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“I’m going to the party.”

She abruptly stopped talking. “But… You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I said so. You can’t.”

I snorted. “You’re just making me all the more determined to go. What or who is in that house that you guys don’t want me to see?”

She opened her mouth, made a disgruntled sound, and vanished.

I said to the air, “Not helpful.”

Now I was for sure going to that house.

“Cole?”

Shit. Cassian had come over and was standing at the entrance by the trees, an odd expression on his face. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I—” I waved my hand in the air, my phone in it and pretended to take out a Bluetooth speaker, putting it in my pocket. “I was on the phone with my grandma.”

“Oh.” His shoulder sagged. He came toward me, his hands going into his pockets. “You’re close to your grandma?”

“They put up with me. I live with them.”

He frowned. “Really?”

“It’s fine. You get along with yours?”

“Actually, yeah. They kinda worship me. My grandpa is a huge hockey fanatic. He played in the pros. My dad didn’t play at all, so now that I do, my grandpa is obsessed with me.”

A twinge of envy tugged in my chest. “That sounds nice.”

He came to stand next to me, leaning in the spot Sabine had been. “You don’t have a similar situation?”

I shifted on my feet. “This feels like we’re veering into ‘too revealing’ kind of topics.”

He barked out a laugh. “Got it. I like surface level shit. Know anything about hockey?”

“I know you’re center line, first offense?”

He snorted. “First-line, center forward.”

“Totally what I said.”

“Exactly.”

We were grinning at each other, and for the first time that night, a knot started to loosen in my chest. I was doing things that I didn’t normally do. Like go to see the end of a football game, and hanging around outside the gym where the Homecoming dance was going to happen.

“Cass?” someone called out. “Where are you?”

“Shit. I gotta go.” He frowned my way. “You’re not dance-bound?”

“I’m not dance-bound.”

His frown deepened.

“Cass!”