Chapter 10
Kiki immediately jumps into action.
“Carla?!” she shouts, hurrying toward the deck while Kai pauses the movie and scrambles to flip on the overhead lights.
Everything is a blur as I stay frozen on the edge of the couch. I will myself to move—to at least turn around so my neck doesn’t cramp from twisting to look at the sliding doors behind me.
Timothy is too stoned to fully comprehend what’s going on, but he does his best to stumble off the couch and toward the deck.
I breathe easier once he’s no longer pressed up beside me, but it’s impossible to relax with that frantic pounding on the walls.
Even with the room flooded with light again we can’t make out what’s going on.
Outside the sun has fully set, leaving the woods past the windows and doors as pitch-black as it had been inside moments earlier.
“Carla!” Kiki calls out again, struggling to pry open the sliding door.
No matter how hard she tugs, the door doesn’t budge.
Her knuckles go white from the effort of gripping the handle with all her strength, her breath coming out in short, labored bursts as she tugs and tugs but doesn’t get any movement. “This fucking thing is jammed again!”
Kai whips around and throws the front door open, making a dash for the deck from outside of the cabin. Finally, I snap out of my daze. Lunging off the couch, I move for the door—but I hesitate in the wide-open entryway. Mami’s voice rings in my ears again.
Never go chasing after trouble, she’d warned Mikey after he landed his first detention for picking fights with boys at school.
Ignoring that he was provoked—that they’d called him all the same horrible things they’d called me, called Papi.
He just hadn’t learned how to walk away from them yet.
And still hasn’t. She’d leaned in across the dining table, eyes narrowed as she whispered so low we had to strain to hear her. Unless you want to walk into a trap.
Still, it feels cowardly, staying inside when someone is shouting for help. Part of me itches to go after Kai, to hold him back until we’re sure where the screams are coming from, but the pounding and wailing cuts off before I have to make that call.
Laughter echoes around us.
“What the hell, Carla?” I can hear Kai shout from somewhere in the direction of the deck.
When I turn around, Kiki has given up on trying to pull open the sliding door. Light spills out across the deck as the string lights flicker back to life. A disgruntled Kai hoists himself over the deck railing followed by Carla, holding her stomach while doubled over with laughter.
“I’m sorry,” Carla says in between laughs, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I had to.”
“You didn’t have to do anything,” Kiki snaps, pulling the door open with ease, and then grabbing Carla by her arm hard enough for her laugh to cut off abruptly.
“Watch the hair,” Carla whines, tugging her pin-straight hair out from where it’s trapped under Kiki’s tightly closed fist. She brushes the hair over her shoulder casually before pinching Kiki’s cheeks between her glossy, manicured fingers. “Your face was so worth it.”
Kiki slaps Carla’s hand away—the sound echoing through the room. I wince at the harshness of it, but Carla doesn’t seem to mind. She slinks over to the kitchen, grabbing an abandoned drink off the counter and taking a long swig.
“Who cares about the movie,” she says as if she hadn’t been the one to suggest it. “We should be in the hot tub.”
Everyone except Timothy eyes one another skeptically.
Kai had told me to pack a bathing suit, but I’d hoped that with the late fall chill it would be too cold to actually get any use.
Kiki doesn’t seem convinced and neither does Kai, a theory that’s confirmed when he turns to shoot me a questioning raised brow.
Before I can shrug in reply, Carla scoffs and throws her hands up in the air.
“What?” Carla smirks as she gestures to the barely lit-up deck. Besides the string lights and the faint glow of the controls on the hot tub, it’s almost impossible to see five feet past the cabin. “Are you wimps too scared to go outside in the dark?”
The taunt makes Kiki bristle and cross her arms. “You literally just scared the shit out of us.”
“Oh, please! That was the most cliché trick in the book,” Carla whines before slinging an arm around Kiki’s shoulders.
“C’mon, it’s almost Halloween, and you were the one who wanted to skip out on the dance, so…
” She runs a finger along Kiki’s bare arm.
Even from across the room I can see the way goose bumps blossom along the path of Carla’s touch. “You owe me a good time.”
Kiki stiffens when Carla’s fingers curl around her shoulder, glaring down at the bracelet on her best friend’s wrist—Carla written in cursive on a long gold plate, a delicate chain linked on either side—before wriggling out of her grip.
“Fine,” Kiki mutters as she snatches the cup out of Carla’s hand, downs it in one long gulp, then crushes it in her fist. She tosses it into the trash as she crosses the room, headed toward the staircase.
“We’ll meet on the deck in five,” she commands, and that’s all Carla and Timothy need to smirk and rush upstairs to change.
Across the room, Kai sighs as he steps in from the deck.
He runs a hand through his hair, his brow wrinkled like he’s aged a dozen years since we got here barely an hour ago.
Our relaxing weekend getaway is already proving to be more chaotic than I anticipated, and we’ve only just arrived.
I haven’t been to many—well, any—parties.
Or sleepovers either. Mami would send me to the moon before a stranger’s house for an overnight stay.
But from the slumber parties I’d seen on TV, our night is only just getting started.
“You brought a bathing suit, right?” Kai asks me after he’s closed the sliding door behind him.
I nod, cheeks flushing at the thought of the two-piece I’d shoved to the bottom of my bag, hoping it wouldn’t see the light of day.
This time, Kai senses my hesitance, taking a step toward me but remaining a careful distance away.
“And you’re still okay with this?” he asks in a measured whisper, looking over his shoulder to gesture to the Solo cups sitting on the counter and the vague scent of weed lingering in the air.
“I know all of this isn’t really your scene. ”
I nod again, surer this time. Feeling more at ease just from the knowledge that he’s not pushing me any farther than I’m willing to go. “I’m sure,” I say, biting my lip as I look up at his soft, sincere eyes.
“All right…” Kai backs away slowly, looking unconvinced until I give him a smile. The tension melts off him, his own smile bubbling up as he makes it to the staircase. “I’ll meet you at your room and we can head down together?”
Together. Such a simple word—a simple concept—and yet my heart swells at the thought of it. Us. Together. It overwhelms me to the point that I’m frozen in place until Kai heads up the stairs and disappears from view, and I finally let out the breath that hitched when he walked away.