I hear the breath catch. “Okay...” She turns and smiles at me and right on cue, my dick twitches.
“And it hasn’t been easy,” I admit sheepishly.
“Good, because it’s not easy for me either,” Aimee says and laughs when my eyebrows go up. “Can we agree that you’re staying over tonight?”
“Fuck,” I growl, glancing in the rearview mirror. I need to maneuver my truck into a street spot between two cars, but I’m not going to be able to manage this shit if I can’t get my head straight. “Let’s just talk about it later.”
Her mouth goes sideways. “Fine. Right now is about me going with you to a party and meeting your friends.”
“Yes. And you have nothing to worry about. I honestly don’t give a rat’s ass what they think because they’re bastards for the most part. But I do like that you care. It’s the same for me. Why do you think I let you drag me to that bar on Saturday? You know, the place with the black and red lacquered walls where dreams go to die.”
“Are you saying that death-punk or whatever that was called isn’t your scene and you went just for Jodi and Kyle?” She teases.
I kill the ignition and turn so that I can look at her. My right hand automatically goes the side of her face. Fuck. Her skin is so soft and warm. Now that I know that I’m allowed, I’m always touching her. I can’t seem to stop myself.
She closes her eyes, bends her cheek into my palm, and my greedy dick starts to harden even more. I lean forward—close enough that her breath tickles my mouth and nose. “No,” I say quietly. “I did it for you.”
Aimee
The party feels like a test. How well can you pull off this whole normal thing, Aimee?
Cole says that it doesn’t matter how tonight goes and maybe he’s telling the truth. Maybe it really doesn’t matter to him.
The truth is that it matters to me.
As soon as we walk in, we’re assaulted with the loud, brassy thump of music and voices that are even louder. The house is full to the brim with people pressing into the high-ceilinged living room from all sides. The furniture has been pushed to one wall to form a makeshift dance floor in the center of the room and there’s a group—mostly girls—grinding and sweating with their bright red plastic cups held high in the air. The bitter smell of weed filters out of a narrow hallway to my nose.
Everything about the scene reeks of familiarity. House parties used to be the norm for me. This used to be the norm. Smiling, laughing, flirting, dancing, drinking, getting stoned.
The last party I went to was on the night that Jillian died. Standing here just inside the front door, I can’t help but think of her with her hair down around her shoulders and that blue shirt on. She was laughing. She was always laughing.
“Give them to me,” she said as she took my keys out of my hand and stuffed them in the front pocket of her shorts. “You’re toasted my dear.”
I pursed my lips and cocked one eyebrow. “And you’re not?”
She smiled cockily, pushed her bangs out of her face. “I’m fine.”
But I knew better.
I knew it. Didn’t I?
“You okay?” Cole shouts above the noise.
I nod stiffly and swallow.
“Let’s go outside. “He links his fingers with mine and pulls me closer to his body. “I’m guessing that’s where the guys are.”
I follow him, squeezing through the bodies and trying to ignore some of the looks that I’m getting. A blonde girl with impossibly long legs and in-your-face breasts is openly scowling at me from the other side of the room. She has one of those faces that you remember and I place her as the girl that Cole was with on the day that I met him. Kate, he’d said her name was. Kate and her friends are whispering about something and I can’t help but think that the something is me.
Cole looks back once and smiles reassuringly but a nasty sensation has already slithered down my throat.
I wish Jilly were here, I think suddenly. She’d push a finger into my side and say something generically reassuring like just go with it, or show ‘em what you’re made of, and I’d roll my eyes and tell her that she was being silly and clichéd, but secretly I’d feel better.
Still holding my hand, Cole leads me down a set of wide wooden steps to an exterior porch spanning the length of the house. Floodlights angle down from opposite corners, spilling circles of yellowish light over the space. A badly made tiki bar surrounded by mismatched stools is leaning against one wall. Just beyond the porch railing, there’s a long rectangular table where some guys are playing beer pong.