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Message received. Screw with his girl and he’ll screw with me. “Nice to meet you. ”
Echo sits up, but Noah snakes an arm around her waist and drags her back down.
“Beth brought a guy who has manners,” Echo teases him. “See, it’s not so hard. ”
Noah pushes her hair over her shoulder, then runs a finger along her arm. “I’ve got manners, baby. ”
“No. ” She swats at his hand and laughs.
“You don’t. ”
Disgust weaves through me as I register what I’m seeing. Scars cover Echo’s arms. I rub a hand over my face. What the hell happened to her? Noah continues to tease Echo and she continues to laugh, yet his tone as he addresses me is a menacing threat. “Stare any longer, Ryan, and I’ll kick your ass. ”
“Noah,” Echo reprimands. “Don’t. ”
Beth returns to me. “What did I say about staring?”
“I apologize,” I say directly to Echo.
Echo smiles. “See? Manners. ”
“Come on,” says Beth. “Let’s get you a beer before you give them a good reason to kick your ass. ”
Beth
I MISS LAUGHING.
Most days I can find something amusing to make my lips flinch up. Sometimes it will be funny enough to make me chuckle. But I miss laughing. Really laughing. Laughing to the point that my insides hurt, my chest aches, my face is exhausted from holding the smile.
For effect, Rico stands in the middle of the circle of lawn chairs and in slow motion reenacts how Isaiah and I kept him from being busted for underage drinking this summer by distracting a pair of cops with a very bad mime routine.
“I’m hiding in the bushes and if the police step back, they’d be on top of me. Beth’s just standing there,” Rico chokes out between laughs. “Her arm stiff at the shoulder and her forearm dangling back and forth like a pendulum. The cop asked if she needed medical help. He thought she was having a seizure. ”
Everyone, including me, bursts into laugher.
Rico composes himself to spit out the rest.
“And she breaks her self-imposed silence and says, ‘I’m a mime, you moron. Why do you think I’ve been doing all these retarded moves?’”
Everyone laughs harder and as our group gasps for air Rico glances at Ryan. “Incluso el nino blanco se esta riendo. ”
I’m not fluent in Spanish, but I know enough to pick out the words white boy and laughter.
My heart shivers when I catch Ryan at the tail end of a chuckle. He’s always cute, but he’s breathtaking when he laughs.
Rico lifts his beer to his lips, then tosses it across the yard. “I’m out. ”
Isaiah tips the cooler. “We’re all out, man. ”
“Isaiah, help me snag some of Antonio’s stash, then we’ll hit the mota. ”
Mota. Weed. The layer between my skin and muscles itches. I want a hit. More like I crave a hit—the smell surrounding me, the smoke burning my lungs, the feeling of freedom and floating. Oh God, I want more than anything to float.
Isaiah stands and Rico kicks my foot as he passes. “You’re in, right, Beth?”
It kills me to shake my head. “Curfew. ”
I peek at Ryan. Does he know what mota is?
