She peers into my eyes as if she knows how to look for a concussion or something. “You should rest. Come on.” Chelsea crouches down and slides an arm under my knees.
“Chelsea, no.”
She tries to lift me, and we both go sprawling. Chelsea starts giggling uncontrollably, and I realize that she’s already buzzed too. She has to be on her second drink. I scowl at her. “You could have just concussed me.”
Chelsea laughs harder, her chin bent to her chest, legs tangled in mine. “That’s not even a word.”
“Yes it is. A person with a concussion is concussed.” I try to pick myself up, but she grabs me around the waist and I wonder if this is all it takes to be okay. Laughing like nothing is wrong. Smashing mirrors. Getting drunk. I feel like I’m stuck in a Noël Coward play. But I want it to be okay. I want all of us to be okay. I sigh and sink down to the floor with her.
Mila gazes down at us from the hammock. “I can see it,” she says.
“What’s that?” I look up at her as Chelsea wraps her arms around me from behind, forming a kind of human armchair.
“Ryan is kind of sexy. In an unexpected way.” She takes a thoughtful sip of gemonade. “He did fight Chase for me.”
“HeslappedChase,” I point out. “And I don’t know if that was a hundred percent about you. They… have unresolved issues.”
Mila smiles, almost condescendingly. “It’s not the first time two guys have fought over me. Unresolved issues or not, that was about me.”
“Well, you’re just tumbling right on out of your shell now, aren’t you?” Chelsea says.
Mila shrugs. “I’m shy when I first meet people. I know you now.”
“Eh,” Chelsea says.
“How well do you ever know anyone?” I say, untangling my hair from Chelsea’s. Innocuous enough. I think.
“You don’t.” Mila nods her head toward Chelsea and raises an eyebrow, then tilts her glass up to catch the last piece of ice between her teeth.