“Tori. See your taste in booze hasn’t improved.”
Tori laughed and rested her head on his shoulder, looking more natural than I could ever hope to feel in this environment. “Don’t judge, mister Rocky Mountain spring water.” She clinked bottles with him. “Sure there’s any alcohol in that?”
“Ha-ha,” Keane said and wrapped a free arm around her. Turning to me he said, “You look uncomfortable, Hollis. You okay?”
My cheeks warmed and I hated, ferociously, that I was so terribly transparent. “This is my first time at a party,” I admitted, feeling pathetic.
“Really?” Keane asked incredulously. “You’re a party virgin.”
Well, there was zero doubt that my cheeks were solidly red then. “Pretty much.”
At that admission, Adam’s eyes slanted to mine and then to my empty hand, the hard line between his eyes smoothed out. “Where’s your drink?” he asked.
I could hardly believe he was talking to me. He had initiated it. And there wasn’t a lick of hostility in his voice, for once. He’d asked me a question and my tongue sat, thick like lead in my mouth.
“I got her one of these.” Tori held up the wine cooler I had given her. “But they’re too sweet.”
“Ah.” Adam looked back at me, gaze cutting right through me. “I don’t much care for them either.” After a moment’s consideration, he reached his beer toward me, a question in his dark eyes.
I blinked so that my stare wasn’t awkward or trancelike. “Your beer?”
“Do you want a beer?”
I stared at it for a moment, indecisive. I knew, thanks to many after school programs, not to take a drink from someone I didn’t fully trust, but surely, since he had been drinking from the same bottle, I would be fine.
Tori elbowed me subtly in the ribs, so I reached for the beer, my pinky brushing over Adam’s thumb as I took it from him. “Just a sip,” I told Adam, hoping the sip would wash away the heat climbing my face. In the dim lighting of the dining room, his eyes looked blacker, but not cold. Instead, his gaze felt warm. If I was someone else, someone naturally romantic like my friend Navy, I might idealize the way he looked at me with beautiful words and feeling. The best I could come up with, to describe the way he looked at me, was as if I was the only person in front of him, the only person he wanted to look at, in the entire room.
But I wasn’t idealistic even with my romantic tendencies. I knew romance was for books, for fiction.
I tipped the beer back and let it coat my tongue before bringing it back down. The taste, while somewhat unpleasant, didn’t churn my stomach like the wine cooler had. The bubbles reminded me of my favorite soda, and the cool the beer left on my tongue made me wish for another sip.
But instead, I handed it back to Adam. He waited a second longer than I expected him to, and his pinky laid over the top of mine when he grasped the bottle. His eyes, the entire time, never left mine. Maybe it was my imagination, but he seemed calmer since the car ride. “Better?” he asked.
The beer hadn’t done much to lighten my leaden tongue so I simply nodded. I wanted to talk to Adam. And I knew that having a little bit of booze might lower my inhibitions but it also might prevent me from remembering the way he looked at me, the way the light from the backyard made him glow like some kind of fallen angel.
Wow, I thought. The romance book I stayed up late to finish last night had infected my brain. Adam was no fallen angel. He was just a guy I had lusted after for the last handful of years, or so. And if for one night—or just this moment—his eyes were on mine, that didn’t mean he was suddenly into me, too. I only needed to remember the way he’d glared at me outside of Tori’s house to humble me.
“I’ll get you a beer,” Tori offered, nudging me again but less discreetly than before. I nodded, but regretted it immediately because seconds later, Tori and Keane were retreating back into the kitchen, their bodies disappearing among the others. Leaving Adam and me alone.
Adam was still staring at me, unnerving me in the quiet way he was good at. “Think they’ll start dating?” he asked me.
I was so lost in staring at him that it took a minute for it to click what he was asking me. “Tori and Keane?”
He took my dumbly-spoken words to mean it was ridiculous. Which, it was, but my words were slow because I had barely been able to drag my attention away from him to think about anything else. “Yeah, you’re right. Tori is too flighty.”
“She’s not flighty,” I said, almost too defensively. When Adam arched one dark brow, I elaborated. “She’s smart. She knows that high school isn’t forever and indulging in serious relationships in a temporary environment will most certainly end in disaster.”
The side of his mouth lifted as if I had said something that was funny. “Right,” he said. “Flighty.”
“That’s not flighty,” I argued. I checked the tone of my voice, not wanting to actually argue argue. Especially since he was finally starting to warm up to me. “She isn’t going to make promises she can’t keep. I guess I think of flighty as her leading Keane on, and I don’t think she will.”
His smile dropped away and he looked thoughtful for a moment. “Okay, you’re right.”
Why did that simple little statement light up like a tentative firework inside of me?
“So what about you?” he asked.
Again, I stared dumbly at him. “I’m not interested in Keane.”
The smile appeared fully this time, sinking a delicious little dimple in his cheek. I was dumb struck. Adam was actually smiling at me. “I didn’t think you were. Rather, I was wondering if you shared her opinion. About relationships.”
