Chapter 3
Sam
The house is already too alive by the time we arrive.
The party is in full swing. Music pulses through the walls, shaking the floorboards, bass hard enough to punch through my ribs. Laughter rings out from the back somewhere close.
The air is a fever dream, humid and buzzing, heavy with heat and hormones and that reckless, end-of-week energy that turns normal people into chaos junkies.
Every hallway’s stuffed wall-to-wall with people who look like they live for nights like this—glossed lips, sweaty necks, hands grazing hips with the kind of casual confidence that only ever happens after three drinks and a lie.
Someone has killed the living room lights and replaced them with strands of tangled fairy lights that cast everything in a soft, flickering gold.
A spinning LED disco thing throws red and blue across the ceiling as if it’s recreating a crime scene in slow motion.
It’s dizzying and disorienting. Which is probably the point.
The kitchen’s a mess. Red Solo cups litter the counters and the floor, one tipped sideways and still leaking onto someone’s abandoned phone. There’s a haze of burned food still clinging to the air. Maybe a frozen pizza someone forgot in the oven, or microwave popcorn nuked past the point of saving.
No one seems bothered. In fact, someone’s dancing in front of the open fridge with the door alarm blaring and a slice of cake in their hand, frosting smudged across their cheek.
Girls pass by in groups of three, trailing glitter and whispers, weaving around guys with cocky smiles and eyes that scan for someone to entertain them.
Lola grips my hand as we move further inside. Her eyes are lit with a wild, reckless spark. She loves nights like this where the music’s too loud, the hallway’s too narrow, and the tension hums as if it’s wired into the walls.
Noah’s ahead of us with Aubrey tucked against his side, cutting a clean path through the mess of bodies, parting the crowd without saying a word.
Liz trails behind, hunched small, as if shrinking might make the night less sharp. Her shoulders are pulled tight, and her arms are wrapped around herself.
She told us the news on the way here. In the driveway, before we walked in, her voice cracked in a way that makes your own throat sting in sympathy.
Liz couldn’t look at any of us when she said it. She stared at the steering wheel, fingers locked so tight around it that her knuckles went white, and turned off the engine as if she were trying to stall the moment.
Her dad’s transfer came through. Out of nowhere. Another state. Another school. End of everything. No warning. No vote. Just a conversation behind closed doors and a decision handed down like a sentence.
No choice.
Now she’s supposed to pretend everything’s fine while the ground’s already slipping out from under her feet. She’s supposed to dance in someone else’s house, fake a smile, laugh at inside jokes she won’t be around to hear for much longer—all while her whole world burns quietly in the background.
Aubrey doesn’t know yet. She rocked up with Noah, still glowing from whatever they were doing before this.
Her hand’s in his back pocket, her mouth close to his ear.
They missed the driveway breakdown. Missed Liz’s voice cracking and the way she kept wiping at her face when she thought we weren’t looking.
I want to say something comforting to her, but the words won’t come.
Something like… "Hey, it’ll be okay. We’ll figure something out."
But there is no figuring this out. Not when her whole life’s been rerouted by a decision she didn’t get to be a part of. And especially when everything she knows is being packed up and shipped off, and all she gets is a weak “you’ll adjust” and a deadline.
Even Lola didn’t know what to say, and she never shuts up.
She sat there in the back seat, eyes wide, mouth opening and closing, but nothing came out. For once, the girl who talks the head off anyone within a ten-foot radius, especially now that Tia’s stopped treating her like a chew toy, had nothing to say. That’s a first these days.
We end up dead center of the room, too exposed, too visible, exactly the kind of place I never used to stand. That’s the problem with hanging out with people like Noah. Once you’re part of the orbit, you can’t simply disappear. Eyes follow. Whispers chase. There’s no place to hide.
I grab a soda from a half-melted cooler. Cold bubbles rush up and bite at the back of my throat. It’s fizzy and pointless. Sugar and noise falsely appearing to be something more powerful. But it keeps my hands busy. It keeps me from folding.
Across the room, Reece is already prowling.
He leans against the kitchen counter, red cup dangling from his fingers, head tilted enough to make it look effortless as he laughs at something Jace says.
He’s entirely too aware of the way every girl within a ten-foot radius keeps glancing his way when they think no one’s looking. He drinks it all in as if attention’s his oxygen.
No doubt the second he spots Noah, he’ll drift over.
