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“No, I’m hungry. And these cakes are amazing.”
“See, I don’t get it – you’re not supposed to be impressed by cake. Especially not a cake purchased from a gas station. Every girl at our school is a hundred pounds of pure bitchy hummus, and you’re supposed to be Queen of them all.”
I poke my tongue out at him, showing him the half-chewed cake on the end of it. “Maybe I’m not like other girls. Also, when we get back, I’m trademarking ‘bitchy hummus’ – it would make a great health-food company name. Maybe it will supply snacks to Stonehurst vending machines.”
Noah snorts. We finish our cakes in silence. Maybe I’m delirious from heat and trauma, but hatred doesn’t seem to roll off his body any longer. Now it’s more of a low-level annoyance that buzzes in the air around us like an annoying fly.
“I meant what I said at the party.” I don’t know why I say this. “I used to crush on you hard. It must’ve been your superior cake-purchasing abilities.”
Noah throws his head back and laughs. It’s a real laugh, devoid of that hard edge. “Yeah, well… I had a crush on you, too.”
“Don’t lie. You acted like I didn’t exist.” I remember those weepy words in my diary, how Noah would avoid me at school and refuse to be in group projects or playground teams with me.
“Only because you were Eli’s girl.” Noah looks away again.
“I was thirteen. I was nobody’s girl.”
Noah shook his head. “You and Eli were written in the stars. That was obvious even to me, even when I wasn’t supposed to know you guys were hanging out. Eli’s my best friend, and when you disappeared, it nearly destroyed him. I hated you for that as much as for my brother.”
“I can’t imagine Eli destroyed by anything. He’s so… steady.”
Noah rolls his eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, I catch a glimmer of something like amusement in them before they return to their calm, dark state. “Oh yeah, Eli was wretched. He only spoke in sighs. For a whole year, he did no better than a B on any exam or test, which for Eli is like flunking out. He listened to that playlist you made him on constant repeat, and he even threw himself off his balcony like a character in a Shakespeare play.”
“He did not throw himself off a balcony,” I scoff.
“He did. He landed in his mother’s prize rose bushes. Broke his arm in two places. He was pulling thorns out of his ass for weeks. The only thing that seemed to help him was getting his cat, Gizmo. And, weirdly, the FBI going after his Dad. Eli loves solving puzzles, and I think he figured if he couldn’t figure out why you left him he could at least save his Dad’s ass—”
An engine roars, drowning out the rest of Noah’s words. A moment later, a Porsche rolls up in a cloud of dust. I cough, waving my hands to try and save my cake. The dust and sand settle, revealing the edges of the vehicle and driver at the wheel. Eli peers over the top of his glasses.
“Need a lift?” He cocks an eyebrow at me.
Dealing with Eli’s intensity usually puts me off my lunch, but right now his car is a fucking chariot from heaven. I stand on shaky legs. Noah reaches out, his warm hand steadying me, and together we limp toward the Porsche.
“Careful.” Eli’s smirk crumples when he sees Noah holding me. In a flash, he vaults from the car and is on the other side of me, piling me into the passenger seat.
Noah climbs in back, sprawling out across the narrow seat, dangling his sand-coated boots over the side. “Possibly you should’ve put the top up before you went cruising in the desert.”
“Shut up. Mac, are you okay?” Eli leans over the seat, his ocean eyes stormy, wide with concern.
I stare out at the gas station and the hostile landscape beyond. Now that I’m inside the car, everything that happened, that nearly happened, rushes at me in an avalanche of fear. A tremble starts in my feet and ripples through my whole body. I grip the edge of the seat and clench my teeth as I ride through the terror.
The reaction reminds me of the darkest night of my life, of getting into Antony’s car after he dug me out of the dirt, of trembling on the seat while he told me what happened to my parents.
“Shit, she’s not okay.” Eli glares at Noah. “What the fuck did you do to her out there?”
“Nothing,” Noah snaps back. “I put a stop to it. Get us out of here. She’s having a trauma reaction. She’ll feel better once we’re back in the city.”
Eli’s face tightens. He reaches over me and pulls my belt across my lap. His fingers graze my skin, and I murmur something that might’ve been a protest, might’ve been a desire for more. “Mackenzie, do you want us to take you home? There’s something at Gabe’s you should really see.”
I don’t answer. The truth is, after what Alec did to Queen Boudica, home doesn’t feel safe to me right now. But I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t have the words I need to ask.
“Let’s take her to Gabe’s,” says Noah. He picks up Eli’s phone from between the seats and chooses a new song. Pounding blastbeats and black metal assault my ears as Eli jerks the car away and speeds back down the highway. I lose myself in the bleakness of the music, imagining myself in a Norwegian forest, cold and surrounded by wolves and as far from the fucking desert as it’s possible to get.
As we hit the outer suburbs of Emerald Beach, Eli switches the playlist to 90s grunge and indie music, and the boys sing along. I glance down at the phone and notice the playlist is called, simply, Mackenzie.
The playlist Noah mentioned – the one I gave Eli before I disappeared.
I watch Eli as he drives, one hand on the wheel, the other draped casually over the door. He nods his head to the music, and the breeze ripples through his blond hair, whipping loose strands around his face. He’s wearing a grey t-shirt that hugs his muscles, and he looks every inch the fresh-faced, pretty-mouthed boy that every girl wants for a boyfriend.
