He needed to quit saying that. I couldn’t think straight when he said things that he shouldn’t be saying.
“There you are.” Cami wrapped her arm around Beck’s shoulder and smiled. He tensed under her touch. It was minute, but it was there. I didn’t know if it was simply because I was watching or if it was something more.
He had to know that I would see them together tonight.
He had to know that I wasn’t going to just sit here and let him tell me I was gorgeous, then have to watch him with her.
“Josie, what’d you think of Chad?” She didn’t seem to notice or care that Beck was tense. She ran her fingers through the base of his hair like it was the most natural thing for her to be doing. Like her hands were so used to touching him.
“He seems nice.” It wasn’t a lie. He did. He just wasn’t my type. I was apparently into men who were a bit more toxic.
A lot more toxic, actually.
“He really liked you.” She winked at me. “He asked me for your number.”
Beck was staring straight ahead at me, and I felt like his eyes were burning. If he was angry, he had no right to be. He had no right to anything when it came to me.
“I gave it to him, of course.” She smiled.
“Of course.” Allie said it so quietly only I could hear.
“Thanks.” I smiled and tried to avoid looking back at Beck. She was still touching him, and he was letting her. It didn’t matter what he had said about there being nothing between him and Cami. The proof was right here in front of me.
Even if they were on and off.
I refused to be anything at all. Not like this.
“I heard he was a bit of a baseball star. He better than you, Beck?” I cocked my head to the side.
“Are you fucking with me right now? He’s still in Clermont Bay. Isn’t he?”
“You’re staying here too.” Cami chuckled, and Beck went stock-still. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
Beck was staying here? I figured he’d be long gone after he graduated. I was sure he had his choice of Ivy League schools just waiting for him.
“I’m going to get a drink.” Beck shrugged Cami off of him and walked past us all without another word.
I didn’t know why I suddenly felt bad for him, but he seemed so lost with these people. He seemed so different.
I knew that I was the one who probably didn’t know anything real about him. These people had been his friends forever. Cami had been more.
But part of me still felt like I somehow knew him better, that I was the one who had been privy to the real him, and I knew how stupid that made me.
Beck only let people see what he wanted them to see. He made me see him as something that he wasn’t. All for what?
To get in my pants? To make my brother angry because he fucked me? Was that his end game here?
I wanted to follow after him and demand he give me answers, but this wasn’t the place or time. Cami’s face looked tight and uncomfortable, and I wondered what it had to be like to be her. She was the queen of Clermont Prep. Everyone loved her. If they didn’t, they worshipped her. She had everything at her fingertips.
Everything she could ever want. Including Beck.
But she still didn’t seem happy.
“I’m going to go smoke.” She pulled a joint out of the top of her dress. “Anyone want to join?”
“No. Thank you.” I held up my drink. “This will probably kick my ass on its own.”
She gave me a smile that didn’t meet her eyes before she walked out the door.
“I don’t like that girl.” Allie was already pouring herself another drink, and I couldn’t blame her. So far, this was the most awkward party I had ever been to.
“I can tell.” I set my cup down on the table. “Maybe we should just leave.”
“I just got here.” She looked up at me, and I could see the sympathy on her face. I hated that look more than anything. “But we can go.”
“No.” I shook my head and smiled. “Make another drink. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” I nodded and waggled my eyebrows at her. “Plus, how am I going to meet anymore Chads if we go home.”
I had no interest in meeting anymore Chads, or any other boys for that matter, but she didn’t need to know that. I just wanted her to have a good time, and if that meant I had to suffer through a few more hours at this party, I would.
I had asked her to be here with me, and she hadn’t even hesitated.
The two of us stuck to each other’s sides as we mingled and laughed.
And after about an hour, I almost forgot about Beck altogether.
Not really, but I hadn’t seen him.
It wasn’t until the two of us went outside to get a breath of fresh air that I ran into him again.
Beck had clearly been drinking. There were people all around us, and I could barely see his eyes against the pitch-black night. The lights that hung over Cami’s back yard did little to light it up.
“Allie, what’s the deal with you and Carson anyway?” It was the first words he had spoken to us since earlier with Cami, and he still wasn’t talking to me.
“There is no deal.” Allie stopped in front of him and seemed so uncomfortable by his question.
“Oh. There definitely is.” He leaned back in his chair and his beer bottle was held precariously between his fingers. His hair was in disarray, and I wondered if it had been his fingers to make it that way or Cami’s. Or some other girl at this party. “Don’t you think so, Josie?”
My stomach dropped when he said my name. “She said there’s not.”
“But girls lie.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Don’t they?”
Everyone around us was watching, and I wished he would just go back to ignoring me. Things were much easier then.
“Maybe the ones you’re used to.” I had no idea why I said it. I heard a few chuckles and gasps around me, but I didn’t care.
He looked away from me and brought his attention back to Allie. “I think he likes you.”
“I think you’re drunk.”
“Oh.” He pointed his beer bottle in her direction. “You are correct about that.”
“Your brother’s here,” Allie ignored Beck and whispered in my ear.
I looked over my shoulder, and sure enough, Lucas was in the house talking and laughing.
I hadn’t seen him since we first arrived. He had told me he wasn’t sure if he would be here.
Carson walked up as if he already knew, and he quickly looked between us and Beck.
“Beck, man. It’s time to go.”
“Oh, no.” He shook him off. “Josie was finally talking to me for the first time tonight. I can’t leave now.”
“I talked to you earlier,” I clarified, but he wasn’t having any of it.
“About Chad.” He snapped his fingers as if he suddenly remembered. “How could I forget that you were suddenly so into Chad Johnson?”
“Am I not allowed to be into Chad Johnson?” I had no idea why I was challenging him when he was like this, but he was pissing me off. He had no right to be jealous of any other guy.
Especially some guy I didn’t give two shits about.