And those eyes. They looked at me like he knew me. Which unsettled me, because we’d barely spoken a handful of words in the last ten years of going to schools in the same town. But as he held my gaze, I realized it was the first time we’d ever made meaningful eye contact. And this was how he was looking at me.
I tried not to let my uneasiness with him show, but the way he looked at me was making my neck heat, and pretty soon that heat would climb into my face and I would resemble a tomato.
“Adam, stop being a dick,” Keane said and Adam stepped aside, gesturing for me to get into the backseat. But why was he being a dick? Why did he so clearly not like me?
A voice in my head told me he’d figured out I was the author of the note and took it as me mocking him. I had to tamp down on that runaway anxiety train before I blurted out that it had been a sincere and genuine gesture. Adam slid into the car beside me so I was sitting directly behind Keane.
“Have you been to Seth’s parents’ house?” Keane asked, looking in the rear-view mirror at me.
“Uh, no,” I said. I didn’t get out much.
“It’s cool, right on the lake. We’re going to take the boat out.”
“Oh?” I asked, fanning my face. It wasn’t hot outside. But being in such close proximity with Adam was making it feel like a sauna. “Can you turn on the air conditioning?” I asked, and felt three pairs of eyes look at me. Which, naturally, did nothing to lessen the anxiety I was experiencing.
Be cool, I told myself repeatedly. This is fine. “It’s warm in here,” I said.
“No, it’s not,” Adam said flatly. He was wearing scuffed black boots, black jeans, and a tight black tee. On his lap was a light jacket, black like the rest of his ensemble. And he was still staring at me. I summoned whatever dregs of courage I had and faced him.
“You don’t have hair.” I nodded to his buzzed head and then felt the cool blast of A/C toss my hair in front of my face. He couldn’t argue with that.
He turned away first, eyes firmly focused outside the window as Keane took off toward Amber Lake. Keane and Tori were talking quietly—well, too quiet for me to hear over the roar of the stereo—which left me alone to stare outside the window on my side of the car. Not for the first time, I wondered why I thought I could go to the party and be someone other than who I was.
“Is that true?” Tori asked, turning in her seat so she faced us, not realizing we couldn’t hear what she and Keane had been saying.
“Is what true?” Adam asked.
“The note?” Tori asked.
So, Adam knew it was from me.
My stomach sank and no level of air conditioning could fix the sweat that was surely dampening my hairline. He told Keane?
“Yeah,” Adam said, and turned to Keane. “Why do you have to tell everyone everything, man?”
“I hardly think I am everyone, Adam,” Tori said. She turned to me, her eyes lit up. “Adam has a secret admirer.”
I let go of a breath as discreetly as possible. He didn’t know. I was safe. Thank God, because whatever illusion I had that tonight would be the night I would reveal my secret crush on him was most certainly squashed the moment he first glared at me. “Oh?” was all I managed.
“It’s nothing,” Adam said, waving it off. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, and I wondered if I did the wrong thing by giving it to him. I rubbed my sweaty palms on the knees of my jeans as Tori plowed on.
“Who do you think it is?”
Adam turned so slowly to face her and the contempt on his face would be obvious even if she wasn’t wearing her contact lenses. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be secret, would it?”
But Tori wasn’t intimidated. “Well, what did it say? We can do a process of elimination.”
Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. While Tori didn’t know I was the author of the note, she knew I was in that class with him. If Adam gave the context of the note, if he told her it had to be someone from that class, she would know. She knew I had a crush on him. Her eyes swung to me, questioning. I shook my head as casually as possible. I couldn’t tell her it was me. No way.
“He won’t say what it said,” Keane butted in. “Just that there was a cartoon on it.”
That seemed to satisfy Tori because she gave me an imperceptible nod—one that said, Oh, it wasn’t you.
Like I said before, drawing was not a strong suit of mine. “Ah,” she said aloud. “Who’s an artist?”
“Beats me,” Keane said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam said curtly. “Can we not talk about it?” He gave Keane a pointed look. And that line effectively muted the rest of the car ride to the party.
“Beer?” Tori asked as she pulled me through throngs of bodies half-heartedly dancing to music that could be barely heard above their voices.
I scrunched up my nose and shook my head. “Wine coolers?”
She shrugged and pulled me further into the kitchen, to the large double-wide fridge at the end of the room. She knew her way around the house, even as it was crowded with the population of our senior class. I guess when you were a frequent guest at parties like this one, you got pretty familiar with the layout.
It was my first time at a high school party, my first time at the home of a boy when I wasn’t in the company of my parents. Despite being surrounded by people who were in my daily classes, I only knew maybe a handful of people at the party.
Tori pushed an ice cold glass bottle into my hands, then popped the top of the wine cooler like it was second nature to her. I envied her a little. Well, not her. But her experience. Her confidence. She had it in droves. All I had to offer was a mumbled, self-conscious thanks before I took my first sip of alcohol.
It was too sweet. That was what I thought at first, grimacing around the swallow. I was used to the artificial sweeteners of my favorite diet sodas that something as innocent as sugar-laden juice felt…heavy. This felt like sipping straight sugar. Tori, on the other hand, had downed half of hers as she smiled and waved at someone over my shoulder. I turned around, my gaze colliding with Adam Oliver. It was the first time since we got to the party that we’d seen each other—which meant it was the second time we’d made meaningful contact and … yup, he still hated me. I looked him over for a reprieve from the staring contest that I would lose anyway, spying the beer in his hands as he lifted it. Which meant I was once again making eye contact with him.
He eyed the glass bottle in my hand and the side of his mouth quirked up in what I might almost take as a smile before his attention turned to Keane.
“We made out last night,” Tori whispered, her breath hot on my ear. “Keane, I mean. It was hot.”
I turned, smiling and took another sip of the liquid sugar. “That’s why you ignored my texts last night?”
“Yeah, sorry. After the lacrosse game, under the bleachers. He’s a great kisser.” She said that not to brag, but as if in offering. “If you’re looking…” she added. The infatuation with Keane was already losing its spark.
I laughed. Like Keane would give me a second glance, especially when I stood beside Tori. “I’m not.” I braved another sip, but that one made my stomach turn and I knew I needed to give up the bottle sooner than later. Gross. “Losing interest already?” Asking it was pointless, but it kept her talking which kept my eyes from drifting to Adam.