“Just tell me he still has his kidneys,” I say with a grin.
“Yeah, yeah. We didn’t chop him or the car for parts.” Jordy waves his hand, then lights the joint. “Anyway. So the guy goes, Car, take me home. And the thing is like, okay, Christopher, here’s your route home. At that point I’m thinking, well, shit. So I rev that baby up and start driving. About a half hour later we get to his stupid-huge mansion down the coast. I’m talking iron gate and topiaries and shit. So we make it there alive and the dude’s like, hey, want to see something cool?”
Always the famous last words. Like the time our buddy Wyatt tried the knife trick from Aliens and had to get thirty-seven stiches and have a tendon reattached. Come to think of it, that was one of the last times Genevieve and I hung out. Which, until all the blood, was a pretty good time. Can’t say for sure how we ended up on the sixty-five-foot Hatteras sportfishing boat out in the middle of the bay, only that we had a nightmare of a time getting it to the dock and somehow still managed to come ashore about ten miles from where we were aiming. Navigating gets a hell of a lot harder in the dark after a few Fireballs.
I can’t believe I’d almost forgotten about that night. But I guess I’ve done a lot of forgetting over the last year. Or tried to, at least. For a while, I expected Gen would show up as if nothing had happened. Like she overslept for six months. Then seven, eight months—a year gone, and I’d finally trained myself to stop thinking about her every time this thing or that reminded me of another time when. So of course, just when I’ve almost got her out of my system, she’s back. A fresh, unfiltered shot straight into my bloodstream when I was damn near clean. Now all I taste are her lips. I feel her nails down my back every night while I’m lying in bed. I wake up hearing her voice. It’s infuriating.
“This crazy bastard thinks he’s Hawkeye or some shit,” Jordy says, passing the joint around the circle. “Running around with a bow, shooting flaming arrows all over his backyard. I’m like, nah, white boy, I’ve seen this movie. The guys and I are gonna bail but, oh, right, we drove this dude’s car and we’re stuck out here behind an iron gate.”
I can’t help glancing toward the house. I keep expecting Gen to come walking out of the shadows. I feel Mackenzie giving me the eye and realize she’s caught me looking. Or rather, caught me hoping. Because I know Heidi or one of the girls will have invited Gen, and if she doesn’t come, it’s because she’d rather hide out at her dad’s place than chance seeing me again. The notion seriously grates.
“We have to make a run for it because this dude is out of his mind, and we’re climbing through these damn hedges and getting all cut up. I’ve got Danny on my shoulder to heave him up over the fence. Juan is trying to get an Uber but the reception sucks, so the app isn’t loading. We’re hauling ass, hearing all kinds of commotion behind us, while I’m thinking, one of these rich folks are going to think that house is burning down and call the cops on us. Sure enough, about ten minutes later, we’re heading back toward the main road and a car comes up real slow behind us.”
I hear a voice and look over my shoulder. It’s Gen, standing a few yards away with Heidi and some of the girls. She’s wearing a long-sleeve shirt falling off one shoulder and barely revealing a tiny pair of shorts hugging her ass like they’re painted on. Long black hair cascades down her back. Kill me.
Gen’s got this way about her. Confident and cool but with this edge of absolute batshit terror, like at any moment she could blow a kiss and drag a knife through your parachute, then push you out of a plane. There’s nothing sexier than the way her blue eyes smile when she’s got mayhem on her mind.
“Then the car stops. Man, my chest is pounding. A guy sticks his head out the window and shouts at us: Get in, assholes. Drunk Lannister is on the loose and it’s the Battle of the Blackwater out there.”
The group erupts in laughter. The fire flashes as someone coughs up a mouthful of beer. I note Gen is pointedly not looking in this direction.
Jordy gets the joint back and takes a hit. “Turns out Luke went home with some clone chick down the street and was outside when they saw this dude shooting off these arrows, which caught at least two boats on fire at their docks. Neighbors were running out of their houses firing back flares. Like, sheer madness.”
Cooper catches me watching Gen. Without a word, I hear him scolding me. Then he shakes his head, which may as well be a dare. He might be settled down, but I still intend to have a good time. And I know Gen. Maybe she was on some cold turkey kick before, but now that she’s back, there’s no point in either of us pretending we know how to stay away from each other. It’s chemistry.
Wandering away from the bonfire, I approach her. I’m half hard already, thinking about the last time I saw her. Legs wrapped around me. Teeth digging into my shoulder. My skin still bears the marks she left behind. Just the sight of her has me wanting to take her to bed and make up for time lost.
She feels me coming before I open my mouth, casting her gaze over her shoulder. There’s the briefest flicker of recognition—the shared spark of lust and longing—before her expression turns impassive.
“What are you drinking?” I say as what I figure is an easy way in.
“I’m not.”
It’s awkward right from the off. All the familiarity of our conversation back at her house—gone. To the point that even Heidi and Steph wince with embarrassment.
“What do you want?” I ask, ignoring her attitude. If that’d ever worked on me, we wouldn’t have kept getting back together. “I’ll run up to the house and make you something.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Gen stares off at the waves climbing up the sand.
I stifle a sigh. “Can we talk? Take a walk with me.”
She pulls her hair over her shoulder in a move I recognize right away. It’s her fuck-off flip. The I’ve-already-stopped-hearing-you hair toss. Like we’re strangers.
“Yeah, no,” she says, voice flat and all but unrecognizable. “I’m not even sticking around. Just stopped by to say hey.”
But not to me.
“So it’s like that?” I try to curb the bite in my tone and fail. “You come back here and pretend you don’t know me?”
“Okay,” Heidi interjects with a bored roll of her eyes. “Thanks for stopping by, but this is a penis-free zone tonight. Run along, Evan.”
“Fuck off, Heidi.” She’s always been a shit-stirrer.
“Yep, happy to.” At that, she and Steph drag Gen closer to the bonfire and leave me standing there like an idiot.
Cool. Whatever. I don’t need this aggravation. Genevieve wants to play games, fine. I grab a beer from the cooler and notice a group of girls stroll up to the party looking like they stumbled out of Daddy’s Bentley. They’re all dressed in the same sort of little ruffle tops and short skirts—straight off the clone assembly line. Definitely Garnet students, and my money’s on sorority sisters. Gen’s complete opposites in every way. They stand around looking lost and confused for a minute, until one of them homes in on me.
She tries her best to look chill while slipping in the sand to stride over. With too much lip gloss, she smiles at me. “Can I get a drink?”