This conversation was making me feel stupid. Not that it was Adam’s fault—it was mine, for not being able to look at him and think clearly. “Uh…” I said. “I don’t think I’ve given it much thought.” And I hadn’t. Not only because my life was ruled by the pressures of my parents, but also because it had never been an option for me—to think about dating seriously. “I’m not someone who dates.”
“Are you asexual?”
“No,” I said, but it sounded unconvincing. “I’m just busy.”
“Because of your dad.”
Bitterness rose from my throat, but he didn’t deserve it. Not because he was right—which he was—but because it was a natural conclusion. My father’s company employed many of the parents whose kids were at that party, which was probably why I sat like the odd man out from social events. I didn’t want people to look at me and see my dad; his name or his clout or his power. But that’s what happened. People looked at me like I was the police, like I had the power to tattle on them, to have it get back to their parents. The truth was that I didn’t tell my father anything about people from school, and wouldn’t have. When I caught Jacob Coleman smoking a joint in his car after school, he looked at me in fear but my dad never knew, so his parents never heard it from me. But being the daughter to someone of power meant you had very little power yourself in the way of making and keeping friendships.
When Jacob was eventually caught by his parents, he’d eyed me disdainfully every time we passed each other in the hallway, believing that it made more sense that I had tattled than that his parents would smell his cheap pot on his clothes and figure it out themselves.
Rumors got around about me, and though I pretended to be unaffected, I wasn’t. It bothered me that I wasn’t invited to parties, that I was always a tag-along. But at the same time, the ability to be a homebody was a relief. There were no social pressures in being a homebody.
“My parents do keep me busy,” I hedged. I couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with my hands, which wanted to fidget someway. In truth, I was dying for some caffeine, but the house was fully stocked with booze and not more innocent beverages.
As if he could read my mind, Adam handed me his beer again after he took a pull from it himself. I hadn’t thought much about sharing his beer before, but putting my lips around the rim when his lips had just bee
n in the same position did something funny to my thoughts, to the already unsteady beat of my heart. I took a longer pull this time. The taste was becoming more bearable and its coolness slid down my throat more comfortably.
“It’s an acquired taste,” he said when I handed it back to him.
“So is coffee, but I’ve never acquired it.” I licked my bottom lip, already wanting more. Adam took a sip, not taking his eyes off of me.
“Never?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I love caffeine. It doesn’t wake me up but it does keep me … calm, I guess.”
Adam handed me his beer again and I took it without hesitation this time, sharing his beer like this felt completely natural. Was the beer having an effect already? It was a light beer, which I knew meant the alcohol content was less than wine would be. So, maybe it wasn’t the beer, but Adam’s company instead.
As I tried to hand Adam his beer back, someone bumped into me from behind, sending me careening into Adam’s chest, and the beer sloshing up out of the neck and onto us. His arm came around my back, steadying me, his other hand trapped between our bodies, clutching the bottle.
I looked up at him, close enough to see the perfect peaks of his cupid’s bow. His long, dark lashes were lowered as he stared down at me and his hand was still on my back.
I pulled back first, leaning away from him, but still staying closer than I had before being pushed into him. After a beat, his hand left my back. I realized I didn’t even know if he had a girlfriend, but I guessed—or, rather, hoped not—from the way he was looking down at me.
“We’re covered in beer,” he said.
I wiped the back of my hand over my chest, feeling the cool beer trickle down into my bra. Luckily, the olive lace of my tank hid most of the wet spill, like his black shirt had for him. “It’s not a big deal. It’s warm in here anyway.”
He laughed. He actually laughed. One little chuckle before raising the beer. I could see the shadow of a freshly shaved jawline, and knew immediately that he’d be able to grow a beautiful beard if he wanted to.
“Here,” Keane said, coming from the side and handing both of us beers. “Tori got roped into beer pong in the garage.”
I searched Keane’s face for any sign of disappointment. Adam’s thoughts about Tori being flighty had stuck in my brain and I was relieved when Keane appeared indifferent about Tori abandoning him. “Since I finished my one beer, I’m done for the night. But I left my sodas in the car,” he told Adam. “I’ll be back.”
Which left us alone again. “Sodas?” I asked Adam, trying to fill the silence.
“He’s the DD. He’s drinking some god-awful energy drink.”
I nodded and twisted the top off my beer at the same time Adam twisted the top off of his and then he tossed his empty bottle into a bin behind him. I bit back the brief bit of disappointment over not sharing his beer anymore but then he grabbed my hand like it was just as natural as sharing a beer. “Let’s go outside,” he said, already leading me out the back door before I could object. Not that I would.
He threaded us through groups of people until we were at the far corner of the deck, where a tiki torch flamed brightly. He neatly stacked up a pile of discarded plastic cups and set them away from the bench that wrapped the length of the deck, gesturing for me to sit.
Though the seat was cold, it was an incredible relief against the oppressive heat of having that many bodies in that small of a space.
“Aren’t you hot?” I asked Adam, nodding at his leather jacket.
“Aren’t you cold?” The back of his hand touched my bare arm and I shivered from the touch.
“No,” I said. “It feels good after being in there.” I took a drink, hoping to come up with something to say that didn’t involve Tori, Keane, or the weather. But the thoughts that had rested on the tip of my brain since he said his first word to me at the party poured out of my lips, unbidden. “Don’t you hate me? Or something? Why are you being nice now?”
