Chapter 22
LUCA
I don’t really miss my twenties all that much—hard to, when that period of my life was a total wash, basically thrown away—but I especially don’t now, navigating this dark and noisy ass house filled with inebriated twenty-somethings that are scream-laughing at each other just to be heard over the repetitive-sounding music that’s being played at club levels.
The noise isn’t just painful, it’s downright oppressive, rattling the paintings on the walls.
It’s hard to breathe around, almost, it’s so loud. I can only hope for respite upstairs.
(It’s finally happening, I think. I’m turning into the get off my lawn guy. I’m shaking my fist at the youths.)
And the whole point of me coming with Noel was so that he didn’t have to do this alone.
I don’t want to leave him alone. Facing the person who has tormented him for so long.
Abused him, emotionally and physically. This was not the plan, or at least not mine.
Not that I really had one beyond being here with him, but it wasn’t this.
Wanted to present a united front, at the very least, if I couldn’t just murder Jordan myself. I feel sick leaving him.
But if Jordan’s going after his friend, that takes priority.
Although it’s sort of hard to look for a guy whose face I’ve only seen in pictures on Noel’s social media, especially when the environment is so dim and overwhelming.
Tan guy with curly black hair, great brows and green eyes only goes so far when everyone’s features kind of blur together in the darkness, and they’re all standing in clusters, even by the stairs. Even on the stairs.
“Excuse me,” I mutter.
Someone laughs. Someone else says who the fuck is that guy and another person chimes in I don’t know but just look at those tattoos!
I reflect, briefly, that this could’ve been a great place to hand out my card if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m trying to find a would-be date rapist and his maybe victim.
So many artists book parties nowadays. I’ve never done it, personally, or even considered it, mostly because I refuse to work on anyone who is intoxicated, but I know artists who have no such qualms. It’s not illegal in Massachusetts.
And I don’t even know what I’m going to do, exactly, when I find Jamil—if I find Jamil—or what on earth I’ll even say.
Doubly so if he’s drunk or high like everyone else, which I assume that he will be.
Hi, I’m Noel’s boyfriend that you all hate for mostly justifiably reasons, and that you think is a pedophile for some whack reason.
I’m here to…rescue you? Cue an explanation that will absolutely not make sense to someone under the influence, a story that’s not mine to tell but presumably I have permission to tell it, now, considering the circumstances.
Which I hope are irrelevant. Jordan cannot be that stupid.
Or, well, maybe he can. He didn’t seem all that bright at our first meeting. Just a spoiled shit stain who was used to getting his way and knew all the right words to ensure that outcome. And on the off chance he doesn’t get it, he fights dirty.
I do know what I’ll do if I find Jordan, so I’m hoping it’s him I find. Alone.
I squeeze my way through the crowded stairway and take the first few steps two at a time until the back of my shirt is seized so violently I nearly topple over backwards.
I grab the banister and just manage to stay on my feet, and when I turn to see who the fuck just tried to break my neck, I find none other than that Kris kid from earlier.
The one who badly needs to tone his hair or at least invest in purple shampoo—it’s that obvious.
“Where are you going?” He’s slurring, one hand still furled in the hem of my shirt. “Where’s your boyfriend?”
I try, gently, to pry his fingers off. “Looking for a friend.” That seems vague and safe.
“Oh my God.” His bright blue eyes are saucer-wide. “Are you gonna cheat on him too? What a sucker he is. What’s his name again? Noah? Nico?”
“Noel.” The correction is automatic, but if he’s going talk shit, he might as well get it right. “And no. Can you let me go?”
He does relinquish me, to my mild surprise, but he’s not finished with me yet.
He continues to dog my steps all the way to the top landing.
“I’m not, like, averse or anything. To sleeping with someone else’s boyfriend, y’know, ‘cause I’ve done before.
My friends started calling me a home wrecker, but whatever. ”
“You’re drunk.” The bedrooms are all wide open, and there’s people hanging out in every single one, even the master bed—which I can only assume belongs to the elusive host’s parents. The skunky smell of weed emanating forth is almost painfully nostalgic.
“No shit,” Kris replies briskly. “And you’re obnoxiously sober.”
