CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Somehow between our talks of gods and war, Kael accepted my invite to the party tonight. I was a little nervous for him and Austin to meet. My brother liked everyone, but I really wanted Kael to like him, and this house party probably wasn’t the best way to make that a reality. I drove there, and when we arrived I didn’t hear loud music or see bright lights as we pulled up. And nobody had spilled onto the lawn. That had to be a good sign.
“Doesn’t seem too bad,” I said.
The stately brick house was in the far corner of a quiet cul-de-sac, with a field at the back and other houses all around. I had to park on the street because three cars were already in the driveway—two of which I didn’t recognize. Plus, there was my dad’s van, an ugly white thing that he hadn’t touched in at least a year. I’d come to hate that van after ugly arguments and resentments that spilled over from the front seat displaced the happy memories of our one Disney road trip long ago.
My parents didn’t have typical husband-and-wife shouting matches. Even as a child I remember wishing for some of the honest anger I had heard in other families. Theirs was worse. My mom would use a cold, flat voice to deliver her punches. She hit hard, and she knew instinctively where to strike, how to make it hurt the most. I was a needy girl and wanted her anger and passion to reassure me that she cared. I think my dad wanted that, too, but she either couldn’t or wouldn’t give it. My dad and I both navigated her cold indifference the best we could.
Kael’s phone lit up in his hand. He glanced down and put it into his pocket. I felt important. Prideful as it was, I still felt it.
We were walking up the grass when someone I didn’t recognize came out of the house and walked toward the street. I saw Kael watch him until we were safely inside. It wasn’t anything obvious, a slight tilt of the head, an almost imperceptible scan of where this other guy was and what he was doing. It made me wonder what Kael had experienced, and what he might fear. I tried not to let it affect my mood, thinking about what he had seen in Afghanistan. I was sure that was the last thing he wanted to talk about at a party, the night before his birthday.
I led Kael into my dad’s house for the second time in a week. Brien had been there only a total of maybe three times during our entire four months of dating. He liked my dad . . . well, he liked trying to impress him while staring at Estelle’s boobs. She was new back then, her boobs, too.
UghBrien was the last person I should be thinking of. I looked at Kael to edge him back into my mind, but also to make sure he was still following me up the steps.
Someone’s music was playing on the TV screen when we went inside. It was a Halsey song, so I knew I’d like at least one of these random people. I was relaxing a little now, since the party wasn’t out of hand. Austin had been right about the party—so far, anyway. Everything was more low-key since it was a Sunday night. There were only about ten people there, and everyone seemed to be older than high school, thank God. And there was no sign of Sarina or any of her other friends, and as far as I knew, she was Austin’s only recent high school hookup. He said she lied about her age. I didn’t know if that was true or not. No sign of Austin, which meant he was either outside smoking or in some room with a girl. As long as it wasn’t my old room and the girl was of age, I didn’t care.
Five or six people were dotted around the living room. The rest were in the kitchen, crowding the booze counter. There wasn’t much to speak of: a bottle of vodka, a much bigger bottle of whiskey, and tons of beer. We stayed in the kitchen, moving around a guy and a girl who seemed to be mid-argument, and passing a man wearing a gray beanie. I couldn’t see his hair, but I suspected he was a soldier, based on his build. My brother always seemed to gravitate toward people in service, even when we were in high school.
Austin and I made a pact from a young age that neither of us would ever even consider enlisting, but he still had a natural draw to Army life. Whether it was out of habit or comfort—the pull of the familiar and all that—I didn’t know. His curiosity scared me sometimes.
Kael stood near me by the kitchen sink, not touching or speaking, but close enough that I could smell the cologne on his shirt. The smell was sweet, and it made me wonder if he had other plans tonight. I grabbed a plastic cup from the stack and poured in a little bit of vodka and a lot of cranberry juice.
“Want one?” I asked Kael.
He shook his head no. He seemed tense. Whether he was more tense than usual, I couldn’t say. He looked at me as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t. His eyes leveled on the cup in my hand.
“I’m only having one since I’m driving,” I explained, slightly defensive. Guilt didn’t really feel appropriate, since I could crash upstairs in my old bed if I needed to. I still hadn’t seen my brother, and we had been there for at least twenty minutes.
“I don’t drink much.” I didn’t need to explain myself further, but did anyway.
Kael’s attention was all over the kitchen. His eyes were a bit robotic, scanning every detail of the room. It was like he wanted to be present, but his mind was wandering back and forth between here and somewhere else. I tried to guess where, and even considered straight-up asking him, but the idea made my heart pound.
“I’ll take a beer,” Kael said, after I downed half my drink.
I handed him a can from the bin in front of me, next to the partition between the living room and kitchen. Shelves full of eight-by-tens of my dad and Estelle, and me and Austin when we were young, stared back at us. My mom had long since been erased from the record.
Kael studied the beer for a moment, rolling it in his hand before popping open the tab.
“Natural Light, huh?” He raised his brows. They were so thick they shaded his deep-set eyes and helped hide him from the world. Like he needed help with that.
“Yep. The best of the best.” I took a gulp of my vodka mixture. I felt it fast, my cheeks and tummy warming up.
Kael took a drink of the watery beer. I lifted my cup to touch his can. “Happy birthday! You’ll be drinking legally in about three hours,” I joked.
“And you in a month,” he said, taking a swig of the beer and making a face. I didn’t blame him. I much preferred vodka over heavy bubbles of beer. It was my go-to when I drank. Drink less, feel more.
Another plus with vodka: I knew exactly how much to drink before I would get too drunk. I’d pretty much mastered vodka. I’d been drinking it since Austin and I had gone to that seniors-only party back in Texas.
Austin and I were probably the only freshmen there. We scanned the place when we arrived, but it didn’t take long until Casey, a preppy seventeen-year-old, made a beeline for Austin. She was one of the popular seniors.Popular.I hated that word. Austin didn’t, though. He knew it was his way in. The moment he complimented Casey’s eyelashes—it was something lame, like, “You have the longest eyelashes”—well, that was it. Five minutes later, they were tongue to tongue, and I was left to wander the party by myself.
The only person who talked to me was a boy who had a mustard stain on his shirt. He had sharp canines, like a wolf, and he smelled like orange Lysol. I left him in the hallway by the bathroom and found the vodka bottle in the freezer. It was cool going down. That’s probably why I drank so much so fast. Too much. Too fast. I ran to the bathroom with my hand covering my mouth, holding in the vomit. Unfortunately, I ran into Lysol guy again, and he looked at me like I was the pathetic one. Maybe I was? I mean, Iwasthe one pushing people out of the way to get to the toilet.
But that was then and this was now. This party was different. I was different. I had learned to hold my liquor. And I was no longer the girl who couldn’t walk away from a creepy guy without second-guessing herself. I felt safe with Kael. Interested and interesting. Like I was the senior at this party.