“Yeah, a 20-foot Alerion. She’s fast, but also small enough for me to take her out single-handed.” I smile at the thought of my most prized possession, bobbing at her slip back home. “It was a sixteenth birthday present from my parents.”
“Most girls probably would’ve preferred a convertible.”
“I guess.” I shift against the stone, uncomfortable. “But I usually get a ride everywhere with Archer, since he lives right next door. I wouldn’t have much use for a car of my own.”
“Right, I forgot. You and Reyes.” He sighs. “You’ve been his little shadow for as long as I can remember. Before he joined the team, I don’t think I’d ever seen him without you by his side.”
I’m not sure what to say to that, so I don’t say anything at all. We lapse into silence. It’s not an uncomfortable one, though. Just the sound of the waves and the thudding of my pulse, beating a bit too fast inside my veins.
“So what’s the deal with you two, anyway?” Ryan asks suddenly.
“Me and Archer?” I squeak. “There’s no deal. We’re just friends.”
“Uh huh.”
“You don’t sound very convinced.”
He shrugs. “Just not sure I buy it.”
“Buy what?”
“That a guy and a girl can ever really be just friends.”
Feeling brave, I nudge his shoulder with mine. “What about you and me — we’re friends now, aren’t we?”
He’s silent for such a long beat, I begin to regret my words. Damn. Maybe I overshot. Maybe I misread this entire situation. Maybe he’s just a nice guy taking pity on the weird loner girl at the party and—
“What if I said I didn’t want to just be your friend, Valentine?”
My mouth gapes in shock at his question. I blunder with fragments of disbelief and incomprehension, trying to cobble them into a single coherent thought… trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do next.
Ryan doesn’t seem confused. Not at all. He’s following a script no one bothered to share with me — looking into my eyes, leaning closer. So close, I can smell the beer on his breath, can see the freckles dotted across the bridge of his nose.
I feel dazed — from the alcohol in my veins, from his unexpected words, from this entire night. I can’t move. I can’t do anything except watch him narrow that gap between us, his mouth heading straight for mine.
He’s going to kiss me, I think stupidly. My first kiss. It’s finally happening.
At seventeen, it is a milestone long overdue. But now that it’s finally arrived, I’m oddly unsettled — which makes no sense at all. How can something I’ve been waiting for forever somehow feel so incredibly rushed?
Probably because it’s happening with the wrong person.
I push away the unwelcome thought and try to focus on the boy in front of me. The one who finds me funny and mysterious. The one who wants to kiss me in the starlight, with the waves crashing a stone’s throw away. The one who is actually interested in being more than just my friend.
I’m not sure what’s more pathetic — the fact that, in this moment, with Ryan’s mouth a hairsbreadth from my own, I can’t stop wishing I was about to kiss someone entirely different… or that I’m still wasting wishes on that someone, when he’s probably inside at this exact moment with his tongue in some other girl’s mouth.
Stop.
Thinking.
About.
Archer.
Closing my eyes, I square my shoulders and brace myself for the brush of Ryan’s lips. Only… it never comes. Instead, I hear the sudden rush of footsteps, followed shortly by the dull thud of a fist making impact with a cheek. I hear a male roar — one I recognize all too well.
“Get the fuck off her!”
My heart stops.
I know that voice.
Ryan’s warmth is ripped abruptly from my side. By the time I manage to open my eyes and register what’s going on, he’s sprawled in the grass ten feet away. Standing above him with clenched fists, his chest pumping harder than the pistons of a steamer engine, is the last person in the world I expect to see at this moment.
“Archer!” I spring to my feet, stumbling a bit in the process. “Are you out of your mind?!”
My best friend doesn’t look at me. He’s too busy glaring down at Ryan, who’s still sprawled in the grass moaning lightly, clutching his cheek. A bruise is already blooming.
“Oh god, Ryan…” I wince, starting in his direction. “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine.”
Archer’s voice is cold as ice. I actually shiver at the sound of it, my steps faltering to a sudden stop halfway between the two boys — one on the ground, looking as bewildered as I feel, the other looming like a thunderstorm, electrically charged with inexplicable anger.
“You hit me, man!” Ryan clambers to his feet. “What the hell?”
Archer offers no explanation. His jaw is locked so tight, I’m not sure he’s able to breathe, let alone speak. For the life of me, I cannot fathom what’s set him off. He’s never acted like this before, in all the years I’ve known him. Not once.
Of the two of us, I’m the one with the temper. I’m the one who flips out and storms off, sulking until he talks me down with that calm voice, those deep eyes. We balance one another — me a boiling froth, him a steady undercurrent. Where I’m dramatic, he’s unperturbed. While I overreact, he takes everthing in stride.
At least… usually.
This black rage of his, this swelling anger, dark enough to blot out the stars… it’s a side I’ve never seen before.
A side I’m not certain I like.
“Archer…” His name comes out almost as a plea. “What is going on?”
Ryan glances at me. “Come on, Valentine. I think we should go.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you, Snyder.” Archer steps forward, his eyes locked on Ryan with lethal precision. “You should walk away. Before I make you walk away.”
“That a threat, Reyes?”
“A promise.”
“Archer!” I cry out, half-angry, half-astonished by his behavior.
His eyes cut to me for the briefest of seconds. When I sway on my feet, still not one hundred percent in control of my balance, he looks swiftly away again, his jaw even tighter than before.
“Look, man…” Ryan’s nostrils flare. “I don’t know what your problem is, but—”
Archer cuts him off. “Right now? You. I told you to piss off once already. You won’t like the way I tell you again.”
Rage gathers inside my chest, overriding all the confusion and embarrassment fighting for purchase. Before I know it, I’m barreling in my best friend’s direction, so angry, I can barely see straight. (The buzz isn’t helping on that front, either.)
My palms slam against his shoulders, full force. “Have you gone insane?”
He barely even rocks backward — which pisses me off so much, I do it again. Harder. He grunts this time, but doesn’t move more than an inch.
Is the boy made of stone?
“What is the matter with you?” I ask, my words punctuated by a third shove to his shoulders. “You can’t just go around—” Another shove. “—punching people—“ And another. “—for no good reason!”