“Have any of you seen a guy named Jamil?” I ask the nearest stoner, a girl with long beachy waves that shroud her like a veil. “Or Jordan?” She glances sidelong at the picture I proffer on my phone, shakes her head and offers me a hit off her vape. I politely decline.
No luck in the second bedroom, either, as far as I can tell, though there’s a handful of couples dry humping on the bed.
The only curly head I see belongs to a guy with a mullet that reminds me of broccoli, and his lips are firmly attached to the girl’s beneath him.
The other two are also women—so they’re out, too.
I decide it’s not worth disturbing them to ask.
“Why are you so obsessed with finding Jordan?” Kris is still firmly up my ass, I guess, like a lost puppy that I’m not quite willing to kick, though the urge is growing stronger by the minute.
I ignore him. The third bedroom is surprisingly empty, and the fourth one contains a handful of people all on their phones, sitting on the bed with their backs to each other.
I reiterate my earlier question, but none of them seem to know who Jamil or Jordan are.
They give me mute, annoyed shrugs before going back to their circlejerk-doomscrolling.
“He’s with some other guy, you know,” Kris pipes up unhelpfully.
“Who might be Arab, I think? Which is kind of crazy because he used to tell me that his parents, like, whenever he was dating someone new, the first question they’d ask was what color their skin was.
They’re crazy racist. Lowkey I think Jordan is too. I’m not, though.”
“Kris,” I say patiently, “can you fuck off?”
“But I’m helping.”
“You aren’t.”
“I’m lending my Jordan expertise.”
“You couldn’t have dated him for more than a few months. What expertise?”
“It was two, actually, but that’s a long time if you think about it. In the scheme of things. I mean, I’m only twenty-one.”
Christ alive. I turn and put my hands on his shoulders. “Listen. Unless you know where Jordan and Jamil are right this minute, you are actually being really fucking annoying, and I would like you to leave me alone.”
“Of course I know.” He’s wounded by my comment, a hit dog. “They’re in the basement.”
And I’m wasting my time up here. I brush past him and bolt down the stairs.
I think I hear him staggering after me, tripping, catching himself on the wall, knocking loose one of the nice high school portraits that are hanging—presumably of Mackenzie or whoever, it’s not like I know who that is either—and it comes crashing down onto the steps.
Glass shatters. There’s a brief lull in the sea of clamor and someone calls out, “Party foul!”
A girl’s shoving her way inside the front door as I reach the bottom step.
“Move,” she orders the lingering people, and they swear good-naturedly at her.
“For Christ’s sake, stop blocking the door, get out of the way—” And I realize I recognize her from Noel’s Instagram.
She’s a short and curvy Black girl, box braids down to her waist and bright purple frames sliding down her pert nose.
“Danika?” I say.
Her head whips towards me, and I do see recognition in her eyes. She must know me in the same way. “Oh, shit,” she says in astonishment. “Luca.” She clobbers another person out of her way with a handbag twice the size of herself and wades towards me. “Where’s Noel?”
“Looking for Jamil and Jordan—they’re in the basement, apparently.”
She doesn’t ask any pointless follow-up questions.
“Come on,” she says, seizing my wrist and dragging me past the foyer and down the hall.
Thank God she knows where things are so I don’t have to waste time looking.
She leads me to a door and I follow her wordlessly down to maybe the biggest and most lavish basement I’ve ever seen.
It’s even more crowded down here, if that’s even possible.
It’s a fully finished basement, walls painted with wainscoting and floors carpeted.
A polished bar occupies the far wall, backdropped by shelves of gleaming bottles.
There’s a billiards table at which a group of people are deeply engrossed.
A few arcade machines, including pinball, has the attention of another sizable crowd.
An 85” TV is showing an action movie I’ve never seen, and the surround sound is making the enclosed space sound like a gun range.
There’s even a popcorn machine. This place is a carnival.
Danika doesn’t bat an eye at any of this, and I suppose the ostensible display of wealth must not be anything new to her if she’s familiar with this house.
Instead she makes a beeline for the large and comfortable-looking sectional couch before the TV, and that is where we find one-half of our target: Jamil.
He seems intact enough. His gaze is transfixed to the TV as he shovels mouthful after mouthful of popcorn into his mouth like he’s going to die if he doesn’t mainline this shit.
