Five #2
‘We don’t have to stay long, okay? Just come in and eat, and I’ll drive you home in an hour.’ Shifting both bags of food to one hand, Heath holds his free one out to me, pinky extended. ‘Promise.’
I stare blankly at the little finger wrapped in a thin, gold ring and marked with a tiny crescent moon. ‘What am I supposed to do with that?’
‘Jesus.’ The tan digit wiggles pointedly. ‘Were you ever let outside as a child?’
I bristle. I try not to, but I do. Just like I try not to snap, but I do that anyway too.
‘I was joking.’ Rougher than necessary, I loop my pinky around his pinky and grant him his stupid promise. ‘You get forty-five minutes.’
As if sensing the clock starts the very minute the words leave my mouth, Heath wastes no time dragging me inside.
The noise hits me immediately. Loud music first, and then, once my ears have attuned to the unsettling volume, I pick out voices. Laughter. A hollered round of greetings when Heath calls out, ‘We’re here.’
‘We?’ someone answers, and my stomach just about falls out of my ass.
I swing a glare on Heath. ‘They don’t know I’m coming?’
At least he has the decency to look mildly sheepish – however, he does not have the decency to stifle a smile. ‘They like surprises.’
‘Heath.’ Fuck our deal. Fuck him. I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him and then I’m going to get the hell out of here and I’m going to chalk this whole dumbass idea up to delusion, and—
‘Holy shit.’
Briefly, my eyes close. My heart pounds. I feel, for a moment, like a little girl. Scared and small and completely out of my depth. And then I open my eyes, pin them on the group crowding the doorway at the end of the hall, gaping at me, and I smile as evenly, as nicely, as I’m capable of. ‘Hi.’
‘Holy shit,’ someone repeats. The same voice as the first time – Kai. Kai, who shoulders his way around his friends to stride down the hall and punch his best friend on the shoulder. ‘Fucking hell, Belfort. You actually finally did it.’
I get a millisecond to be confused, to be curious, before my attention is stolen by a squeal and a flurry of red hair and bright blue eyes an inch away from my face, belonging to the girl who clasps me by the biceps and gives me a shake. ‘It’s you!’
‘Easy, Matty,’ Heath chides gently, playfully, his hand landing on the small of my back. ‘Don’t scare her away.’
Matty – Matilda, she introduces herself in a high-pitched flurry of words – loosens her grip, channeling a little of that over-excitement into another squeal instead. ‘It’s so nice to finally meet you. Officially.’
‘Yeah,’ I force myself to smile, and I really try to mean it. ‘You too.’
Hooking an arm through the crook of my elbow, Matilda drags me further into the house.
‘This is my brother, Brendan,’ she gestures to the quiet redhead we brush past on our way into the kitchen – her kitchen, this is Matilda and Brendan’s place, I quickly discover, and Imani’s too.
Kai doesn’t live here, but he might as well, and Heath has spent more than a couple of nights on their sofa, and they like hanging out here because it’s the nicest and the quietest and equidistant from Cove College and the local strip of bars, of which the old pub, Salt Lane, is their universal favorite.
The over-priced cocktail bar next door is their secret, pretentious favorite, but, really, they prefer drinking at home, where they can control the music and the company, and Kai, for some fucking reason, took a bartending course and mixes a mean mojito.
I learn that they’ve known each other pretty much their entire lives.
That Imani grew up next door to Heath, and his mom used to babysit Matilda and Brendan, and they met Kai in grade school and never got rid of him.
They went to high school together, graduated together, started college together – they have always been together.
I learn some things that aren’t told, but observed, too.
Like how Brendan watches Imani when he thinks no one is looking.
And how Imani seems to expend a whole lot of effort not watching him.
Matilda checks her phone every five minutes, but she angles the screen discreetly, like she doesn’t want anyone to know who she’s texting.
Kai’s voice rings in my ears, because Kai is the catalyst of all conversation, Kai is the killer of any lulls, Kai is entirely averse to silence, and the mere concept of it too.
And Heath likes to stare. At me. He likes to stare and he likes to look, to really look.
To check on me as I’m bombarded with a torrent of information before I’ve even sat down, as everyone flutters around the kitchen island preparing drinks and dishing up food, and once I finally do take a seat at the kitchen table, I’m so damn overwhelmed, I chug one of those famous mojitos without a single thought for tomorrow’s early start.
The chair beside me creaks as Imani drops into it, and the very second my glass runs dry, she tops it off, eyeing me wryly. ‘Boy talk so soon?’
I mimic her smirk, though I’m not sure mine is quite as steady. ‘I work quick.’
‘Hm.’ Dark eyes flit to where Heath stands at the kitchen counter, sifting through takeout boxes with the others. ‘Clearly.’
More defensive than I have any right being, I snip, ‘Problem?’
‘Concern,’ she corrects. ‘But Heath’s a big boy. And he has excellent taste in women.’
‘Yes, I do.’
A bowl lands in front of me with a clunk as a body settles to my left, an arm slinks around my shoulders, a mouth presses to my temple – a move that almost makes me jerk away, but I catch myself at the last second.
Instead of flinching, I force myself to lean into Heath.
And I turn to him to . . . I don’t know, exhibit some kind of loving behavior, but my gaze gets caught on that bowl instead.
Earlier, when Heath was abusing his employee discount and ordering the mountains of food we toted here from Barefoot Joe’s, I had literally shivered at the long list of things that are most definitely not swim-season-diet approved.
None of which have ended up in front of me.
So busy wondering where the hell Heath found brown rice, sweet potatoes, and fucking tofu in that greasepit of a diner, it takes me longer than it should to realize he’s staring at me again. Intently. Nervously, I dare say – I dare say his quiet ‘Okay?’ is a little damn nervous too.
‘Yeah.’ I clear my throat, and clear my face too, because I guess I shouldn’t be so affronted at my boyfriend accommodating my dietary needs. Especially not when his plate is heaped with the same thing. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome, baby.’
I jolt, and I pray our audience attributes the reaction to yet another ear-splitting squeal.
‘Sorry.’ Looking not all that sorry, Matilda props an elbow on the table, chin in her palm, eyes wide and inquisitive and excited, as she gazes across the mahogany at us. ‘I need to know how this happened.’
Beside her, Kai lets loose something pretty close to a cackle. ‘Pretty sure we saw exactly how this happened.’
And then he makes a slew of obnoxious kissing noises.
And then he grunts and frowns, and stoops beneath the table a little to rub what I imagine is an aching shin. ‘Who the hell just kicked me?’
I smile innocently. ‘Oops. My bad.’
The group erupts into snickers. Glaring, Kai brandishes his fork threateningly and promises retribution, which makes Heath grunt a warning that makes everyone laugh some more, and then they dissolve into chatter again, and, internally, I thank Kai for his childish antics, because no one asks about me and Heath again.
They just . . . accept it. Act like nothing is amiss.
They eat and they drink and they laugh as they talk a million miles a minute about everything and anything, and my head is spinning.
I can’t keep up. I am so far out of my comfort zone, I don’t even know where I am.
I don’t know what to do, and I hate that.
I hate that this is so normal for them and so not for me, and probably so damn obvious.
It must be, because, otherwise, I don’t think Heath would be clutching my upper thigh so tightly.
I don’t think his thumb would be drawing circles on my shoulder.
I don’t think he would sporadically, throughout our allocated forty-five minutes and long after, because I can’t quite bring myself to be the monster and break this up, keep dropping his head to the curve of my neck, kissing it as a guise for a soft whisper. ‘Okay?’
I could say no. I could say yes, but insist we leave anyway. Time is up, after all.
Yet I don’t.