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“All summer long.”
Dex backs me up, telling his sister, “Uh, let’s see, how about every time he’s been in your company.”
Just like every other time I’m around these two, I laugh. They’re never not going at it. As long as I’m out of it, it’s funny.
Even if I am in it, it’s funny. It’s funnier when I’m not though.
“It’s not my fault he’s always around us.”
“It is your fault. You befriended him first.”
“Well, you brought him home first.”
“You…”
The siblings face off against each other, arguing who’s more responsible for my presence in their lives when the hairs on the back of my neck lift. Glancing over, my gaze collides with Kota’s, and just like that, my depressive episode comes to a close.
It began because of her, makes sense it’d end because of her, too.
Greedy for all things Kota, I hold those dusty-blue eyes for as long as possible.
Until she breaks the connection to glance at Tina beside me.
That’s right. She didn’t like me talking to Tina at that party I crashed. I hoped it was because she was jealous, but I couldn’t get her to admit it.
To test the theory, I pet Tina’s hair.
Kota’s eyes meet mine again, the fire in them bigger than the one between us, before she returns to the conversation with her friends, her lips in a tight line.
Tina smacks my hand away with a grumbled, “Walk the plank.”
Her brother and I crack up at her version of “fuck off.”
“What, are we pirates now?” Dex jokes while I watch the girl who’s suddenly laser-focused on her friend.
Oh, she wants to look my way so bad but she’s fighting the urge with all her might.
She is jealous.
That knowledge, plus the breakup rumor, just made my mood infinitely better.
A couple of others join us, but I only give the conversation around me half my attention, nodding along just enough to seem interested.
The moment Kota heads toward the woods, I start that way, too.
“Where are you going?” Tina asks.
“To get more firewood.”
“Fuck the fire. It’s eighty degrees out here,” Dex says. “We need more ice. All the coolers are dry.”
“We should’ve brought some,” I tell him over my shoulder.
He murmurs, “I didn’t think of that.”
Sera, the expert on hospitality, did. I just didn’t follow her orders.
Before I’m out of earshot, I hear Tina complain about leaving her vodka in my Ram.
