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He must be done now though because I can hear music coming from downstairs and voices floating through the hall. Soft conversations drawing my attention, telling me the boys must be downstairs.
I pad softly over to the door to listen closer.
“Mikaela,” I hear Beckett call, laughter following after.
“She won’t come down.” I hear next, this time from Pax.
“Mik!” Beckett calls again.
Beckett probably has weed, and I tell myself that’s the only reason I’m going down there. I could use an escape, a reprieve from today. It sucked, so I deserve this, right? I open the door, eliciting a soft creak and step out into the hallway. I’m wearing a pair of soft pink shorts and an oversized white sweatshirt with my hair twisted into a messy bun on my head. I haven’t dressed up since the deposition hearing, opting for comfy clothes instead.
“Yes!” Beckett laughs when he sees me at the top of the stairs and immediately he extends a hand toward Pax.
His friend growls as he pulls cash from his back pocket and slaps it in Beckett’s hand. “Fuck.” He slumps back on the couch, crossing his arms and tossing me a glare.
“Ignore them.” Noah says when I falter on the steps. “Come here, baby girl.”
I hate the way my core clenches at the sound of his voice, my body betrays me by responding to him so eagerly. I continue my descent, eyes locked on Pax and Beckett. “Were you two betting on me?”
Beckett chuckles, “Pax didn’t think I could get you to come downstairs.”
The boys are spread out in the living room, Pax and Beckett on the long couch, Vaughn in the chair, and Noah on the loveseat. Each holding a sweating tumbler of hard liquor over ice.
Noah pats the cushion next to him, summoning me over like a dog. I turn to see him over my shoulder, sending him a sharp glare for thinking that would entice me to sit with him. He can’t control me, the other day was just a fluke, a lapse in judgement for me.
“Can we smoke?” I ask, turning my head back and addressing Beckett.
He doesn’t answer me at first, instead he looks around me and at Noah, waiting for his approval first. “Sure,” Noah sighs and Beckett eagerly hops off the couch with a smile plastered to his face.
I resist the urge to say something shitty to them, to express that I don’t need Noah’s approval to do a damn thing. But I know it won’t matter. These men have known each other their entire lives, their friendship, their brotherhood, means more than my feelings. So I keep my mouth shut, lips pursed.
“You want any, Noah?” he asks, leading me out back, but I don’t hear Noah answer nor do I turn around to see any gestures.
Beckett sits in one of the cushioned chairs out on Noah’s back patio and pulls a joint and a lighter from his pocket. “I knew you wouldn’t stay upstairs all night.” He laughs, flicking the lighter to life and bringing it to the tip of the joint.
The patio is actually pretty nice. This is my first time using it, I’ve been too stubborn to do anything but sit in my room. The view looks out into the woods, long stretches of trees block everything else from sight. He has neighbors on either side but there's a lot of land between the houses and a divider made up of trees and greenery.
“Yeah, well, I was bored.” I take the joint from his outstretched fingers and inhale deeply.
I let the vapor burn my lungs before I blow out the trail of smoke, watching it drift away softly. I let the high buzz through me, slowly beginning the numbing process. I take another puff immediately, I want to be higher, further away from all the chaos in this house… in my head.
Beckett snatches the joint back. “I know what you’re doing, Mik.” he says, taking a drag. “You’re trying to escape.” A stray piece of dark golden hair falls in front of his eyes and he leans farther back in the chair while he uses a hand to brush it away.
I give him a serious look, “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
Beckett is always trying to escape, always getting his hands on whatever drug will get him there, get him out of his head. His father is an asshole, and an utterly terrible person. Malcom Monroe owns the biggest Media conglomerate on the East Coast. Monroe Media was home to news outlets, television shows, and more local papers than one could count. He had a history of buying small papers for cheap and liquidating all their assets, leaving employees out of work as quickly as he could legally get away with. And what he couldn’t legally get away with, he had Vaughn’s father help him with.
He chuckles, tapping the joint in the ashtray. “It’s different.”
Like hell it is. I collapse in the cushioned chair next to him, letting myself sink into it. “How?” I ask him, because I know it’s not different. We’re both avoiding something, hiding from it and using any means necessary to keep reality at bay.
“I don’t have a whole night of missing memories.” He deadpans, his blue eyes focused on me.
I want to laugh, but I know he’s not joking. “Do you know what happened?” I ask.
I’ve been asked this same question on repeat for the last year. Police, therapists, my family—everyone wants to know what happened that night. Why did Auden show up at the Bancroft Estate? Why was she crying? Why was she out there? Did she jump?
But I’ve never asked anyone else but Noah. For some reason, I know he knows. I know he was there. He should have all the answers but he keeps them wrapped up, a secret hidden in the depths of his mind.
