“Okay, but we do the beer pong and the keg stand, and then we go do something else. I don’t want to hang out any longer than necessary.”
“Deal.”
The party is about the same size as the one on Halloween, but it doesn’t feel quite as intimidating. On Halloween, I’d only stayed in the kitchen for a little while before retreating outside, and I spent the rest of the time . . . well.
Anyway, it’s crowded as we move through the living room, and I don’t see Torres anywhere. It’s dim and loud, and he might not even notice me if he walked right past me. Slowly, I begin to relax.
“I think we should do the beer pong first,” I say. “Unlike the keg stand, it requires a certain degree of skill. I’d rather be fresh for it.”
Stella laughs. “You’re competitive, aren’t you?”
“Incredibly.”
“I guess it’s good for you then that I am a master at beer pong.” She mimics throwing a Ping-Pong ball and says, “I’ve got a light touch.”
We find the beer-pong setup in a room toward the back of the house just off the living room. Stella hesitates at the door, shooting me a look. “Oh, come on,” I say. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay. If you’re fine with it, I got you.”
I don’t know why she’s so tentative all of a sudden, but I’m just eager to play the game, finish my list, and get out of here. The two of us call dibs on the next game and wait our turn. I survey the room while the current game wraps up. There’s a bed pushed into a far corner, and a few girls are piled on top of it talking.
The Ping-Pong table is situated in middle of the room, and there’s a group of about seven people hanging around it. A small enough group to manage most of the nervousness I’m feeling about playing. I already knew all the rules (thank you, Internet research). Logically, it seemed like a piece of cake. But since I’ve never played, it was impossible to know the weight of the ball and how much force I’d have to put behind it.
When it’s Stella’s and my turn, we’re up against two guys. Stella knows one of them. He’s tall and lanky with a beanie pulled over a mop of longish hair. He smiles at Stella and lifts his chin in a hello to me.
“Ladies first,” Beanie Boy says.
Stella looks at me and holds out a white Ping-Pong ball. I take it, weighing the thing in my hand. It’s light. So light the air circulating from the ceiling fan overhead would be enough to blow it off course. I miss the first time out, but luckily the other team misses, too, so we’re safe from having to drink anything yet.
Stella sinks her first shot on the next round and winks at me. “Told you. I’m a pro.”
When the guys again fail to sink the ball in one of our cups, the one in the beanie picks up the cup Stella’s ball had landed in, and he downs it in a few long swallows.
On my next turn, I take a breath, analyzing my last throw and adjusting my technique in my head. It’s all physics really. Force. Gravity. Arc. I shake out my shoulders, let out that breath, and send the ball flying. It plops into the cup right at the top of the other team’s pyramid.
Stella cheers, and we high-five, and even though the guys sink their shot, too, so neither of us has to drink, I still feel good.
We don’t miss a single shot for the rest of the game, and by the time I sink the ball into the other team’s last cup, the small group in the room has grown to a crowd, and the cheer they let out makes me jump in surprise.
Stella squeezes me into a hug and cries, “Oh my God. You have to be my beer-pong partner forever. No one will ever beat us.” She pulls away.
The guys we beat have come around the table, and they congratulate us. The one in the beanie gives me a hug. “Impressive game,” he says.
Stella claps and yells, “Who’s next? We’ll take on anybody!”
“I’ll take that challenge!”
My back locks up one vertebra at a time. I can’t see him. But I know that voice. I can’t forget it.
“Nell, do you wanna?” Stella gestures toward the bedroom door at the same time that Torres steps into view.
“No,” I say, placing a hand on her arm. “It’s okay.”
Torres leans on the other side of the table, and he’s so big, his arms so long, that he grips both sides of the table easily. His gaze meets mine, and he raises an eyebrow. “So that was your first time playing beer pong?”
There’s an edge to his voice that I don’t like. It makes it hard for me to swallow, and I’ve got goose bumps even though it’s warm in the crowded room. “It was.”
“Beginner’s luck, I say.”