That’s how it works now. We’re all orbiting the same damn planet lately, pulled in tighter ever since Aubrey and Noah got together.
I watch him for a second longer.
His eyes roam the room, lazy, practiced. They skim, linger, move on. Until they lock onto me.
His grin retreats enough to make my stomach turn because I know that look. That stillness that says he’s just found something worth breaking.
My stomach drops. That low, twisting free-fall kind of drop that says “run”, but my feet refuse to move. My fingers tighten around the soda bottle, nails digging into the plastic.
I turn away.
“You good?” Aubrey murmurs beside me when she notices the shift in me.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Just hot.”
She nods but doesn’t push.
I let the lie hang between us.
Nicole drifts past with two of her loyal little bitches, the same ones who thought it would be hilarious earlier to corner me in the school corridor and announce, nice and loud for an audience, “Red hair, fire crotch, and still nobody is brave enough to fuck her.”
Tia’s stationed near the hallway, arms crossed tight over her chest, watching the room with that smug half-smile she wears when she thinks she still runs the place.
Something’s going down. I can feel it. It’s in the way Lola’s been giving a running commentary for weeks now, reporting every hallway whisper like a scandal analyst with a grudge. She’s been tracking the shifts in power, the fake smiles, the dirty looks, the not-so-accidental shoulder bumps.
When Tia’s eyes catch mine, the smile drops. Her gaze sharpens. It’s a warning. A reminder. So I don’t forget who she is.
I look away before she can decide to make it worse. Tonight is already loud enough without her trying to prove something.
Liz presses closer to me, her voice barely cutting through the noise. “I hate this place.”
“I know,” I say, turning to face her. “We can leave whenever.”
“Give it some time,” Lola says, eyes tracking something across the room.
Reece chooses that exact moment to drift closer. I feel him before I see him. The way the air shifts. The way the noise seems to bend around him.
Jace strides up to Noah, already a little drunk, and smacks a hand against Noah’s chest. “There he is. The King of Eastern High. Thought you’d finally outgrown these scenes.”
Noah raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t realize I needed your permission to show up.”
Jace laughs, slinging an arm around his shoulder like they’re best friends and not two seconds from pissing each other off. “Relax, golden boy. I’m surprised you’re not off being wholesome somewhere. You know, babysitting puppies, reading to orphans or making out with Aubrey.”
Noah shoves him off. “Are you done?”
Jace smirks. “Not even close.” His eyes slide sideways and follow a girl in a short skirt. “But don’t worry, I’ll behave. Probably.”
Jace turns to Reece, but Reece is already stepping into my space.
I take another sip of my soda, completely ignoring him.
His gaze drops to my drink, then rises slowly.
His mouth curls. “What is that? Cola?”
I don’t answer.
“Figures,” he says. “Too much of a good girl to taste anything real.”
Jace laughs behind him, already amused.
Reece’s eyes stay locked on mine. He wants a reaction. Wants to rattle me, throw me off enough that I fall right into any game he is engaged in.
I take a slow sip, and meet his gaze, steady.
“Why don’t you go use your little words on someone who’ll actually trip over them?” I say coolly. “Because here, they’re background noise to a life you’ll never get invited into.”
Reece’s smile sharpens, all swagger and sin. He steps in closer, gaze dropping to my mouth.
“Careful, Red. Keep looking at me like that and I’ll start thinking you want to be the reason my sheets are a mess.”
I don’t blink. “The only mess I’d ever make in your bed is lighting it on fire,” I say sweetly. “While you’re still in it.”
Jace chokes on his beer. Reece’s grin grows wider.
The sick bastard probably liked it.
The crowd keeps thickening, noise rising with it until the walls feel too tight and the air too hot. The music blares through cheap speakers. Someone starts chanting along with the chorus, off-key and too loud, dragging a few drunk voices with them until it turns into a sloppy anthem.
A couple grind against the wall near the staircase, mouths locked together, hands roaming like they forgot where they are. Someone tosses a pillow at them from across the room, but they barely flinch.
More bodies press in. Solo cups are being refilled. Laughter spikes in the hallway. A guy stumbles backward through the archway, catches himself on the doorframe, and throws his arms up like he scored a goal.
Reece and Jace left us a while ago, and I can finally breathe. The air feels lighter without their egos sucking up all the oxygen.
Aubrey checks her phone before looking up with a grin tugging at her mouth. “Hey. Noah and I are heading out to the lake.”