He doesn’t really register our presence until Danika stands right in front of him, seizing the bucket and dropping it to the floor.
“Hey,” he protests. “What gives?”
She turns, grabs the remote off of the glass coffee table—brave choice for a rumpus room like this, it’s begging to be shattered.
“Turn this shit down. Fucking hell, I can’t hear myself think.
” Someone boos, but no one stops her, including the other two people on the couch watching. Neither of them are Jordan.
“Wait, Danika?” Jamil gives her a bleary look. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you were working.”
“I was. I bailed. Worried about you.”
His bloodshot gaze roves over to me before it nearly pops from his skull.
“Oh, man. Is that who I think it is? Am I fucking hallucinating? Dani, what are you doing paling around with—” He lowers his voice to a comical stage whisper, as if I won’t hear it, and it’s sort of hard not to laugh. “Noel’s boyfriend?”
She leans down and peers into his face. “Did he give you anything?”
“Who?”
“You know who. Jordan! Why the fuck are you hanging around him tonight, anyway? You know he’s a piece of shit. That’s like, a very well-established fact.”
“Huh?” Jamil squints at her, then rubs his eyes. “Oh, I mean—well, my pen’s not charged, and so he shared his with me, so like—”
Then she’s yanking open his eyes to, I don’t fucking know, look at his pupils or something, ascertain whether he’s the subject of a drink spiking or not.
I’m watching him, though, and as far as I can tell—between seeing Noel get practically overdosed with it and seeing Killian roll a few times—that he hasn’t.
He’s still conscious, for one thing, and he’s not got that lovey-dovey gooeiness, either.
“Danika,” I say. “I think he’s just stoned.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. Either that, or it hasn’t kicked in yet. If he had anything.”
“What hasn’t kicked in yet?” Jamil complains, halfheartedly batting Danika off him. She releases him almost reluctantly. “What’s this intervention shit, anyway? Why is Noel’s boyfriend here? Where the hell is Noel?”
“You were posting pics of you and Jordan canoodling,” Danika accuses, poking her finger in his chest. “That alone merits a fucking intervention.”
“It’s not like that,” he protests. “Legit. He saw me struggling and offered to share, and y’know, when he’s high he’s not that bad, he’s sort of okay, really—I mean, only when he’s high, I’m sure when he’s sober he’s still a complete ass—”
“He is!” Kris’ shrill voice rings out behind us. I guess he followed us down here. I rub my forehead as he stumbles into the ottoman and nearly falls over. “You’re a fucking dumbass if you’re actually considering hooking up with him.”
“Oh my god. You guys aren’t my mom.” He slides down the couch until he’s nearly melted off it, his chin to his chest. He glares up at Danika and me. “I can handle myself, you know. And talk to whoever I want. And smoke whoever’s weed I want. And…whatever.”
“You were really going to fuck him?” She’s horrified.
“No! I’m just being cordial.”
“You can’t even be cordial with him, Jamil.
He did something bad to Noel. He—” But she falters, glances at me and then bites her lower lip.
No, it’s not the time or place to divulge this, and I think Jamil’s a little too high to appreciate the full ramifications of it, anyway.
I give her a small shake of the head and she sighs.
“He what?” Kris, sprawled across the ottoman with his straw-like hair covering his face, and I’m not sure when he decided he was joining our party. “What did Jord do?”
“Nothing,” I say automatically, and then to Jamil I say, “Where’s Jordan right now? Do you know?”
“Um. Uh.” He squints and screws up his face. “Shit, where did he go? I can’t remember what he said…” He’s eyeballing his bucket of popcorn, slowly contorting his body in its direction. “He’s been gone for a while. Well, not a while while. Ten minutes?”
“And he didn’t say?” Danika challenges impatiently. She knocks the popcorn over and Jamil cries out miserably. “Fuck your munchies, dude. Use your last two working brain cells and think. Did he leave the party?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” He knots his thick eyebrows. “He said he was gonna up and get us drinks. Which is kinda weird, there’s a literal bar right over there, but he was all, do you wanna have some real fun tonight and I was like, fuck yeah that’s why I came to this stupid ass party—”
“The kitchen,” I say. Of course.
And without waiting for the others, I dash back up the stairs.