Stella scoffs. “You wish, Teo. She’s a natural.”
He smiles, and holy crap, it hurts. It hurts that he can stand there like nothing’s changed, like I’m just another girl for him to tease. And the fact that it hurts makes me furious.
“Are we going to play or what?” I ask.
“Who’s on your team?” Stella asks Torres.
“Oh, I think Ryan is around here somewhere. He’ll do.”
It’s Stella who stiffens this time. The blond guy with curly hair that I always see around her steps up beside Torres. His lips are pressed together as he looks across the table at Stella, and I can’t read his expression at all.
A few beats of tense silence pass before Stella claps her hands. “Let’s get to it, then.”
I add, “You guys can go first.”
Torres shakes his head. “Oh no, we’ll decide this the official way. With the eyes.”
My brows furrow. I don’t remember seeing this in the set of rules that I read online.
“What’s that?” I ask.
He picks up a ball and gestures for me to do the same. “First throw is decided by eyes. One person from each team gets a ball, and you have to stare into your opponent’s eyes and toss the ball without watching where you aim. First one to make a cup goes first.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. If you think I’m going to believe—”
Stella cuts me off. “It’s true.” I shut up fast. “I’ll do it. Give me the ball.”
“No.” Torres plants a firm hand on the table, and the whole thing sways slightly under the pressure. “Nell and I are doing this.”
I don’t get why he’s being this way, why he’s so tense and pushy. I mean . . . I get that I probably shouldn’t have come to his party. This is his territory, and I’m trespassing. But he could have just asked me to leave. He could have avoided me. Anything but this.
“Fine,” I say, and I hate that my voice is quiet. I roll the ball between my fingers and step to the center of the table. I take a deep breath and face him. His eyes are dark, but more than that, the look he wears is dark.
Shit. He’s mad. Really mad. I should just leave. Screw beer pong and keg stands and my list. This is a bad idea.
But I don’t look away. My gaze stays locked on his.
Ryan puts a hand on his shoulder and says, “Sure you’re up for this, man? You should probably—”
“Oh, I’m up for it.”
He shoots me a cocky grin, and I nearly bolt. Nearly.
I’m not scared of him. I’m not scared of this party or fitting in or being different. I’m not even scared of being scared. I’ve got this.
“You ready?” I ask.
“On the count of three,” he says.
Then he proceeds to give the slowest count in the history of the universe. I swallow because his eyes are piercing. There’s no other word for it. And I’ve never been good at looking him in the eye. I remember that night in the pickup truck when he let me close my eyes so I didn’t have to, and I very nearly give in to the impulse to close them now. But I stay steady, and when he says three, I toss the ball, doing my best to find the rhythm that I’d felt in the last game.
Both our throws end up in cups, so now it’s up to Stella and Ryan to decide.
We end up forfeiting first toss when Stella breaks eye contact with Ryan as she throws. It’s a closer game than our last one. Torres and Ryan are stronger opponents, and their presence seems to have put both me and Stella off our games.
When Torres sinks a shot and mine bounces off the rim of a cup and misses, I have to drink my first beer of the night. It tastes just as bad as I remember, and I have to close my eyes and force myself to chug it quickly. When I set the empty cup on the table, Torres’s expression is drawn in dark edges, and I think he’s somehow even angrier at me than he was before. Which makes no sense because it’s his fault that I had to drink.
Gah. Men.
The game stretches on longer and longer, and the room is now packed full of people. Tension that’s about more than just competition spreads taut between us, and by the time we get it down to one cup on each side, my nerves are frayed. It’s just a game, but it feels bigger than that. As if we’ve all got something on the line. Pride, I guess. Our remaining cup is directly in front of me, and theirs is in front of Ryan.
Torres steps up to take his shot, but his eyes find me instead of the cup. I wait for him to look away, but he doesn’t. He keeps his eyes on me as he tosses the ball, and it hits the rim of the cup and bounces off.
This is my chance. With his miss, I could end the game if I throw the ball into their last cup.