“Hmm.” He took a drink and looked out over the deck, where people were assembling around a keg. The music was quieter out here, so I could hear Adam swallow. “I don’t really like to think I hate anyone.”
But it’d be understandable if he did, for all the grief others at school gave him. “Okay. How about deeply loathe?”
He laughed and stretched his legs out in front of him, pulling his jacket off and setting it on his lap. “I had an opinion of you. Have.” He looked sideways. “Or maybe had. I’m still working out if it’s past tense or not.”
“And what is that opinion?”
“That you’re just like everybody else.”
“But I’m not.”
“That remains to be seen. But I’m inclined to agree with you.”
“I think I would know who I am.”
“But do you?” He motioned toward the crowd by the door. “You’re always in those groups of people.” I knew those people was referring to the ones who tormented him. Adam didn’t follow the popular track of high school. He did what mattered to him, regardless of how it made him look to other people.
“I’m still an individual.”
“But you’re a part of the noise when groups of people do shitty things and you don’t stand out from it.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned back, settling in. “I mean that I’ve been bullied in my life. I don’t let it bug me too bad, but when you’re silent while witnessing that kind of behavior, you’re no better than the ones doing the bullying. Silence makes you complicit.”
“But I don’t agree with what they do,” I argued.
“Do you say anything?” He raised an eyebrow.
No, I didn’t. I was a wallflower, staying against the wall. “All right. That’s fair,” I finally said. “But, do you speak up every time you see someone else being belittled?”
“Yes.” He said it immediately. “Mob mentality is real. And the bullshit on social media makes it ten times worse. Rumors start and spread like an infestation via photos or comments and that shit is toxic.”
I agreed with him. Which was why the only things on my own social media were boring. “You said that you’re deciding whether or not I’m like everyone else,” I said. “And what do you think so far?”
“I hope not.”
“So, okay, what made you decide that I’m maybe not like everyone else?”
“When you said this was your first party.” He tipped his beer back and raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s my first one too.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe that. Adam might not run in the same circles as the people who hosted this party, but he was Keane’s friend. Who was Tori’s friend. Who attended all the parties. “But you and Keane…”
“Come on, Hollis. Is it so unbelievable that someone like me, a veritable ‘band geek,’” he held up air quotes, “has been to many high school parties? Why would I want to hang out with most of these people?”
But he didn’t look like some band geek cliché, ripped from the movies we’d grown up on. He looked like someone who stayed up late at night, scribbling music onto coffee-stained pages. He looked dark, maybe a little dangerous. Tori’s assessment of him being steel wool was on the nose. “So, the reason you glared at me was because you thought I was like the rest of them?”
He nodded.
“You looked like you hated me.”
“You looked like everyone else.”
“But I’m not,” I insisted. “And,” I took a deep breath, saying, “I don’t have to convince you of that.” And then I held my breath.
There was a change in his face after I said that. Whatever it was, some kind of understanding settled in. He didn’t scoff. He didn’t laugh. “You’re absolutely right, Hollis Vinke. I have to say, I respect you more for saying that.” He winked. He actually winked at me. My heart did a little flutter, a flip flop, and I forced myself to keep it cool. It was totally surreal that this guy I had liked for years, who I had only admired from a distance l
ike some lovesick loser, was talking to me. And actually interested in what I had to say.
“That was my assumption of you, that you were like the rest of the assholes in school. To be fair, you never ever speak up.”
He wasn’t wrong. I felt safer on the sidelines, a member of the audience than a player. “That’s true. But if you were in my position, you might be the same way.”
“And what position is that?”
I winced, not wanting to talk about my dad. Talk about a buzzkill. “I have an image I have to maintain. At least until college.”
“And why do you have to maintain it? Why can’t you be your own person?”
“I am my own person.” But was I? He was right; I did follow the crowd. I stayed in the back, largely forgotten. There was safety in that. For myself and for the reputation my family expected me to uphold.
“Why do I get the feeling that you don’t like talking about yourself?”
I knew I blushed then; could feel the warmth flood my cheeks as I fumbled over what to say. When words failed me, I just nodded and looked down at my beer.
“It’s okay, Hollis. Here, I made an unfair assumption of you. Let’s even the score: you make one of me.”
Oh, no. This was going to creep on dangerous territory. I couldn’t make any assumptions about him without revealing how I viewed him. I shook my head. “No, that’s okay. I get it. I understand why you might think I’m like them.” I looked over at the handful of guys egging each other on to drink more, to obliterate themselves. “I can admit that I probably get swallowed up by those kinds of people.”
“Yeah, because you don’t use your voice.”
It was something Tori always told me. She urged me not to let her steamroll right over me, to stand up for myself. But it was easier to fall into the crowd, even if you didn’t agree with them all the time. “I’m working on it.”
“I can tell. This is the most we’ve spoken since, when? Elementary school.”
“Probably.” I took a sip of my beer, hoping it’d help calm my nerves around him.
One Big Mistake: a friends to lovers rom-com Page 33
