“What, you thought I was at home mixing lemonade and shit?”
When I still don’t take the bottle, he sighs. “I didn’t poison it, Jessi. I’ll prove it.”
He opens the bottle and pours it into his mouth without letting it touch his lips.
“I think I’m good,” I say.
“Come on!” he says. “It’s a show of good faith between us. I’m done being a jerk, you’re done believing I’m a jerk.”
He pushes the bottle on me and I hold it over my mouth and drink. Someone bumps me from behind, and my next swig completely misses my open mouth and trickles down my shirt. “Shit,” I say.
Eric coughs, holding his hand to his mouth to hide a laugh.
“Oh, screw you!” I say, handing him his bottle, but he’s still laughing, so I start laughing too. “Now I have to walk around like this all n—”
I jump at a hand on my shoulder.
“I want you to be honest with me.” It’s a voice that sounds like Luke’s but also so unlike it.
I turn around, and it’s him, his eyes looking unfocused, a brand-new bottle in his hand.
“Hey—are you okay?” I ask, already feeling a knot of anxiety in the pit of my stomach.
“I just want one question. One simple question,” he says.
His tone and the way he’s looking at me are making me very uncomfortable. “Okay?”
“Did you fuck him?”
I freeze at his words, my heart plummeting to a pool at my feet. “Luke, you’re drunk ...”
“It’s just a question. One question. He’s always around you, and I knew something was going on. I always thought about it, but I told myself, no, she lovesyou.”
“Luke—”
“—?and then I see you with him.”
Eric, who has been silent all this time, takes a step forward toward Luke. “Dude, it’s not what you think. We were just talking.”
“So—you did?” Luke completely ignores Eric as he looks at me. “That’s a yes?”
I try to reach for Luke’s arm, but he shrugs me off, and his voice gets louder. “It’s a simple question. Did. You. Fuck. Him.”
“Luke, stop it,” I say, my eyes filling.
“Man, you’re totally overreacting,” Eric is saying. “I swear to God. We don’t even talk, normally, but she was worried about you and—”
“Eric, shut the fuck up,” Luke says, turning on Eric.
“Don’t talk to him that way,” I say. It’s not Eric that he wants. He’s not asking about Eric. None of this is about Eric.
Luke shoves a rough hand through his hair, and his voice is broken and swollen with alcohol and anger and tears and fear. “It’s so simple. God, it’s such an easy answer. But you did, you fucked my brother ...”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, but my voice comes out tiny in the dark. Around us, a crowd is forming.
“I should have known,” he says, his voice still threatening tears, though none are running down his cheek. Only mine. “You didn’t want me. You wanted my family. Hell, maybe you didn’t even want Ro, you—”
My hand on his cheek makes a terrible sound. Loud and hard, and my fingers are stinging so badly. “Fuck you,” I say, and I’m surprised to hear myself speaking almost as loudly as he was.
