I realized I was searching the crowds for a face too.
Leave her alone.
We made it to the patio outside where lights were strung up. The crowd was thinner; people were talking and drinking in smaller groups by the pool.
“I don’t see her,” Miller said, taking a seat on a lounger. “This was a stupid idea.”
I caught a flash of a red dress in the kitchen and nodded my head. “There.”
Miller looked, and the way his entire face softened to see Violet made me lower my gaze. Like I shouldn’t be seeing something so private. Or unfamiliar.
He heaved a sigh. “Here goes nothing. Watch my guitar?”
“Yep.”
Miller made for the kitchen and I glanced around in search of beer. A cooler was set up by the pool, green necks poking up from hunks of white ice. I grabbed Miller’s case and headed over, but a guy drunkenly stumbled there first. He grabbed a beer, then blinked up at me stupidly.
“Holy shit, are you the bouncer?” He cackled in my face. “Hey, look! Blaylock hired a bouncer.”
“Fuck off.”
“But for real,” the guy slurred. “Did you escape from jail or what? I heard—”
I took the beer bottle out of his hand and gave him a shove. His arms pinwheeled and then he fell backward…straight into the pool. Everyone on the patio laughed as the guy sputtered to the surface.
“Dude… What the fuck?”
I tipped the beer his way in salute and headed back to the lounger, ignoring his curses. A few minutes later, a cheer went up from inside and then Miller returned, looking like someone had pissed in his Cheerios.
“Well?”
“I acted like a possessive asshole, insulted her, and now she’s going to play that stupid closet game where River fucking Whitmore is going to kiss her. Maybe…more.”
“So it went well.”
He scowled at me.
“The night’s not over yet. Play the game too.”
Miller snorted. “Hell no.”
“You won’t play, but you’ll torture yourself by watching.” I tipped my beer. “Solid plan.”
“Fuck off. I have to stay and make sure she’s okay.”
That, I understood.
Miller grabbed his case and headed back inside. He took a seat in a corner of the living room in a circle of weed smokers, his guitar in his lap. I stood over him like a sentinel in case that prick, Frankie, showed up. Against my will, I scanned the crowd, my gaze snagging on a slim girl with bracelets sliding down her arms as she danced. My heart thudded dully, but the girl moved into a slant of light, showing pale skin and light brown hair.
“Dumbass,” I muttered.
“Hi!” A skinny blonde with long hair and a long dress plopped down beside Miller. “I’m Amber.”
“Miller,” he muttered.
“Are you going to play something for us?”
He ignored her, his eyes on the center of the living room to where some chick named Evelyn announced a Seven Minutes in Heaven game. I followed Miller’s hopeless expression right to his Violet. Pretty girl. Sweet face. My chest ached for him as she went into the closet with the King of the Jocks, River Whitmore.
“So that’s that,” Miller muttered.
I squatted on my heels beside him. “It’s just a game. Tell her when she comes out.”
“She’ll kiss him in there,” Miller said miserably. “Her first kiss.”
“Then kiss her better. But don’t let her go.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “You have a girlfriend? Someone in Wisconsin?”
“I don’t do girlfriends.”
He frowned, and I knew what he was thinking—I was being awfully fucking chatty with the relationship advice. But just because I couldn’t have something real and good didn’t mean he shouldn’t.
Violet came out of the closet with a strange smile on her face. She shot a pained glance at Miller and he immediately pretended to give a shit about the skinny blonde beside him.
“Well?” Amber put her hand on his arm. “Do you know how to play that guitar, or is it just for decoration?”
I wanted to hear him too. I had a feeling whatever Miller had in him was better than the bullshit playing over the sound system.
Miller glanced around the living room. Violet wasn’t there anymore. The closet game had broken up and everyone had followed their football king into the kitchen.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, a pained look on his face. “Yeah, I’ll play. Why the fuck not.”
Amber clapped her hands. “Yay!”
The small group around us went quiet as Miller sang Coldplay’s “Yellow.” Not my jam, but holy fuck, the guy could sing. He turned the song into something else, made it his own. Every damn lyric told the story of him and Violet.
A smashing of glass cut through the noise of the party. A guy with silver hair and fancy clothes stood on the dining room table, a broken bottle at his feet. I’d heard some people talking about him earlier by the pool—his name was Holden, and he was new to the school, like me.
“Everyone shut the fuck up!” Holden bellowed. His drunk, watery gaze was focused on Miller. The rest of the house followed his lead.
Miller didn’t miss a note as the entire house went quiet, listening. Violet came tearing in from the back and stopped short, recognition on her face.
Because this is their song.
Miller’s eyes met hers, and he sang straight to her.
“For you, I’d bleed myself dry.”
That could’ve been my motto. To bleed myself dry for those I cared about. It was too late to save my mother, and all that was left was the grief and anger. Anger that was the same as my father’s, coursing through my veins like it had in his. It flared and burned, and I wished it would flame out altogether, but it never did. The only thing I could do was to use it to protect those who needed protecting. Like Miller. He poured his love out of his guitar, straight to his girl.
Violet, crying now, ran for the exit. Miller stopped the song with a twang and got up to follow her. Someone stopped him at the door.
“Well, lookit who crashed this party. Where you running off to, Stratton?”
Frankie Dowd.
My anger flared like fire when gasoline hits it. I shook out of my jacket and cracked my neck left and right.
Let’s go.
“Back off, asshole,” Miller snarled at Frankie.
“Or what? You going to have your convict bodyguard cold-cock me again?”
I snorted. The dumbass hadn’t seen me. I moved in front of Miller and crossed my arms, cold and stony, while inside, the fire raged.
Frankie wore a bandage over his nose and his eyes were rimmed with bruises. They widened in fear. “You’re fucking dead, dude. You have no idea who I am.”
“I know who you are,” I said. “I know exactly who you are.”
The cowardly, punk-ass bitch who tried to keep my friend from his medicine.
A handful of seconds passed, the air tightening with every breath, until a bellow sounded from the adjacent dining room.
“Dude! What the fuck are you doing?”
All eyes went to Holden who was tap dancing on the mahogany dining table, grinding shattered glass into the wood and drunkenly crooning “Singing in the Rain” while Chance Blaylock stared wide-eyed at the damage.