Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
The bowl already has a dozen or more sets of keys.
Farrow looks around to his people, announcing, “A guy named Stoli will be checking if we’re sober enough to drive. Did you hear that, everyone?”
Chuckles and snickers go off, because Stolichnaya earned his nickname by always being the first one not sober. His real name is Josh.
Mace steps forward, holding out her open backpack. “I’ll hold ours.”
One by one we all dump our keys into her bag as Kade and I lock eyes, and I see the faded purple bruising under his eye and the scratch along his jaw. His gaze, heavy with tension, tells me he’d offer no argument if I wanted to finish that fight. All someone has to do is light the match tonight.
I glance down, catching sight of the triple triangle tattoo on his torso that matches our mother’s.
“There’s a bathroom in the pool house,” Kade tells everyone, “one off the kitchen, and another in the basement. Don’t go upstairs, and if you have sex in my house, leave no trace. Not even your condoms.”
Coral hands him a cardboard carrier by the handles.
He takes it. “What’s this?”
He peers inside, seeing the three bottles of El Tesoro that Farrow probably swiped from Green Street’s private stash.
Kade smiles, handing it to Dirk. “We can use that,” he tells Farrow. “I half-expected it to be drugs.”
“Not before the game,” my friend retorts. “We want to beat you fairly.”
Kade laughs and then turns his attention to our group. “Ladies, the legal age of consent in this state is seventeen. Anyone younger than that?”
“Kade, shut up.” Dylan drives forward, shoving the container of brownies into his chest. “You’re being a tool on purpose.”
And she heads past him into the party.
Kade turns as we all follow her. “Oh, you missed me,” he coos. “You know you did.”
We head through the kitchen, my parents and sister nowhere in sight, everyone ripping off their hoodies, jackets, and shirts as we step onto the pool deck.
“Turn it up!” Kade shouts.
All of the Pirates—the players and their dates—turn, see us, and howl as “HONEY” by Luna Aura blasts over the speakers loud enough for the neighbors a quarter of a mile away to hear.
Dylan takes Mace, Coral, and a few others over to Aro, and the girls strip down to swimsuits, stepping into the pool. Dylan wears a light blue bikini, the ties thin across her back, and I don’t know why, but I glance at the pool house. There’s a couch inside. The door locks too. I take a drink from my cup to hide my smile.
She stands waist deep in the heated water, laughing at something Mace says, but then I look up to see Kade standing on the other side of the pool, his gaze on her too. Then it rises to me.
With his eyes gleaming, he takes a step and drops into the pool. Walking to Dylan and the girls, he slips a drink around her waist and into her hand, the plastic cup in my own grip cracking. I stop squeezing before I break it. All part of the plan… I tell myself.
I turn to Constin, trying to look busy while Dylan does her thing and I make an effort to look like I’m not keeping an eye out for her.
A girl named Ava stares at Constin, and I remember her from when I went to school here. She stands in a pinstriped bikini with a group of people on the deck, playing with one of her braids as she looks at him.
I lift the cup to my mouth. “She’s interested.”
“I’m not.”
I glance at him and then quickly at Dylan, seeing Kade press into their group and force her back away from them, back to the pool wall. He doesn’t touch, and her lips move calmly as she speaks.
“You can’t have Dylan,” I say to Constin.
He looks around the party, still avoiding my eyes. “If you ever figure out what I like about Dylan Trent, you’ll finally understand me.”
“You won’t tell me?”
He hesitates, raising his cup to his lips. “No.”
I look at Ava and then Dylan, wondering what the difference is. Both are beautiful, and I didn’t know Ava well, but she was always nice. Maybe a little more pink going on, with her swimsuit and the bandana tied in her hair… Definitely more makeup.
But if he hasn’t spoken to her yet, I have no idea what he finds in one that he’s not seeing in the other.
“You can’t have Dylan,” I say again.
He takes another drink, casting his eyes from lawn chair to lawn chair and face to face. A guy films his friend jumping into the pool, while two others funnel a beer. A group of young women film themselves dancing, and a guy in Crocs urinates on the tree my dad planted with my mom right before Kade and I were born. Food, liquor, and music overflow, everyone wears sunglasses even though it’s night, and none of the keys they had in that bowl when we arrived were for cars that were used, stolen, or paid for out of the drivers’ own pockets. They were supplied by doting moms and dads.