Maybe I can pass myself off as someone else. A new girl in town whose parents have bought a home here . . . Normal. Nothing gossip-worthy.
We park in the next available gap, adding to the wide circle that all of the trucks are starting to form. Blake kills the engine and throws off his seatbelt, already sliding out of the vehicle.
“Nervous?” Myles asks in the new silence that has formed inside the truck. When I look up at him, his cheeky smile is directed at me. He’s kind of goofy, but in an attractive way. He playfully purses his lips. “Don’t worry. They’ll like you.”
“You’ll fit right in,” Savannah adds.
Really?
The Bennett siblings climb out of the truck and I follow suit, tugging at the belt loops of my jean shorts to keep my hands busy. My naval piercing shines under the lights, the aquamarine gemstone glittering – my birthstone. My parents still don’t know about it, but for once they aren’t around to see it. There’s a kind of thrill in knowing my parents are a thousand miles away and have zero control over me for however long I’m here. It lets me do things like flash my piercing to the world without fear of repercussions.
“I like that.”
My eyes slide over to find Blake acknowledging my piercing with a clipped nod.
I hug my arms around myself and look him up and down in return. I feel oddly weird about Blake noticing, mostly because I fear he’s making fun of me. I let his remarks in the truck slide only because I’m trying to make some friends, but he strikes me as being . . . Well, maybe not the nicest person around here. Not as welcoming as his cousins, and definitely harder to read.
Blake scoffs at my protective stance. “Why get a piercing if you’re going to hide it?”
He turns away, moving to the back of the truck to help Myles lower the tailgate. I flip a strand of hair away from my face in irritation as he effortlessly springs up into the truck bed and hauls different items around, slabs of muscle shifting in his arms.
Luckily, Savannah appears by my side as a distraction. She grasps my wrist. “Let’s go say hi to Tori.”
I let her guide me along through the circle of trucks. A couple more pull up, filling in the remaining gaps, and everyone gets set up. People are lowering their tailgates, dragging out chairs and coolers and snacks. I spot someone unwrapping disposable grills and lining up packets of hot-dog buns on the bed of their truck. The atmosphere is lively, and I enjoy the buzz of voices that gradually grows louder and louder. Everyone seems to be in good spirits.
“Tori, come down here for a sec,” Savannah says as she brings me to a halt by the truck with the girl who’s setting up the speakers.
“Hang on,” Tori says over her shoulder, fiddling with notches on the speakers with one hand and scrolling through her phone with the other. After a second, music echoes through the speakers, a nice R&B groove, which is a welcome change from the country we were listening to on the drive over here. She lowers the volume to a respectable level, then spins around with a proud grin plastered over her face. “There. Call me the tech wizard.”
“I need to introduce you to someone,” Savannah tells her.
Tori jumps down from the truck, pulls Savannah into a hug, then faces me, arm still slung around Savannah’s shoulder. So, they’re best friends.
“This is Mila,” Savannah explains. “She was in our class in grade school.”
“Ohhhh,” Tori says with a knowing wink. Her hair is dyed a bold pink that pops brightly against her bronze skin and there’s a stud piercing in her nose. “Mila Harding. Hey, girl. You’re back.” She steps forward and draws me into a tight hug, enveloping me in a luscious scent of perfume, and I awkwardly embrace her in return even though I have no recollection of ever knowing her.
Is this how it’s going to be? My childhood peers can all remember me because of course they’ll be well aware that once they went to school with the kid of an A-lister, but I can’t quite recall any of them because in the last decade my childhood memories have been somehow overtaken by more exciting, glamorous ones. I can remember every peculiar detail of meeting the Kardashians, the super-luxe thrill of taking a private jet to Paris. But I’m struggling to unearth memories of Savannah and Tori from first grade, of playing tetherball in the schoolyard. How shallow does that make me?
For a second, I feel guilty. But it’s not like I forgot my life here on purpose. I was just too young.
“Yeah, I’m back,” I tell Tori with an unconvincing smile.
“For good?”
“At least for the foreseeable future.”
Tori and Savannah exchange a look, using silent communication as their secret best-friend language, one that perhaps I’d understand if I’d actually grown up with them. But I didn’t.
Suddenly, a loud clattering echo rings out around the parking lot. I startle at the sound, then relax when I look over my shoulder to see Blake standing in the back of his truck, banging barbecue tongs against the floor of the truck bed. The buzz of voices trails off and everyone instinctively congregates in a semi-circle around Blake. Tori turns down the music to play as background noise.
“All right, guys, thanks for coming to the June tailgate,” Blake says, flopping down onto the truck bed and hanging his legs over the edge.
I haven’t figured out much of the group’s dynamics yet, other than the fact that Savannah and Tori are obviously best friends, but it seems Blake is the one in charge. He totally seems like the type who would be.
“Y’all can thank Barney for the cookout this time. Tori’s got the music. If anyone’s got beer, just don’t be a jackass and don’t drive home,” Blake tells the listening crowd, like a homeroom teacher delivering the morning announcements. It’s kind of fascinating how civilized this all is. “And some of you might have already noticed we have a new face here tonight.”
Oh, God, no.
Obviously, everyone has already noticed, because their gazes have all landed on me without Blake even having to point me out. I shrink into myself, hunching my shoulders and wishing I had a jacket to shield myself behind. Dad might love having all eyes on him, but I hate it.
“This is Mila,” Blake says, his twang clear and pronounced over the vowels in my name. His eyes lock on mine and I glower back, cheeks flaring with heat. I swear, just for a split second, he smirks as though he’s getting a kick out of embarrassing me like this. Then he blinks and looks away. “So, everybody make sure you make Miss Mila welcome.”
Miss Mila? I grit my teeth and glare at him even harder, wishing I could scorch him with the power of my eyes alone. What exactly is this guy’s problem? Because it sounds like he’s making fun of me for being here, which is ridiculous considering he doesn’t even know me. I only met him two minutes ago! Maybe I should have emphasized back in the truck that I’d like to fly under the radar, because this is not maintaining a low profile.