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“I heard. That’s why I called, silly.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Emily went to Texas Tech a few hours away in Lubbock, and I missed her.
“When’d you get home?”
“Three days ago.” She lowered her voice. “Tell your parents we’re going to the movies. Bryce Green is having a party out in the woods tonight. We have to go.”
“I don’t have to lie.”
“Sure you do. That way it’ll be just like old times. I’ll come pick you up at seven.” She hung up before I had a chance to respond.
I stared at the phone a second before hanging it up.
“Ever been to a party in the woods?”
Alfie put his hands behind his head. “Nope.”
“We’re about to change that, Texas style.”
Chapter Two
Mitch
“Why doI let the two of you talk me into this stuff?”
Stone slung an arm around my shoulders. “Because you can’t just sit around at home, big brother. Besides, somebody has to look out for our sister.”
Mulaney slapped him in the back of the head. “More like somebody needs to look out for you.”
“It’s only one more semester,” I said to the inky sky. A sharp slap stung the back of my head. “Ow. What was that for?”
“You act like living with us is the end of the world,” she said. “It’s your shit that stinks to high heaven. And you’re the one who needed somewhere to go last minute.”
“The only reason the apartment is clean is because Stone does it,” I shot back, ignoring her last jab. Why I’d had to live with them this year was still a real big sore spot.
“If you get into vet school, you’ll be off to College Station,” my brother pointed out.
I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of going even farther from home. He flashed me a saccharine smile and motioned toward the bonfire. “If your sister didn’t primp so much, we wouldn’t be late.”
Mulaney stuck her foot out. Stone tripped, but didn’t fall. “You take longer to get ready than I do.” She waltzed off toward the group of our friends from high school.
There was a pretty good crowd gathered already. We’d been coming to this spot for as long as I could remember. Set way off the road, the thicket of trees gave good cover, but there was enough open space for everyone to hang around a fire. Some people were in foldout chairs, others perched on tailgates of the pickups backed around it.
Stone pulled on my neck to stop me.
“I heard she’s back in town.”
I lifted a shoulder and lowered it, even as my pulse kicked up a notch. “So?”
“So I just thought you might want a warning.”
I stalked toward my old friends. “Anybody got a beer?”
One was immediately tossed in my direction. I caught it, popped the top, and chugged half of it.
Just a few months ago, Juliana and I would have shown up to a party like this together. I found myself scanning the crowd to see if she was there and cursed the disappointment I felt when I discovered she wasn’t.
She’d up and left me. I hated her for that, but the bigger part of me missed her like hell. No. I was done with that. She made a choice for the both of us. Who cared if she showed up?
