It was an hour later when everything came to light. Avery arrived, along with a few other friends, and they took Summer into the bathroom.
Thirty minutes after that, Avery came out. “She’s not making sense, but I think this is all about her mom.”
“Her what?”
“Her mom.”
“That doesn’t make sense. She never talks about her mom.”
“I think that’s the point. Something happened, and she snapped.” She glanced over her shoulder to where Kevin was sitting, two of our fraternity brothers keeping guard. I wasn’t sure if their purpose was to keep him there or to keep me from pummeling him.
Avery called over to him. “She wasn’t holding on to you. She thought you were her mom.”
“What’d you say to her?” I was across the room in a second. Brushing past the guys, I grabbed Kevin by the shirt and hauled him up.
“Nothing!” His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He looked toward the door, like he could bolt for it. “I swear. I just told her I had feelings for her. That’s all…” Then he slumped in my hands. “Oh.”
“Oh?!”
“Oh?” Avery was right there with me. Her hand found her hip. “Oh what, Kevin? What did you say?”
“Nothing.” He jerked up a shoulder, or tried to. I was still holding him. “I did mention her mom, but it wasn’t in a bad way.” He held his hands up, pleading. “Really. I didn’t mean to upset her. I just thought she was having a hard time because she didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“My feelings?” I growled.
“You know, because I told her how I felt. I didn’t know she was crying about her mom. I thought it was about being with me, like she’d made a mistake or something. I was trying to tell her everything would be all right.”
I wanted to do so much more than bodily harm, but I forced my hands to let go. He dropped to his feet, and I stepped back. I was going to rip this guy if I didn’t get out of here. Turning, I said to Avery, “Take care of her.”
“Where are you going?”
“Anywhere away from that guy.”
I ended up at my parents’ house, and Colton sat next to me. He handed me a beer, keeping a water for himself. Marcus came in and sat down. I hadn’t called him, but I assumed Avery had. Colton got up and came back with a second beer for his other brother.
Marcus leaned forward. “What do you want us to do to him?”
SUMMER
Caden…
A voice whispered his name in the back of my mind. Bits and pieces came back to me. Caden said he loved me, and I remembered going to see Kevin after that. Then the big fucking hole that I’d covered over since my mom’s passing ripped open last night, and there was no closing it again. I broke down. There was no other way to say it.
Summer Stoltz had taken a cruise to Insanity Sea, and now I was docked back on land. And I felt the shit. I was the shit. Shithead Summer—that was my new name. I groaned, catching my head in my hands. “Oh, no.”
“What?”
“He was here, wasn’t he?”
Avery was here with me. Shell. And I think Claudia, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. I still wasn’t a fan of the bitchy pit bull who never apologized for her wrongdoings. I sat on the floor of a bathroom. I guessed it was Kevin’s because of the towels with an embroidered K on them.
I scrambled up from the floor. “I have to go.”
“Wait. Where are you going?”
“He told me he loved me, and then I broke down. I have to make it right.”
I was out the door when I heard Avery ask behind me, “Kevin did?”
“He’s not here.”
The shed was empty, so I went looking for Caden in the house. I followed a guy to the kitchen and out to the backyard.
“What do you mean he’s not here?”
He dumped the bag of ice he’d been carrying into a cooler and shrugged. “I mean he’s not here. He took off for a bit.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Carl,” another guy yelled, sticking his head out the door. “Fill that up and just stay there. We’ve got the drinks coming. I need you to man the bar. Got it?”
“Got it.”
The guy at the door stared at me before he slipped back inside. I frowned. What had that been about? It didn’t matter. I needed to make everything better, explain my feelings. That’s what mattered.
I folded my arms over my chest. “We were talking.”
He frowned, glancing at me. He had to stay put to man the bar, so that meant I had him cornered.
I wasn’t above tapping my foot like a five year old. “Spill it.” Caden was their unofficial leader. They always knew where he was.