild night.
“So I hear you guys are driving to Seattle?” he said.
On my right, Alec passed me a bowl of steaming noodles.
“We’re trying to track down my sister,” I answered, scooping a portion onto my plate. When I offered him the serving bowl, he declined with a quick headshake.
Even though he was seated on the opposite side of Alec, JJ must have been listening to our conversation. “How is it possible toloseone’s sister?” he blurted out.
Both my mouth and thoughts froze at the gall of his question, but before any awkward silence built, Oliver said, “Didn’t you lose Jenny in a grocery store once?”
JJ scoffed. “That doesn’t count. She ran away from me so I’d get in trouble.”
