“I mean, I’m not looking for a boyfriend, you know?” she said, and I believed her. “I just wanted to kiss someone. You know how it happens sometimes.”
But I didn’t, and she knew it. “Sure.”
She laughed, drawing the attention of a few people from our class around us. Sweat prickled my brow, partly from the oppressive heat of so many bodies around us but mostly from the unwanted attention. I had tagged along with Tori to this party hoping she could pull me out of my shell a little, show me some fun before I spent the rest of the weekend buried in a book.
“Adam though,” Tori said. She sucked in her bottom lip as she glanced over at Adam and Keane and my head turned, staring at them with her. Thankfully, Adam was no longer trying to murder me with his eyes, his attention having turned solely to Keane. Surely, Tori couldn’t mean she wanted to make out with Adam, too?
“Relax, Hols.” She laughed, clapping me on the back. “I know he’s yours.”
I bristled. “He’s not mine.”
“Okay, not in the physical sense but in the romantic sense.” She tapped my forehead. “At least in here, he’s yours. I’m not going near him with a ten foot pole.” She drained her wine cooler and set it on the surface closest to her. “But it sounded like you had competition in the car.” She raised an eyebrow.
“Here.” I handed her my wine cooler, wanting to change the topic before the subject of the note was discussed in depth. “This is too sweet for me.”
“Thought so. We should get you something else.”
But I was already reconsidering the whole partying thing altogether. This wasn’t my scene. I couldn’t be blasé about partying like Tori could. She was the girl everyone talked to, and the girl who talked to everyone. She was better than most people, but didn’t think of herself that way. So when people mistook her forwardness or self-confidence as arrogance, I was quick to correct them. Tori knew who she was. She knew what she wanted. Both combined made her years beyond most of us.
She met my eyes. “Well then, come on.”
“Huh?” But I had barely said it before she was tugging me along once again, but this time in the direction of Keane and Adam. “Wait,” I said, pulling back.
She whipped her head toward me. “Let’s go talk to them,” she said, placing emphasis on them because what she meant was You should talk to Adam. But this wasn’t some sappy teen movie where the girl finally gained the courage to talk to the guy she’d swooned over from afar. Yes, I swooned over Adam. But he hated me.
“What happened to not going near him with a ten-foot pole?” I asked, both of us in a tug of war, my arm as the rope.
“Okay, I’ll bring you to him and then I’ll pull Keane away for some more lip service.”
I groaned and used up all my strength to yank her toward me. “No way, Tori. No. Way. You cannot abandon me.”
Her eyes glittered mischievously, but dulled when she saw the fear in mine. “Okay, fine, we’ll just makeout in front of you so you’ll have no choice but to open your mouth and actually say something to Adam.”
“I can’t just do that.”
“What?” She laughed. “Talk? Sure you can. It’s easy.”
“Tori.” My stomach churned and I pressed my free hand to it. “You saw how he looked at me. I can’t talk to him while you’re making out with Keane. I’m not you.”
“Hey, he looked at me the same way as you. That’s just who he is.” She shrugged. “He’s like a human-sized ball of steel wool. Abrasive as fuck. You just gotta talk to him. Once he gets to know you, he’ll chill out.” She put an arm around me. “Hollis, you are smart and funny and you work harder than anyone I know. He’s gotta work for it if he deserves even a shot at talking with you. But let’s try, anyway.”
It was hard to see myself the way Tori saw me. Adam was practically mythical for me, someone I had admired from afar but had never had the guts to talk to. Adam was musical and a deep thinker and also he looked at you like he was looking through you, finding out your contents and determining if you were worthy. And he’d clearly made up his mind about me before tonight’s party. I wasn’t convinced that Adam would ever see the things Tori saw in me. “You can’t abandon me,” I made her promise. “Seriously, you can’t.”
“I won’t. Only if I see an opening, okay?”
I groaned. “No. No way.”
“Hollis.” She put a hand on my shoulder and leaned down so our foreheads touched. “We are seniors. In two months, we’re graduating. This is your chance to finally talk to the one guy you’ve ever had a lasting crush on.”
“Ugh,” I said on a sigh.
“Ugh all you want to me. But if I see an opening for you and Adam to get to actually have a conversation, I’m out of there.” She held up her pinky. After a moment’s hesitation, I looped my pinky with hers and let her pull me back through the throng of people to where Adam and Keane stood, just off the side of the dining room, near the door that led out to a deck. The door was open, letting a cool breeze ruffle my hair. When he turned, he looked at me with the eyes of someone judging me, deeming me to be someone I probably was not.
Why, of all the guys in the room, did he make me feel compelled to prove myself? He hadn’t asked me to prove myself with words, but his eyes spoke more than his lips ever could. “Hey guys,” Tori said, bumping playfully into Keane. His cheeks pinked and he glanced sideways at Adam before smiling more fully at her.
“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.