I spend the next couple hours freaking out as more and more people show up. I should run away now, so I can get a head start, because I’m dead when Lee gets home. I pray he drinks too much or meets some woman and stays overnight, because if he gets home and all these people are here…
I’m surprised at the turnout. Apparently Lennox passed the word around that there’s a block party, and everyone shows up, not just high schoolers. The neighborhood is always lively in the evenings. Kids run through sprinklers, ride bikes, yell up and down the street. Teenagers hang out, listen to loud music in their carports, and walk to each other’s houses. Adults cook out on grills, chat with each other, and call out the doors for the kids to come home when it gets dark. Tonight, all those groups have converged on my house.
Someone brought a couple grills, and the men barbecue hotdogs, burgers, and elote while the women pile the portable tables with potato salad, tamales, coleslaw, greens cooked with bacon, watermelon, cherry fluff, churros, Jell-O molds, and cookies. A whole table is covered in pitchers of sweet tea, lemonade, Kool-Aid, and horchata; big bottles of soda; gallons of orange drink. Each table is flanked by coolers full of ice and beer.
My head spins with the number of people, each one adding to the mess. Mom has come out, since everyone wanted to meet her and pressured me until I went to get her. She wanders around the party looking like a lost owl chicklet, smiling vaguely into the distance and fussing with the stuff on the tables. I know she’s as dazed and overwhelmed as I am—and as terrified.
Finally around ten, parents start rounding up their tired kids, most of them fussing at having to leave or crying from the crash after their sugar rush is over. Within minutes, the yard is cleaned up, the paper plates, cups, and napkins disappearing into trash bags tied neatly and set next to our trash can at the corner of the house. I start to relax, thinking maybe it will be okay. I assure Mom I’ll stay up until everyone is gone and the back yard is clean, and she goes inside to bed.
“Here, haveunas polasand chill the fuck out,” Maddox says, roughly shoving a beer into my hand. “You’ve been running around actinglocoall night. Did you even eat?”
I’m surprised he noticed. I didn’t think he ever saw me except when I’m with his brother, and I’m too mad to have even spoken to Lennox tonight. Mostly I spent the evening pressing my nails into my palms until a dozen bloody crescent moons mark each one, and then biting my nails until they’re raw to stop myself from doing more of the former. Y’know, totally normal stuff.
Maddox stands there smirking at me like a challenge until I take a drink. I stare back at him, refusing to let him intimidate me. It’s time to put my foot down. “The party’s over,” I say. “All y’all need to leave. Now.”
He laughs, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve heard him laugh. It’s deep and rolls through me with a vibration like thunder, his dark forest eyes crinkling at the corners as they fix on me in a way that makes me feel like I’m suddenly the most fantastic creature to ever grace the planet.
“The party’s just getting started,chica.Buckle up. It’s about to get wild.”
“No,” I say firmly. “That can’t happen. You need to go home.”
He pops the tab on his own beer, taking a long drink and letting the foam run down the side of the can before grinning at me. “There’s nothing you can do about it, so you might as well enjoy it. Stop being so uptight for a minute and just go with the flow, little mama.”
He winks at me and walks away, leaving me to stand there fuming. Looking around, I see that all the adults and little kids are gone. The people our age show no signs of going anywhere. I march over to Lennox, who currently has a tall girl in a bikini draped around his neck. “It’s time to go,” I say. “I told you, my stepdad will be home, and he’s going to be pissed.”
“Oh, relax,” he says, letting his hand slide down the girl’s bare back to her ass. He gives it a squeeze, his eyes on me. “Everything went great, didn’t it? You have to admit, everyone had fun and the place looks great.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Go sit down and finish your beer,” he says. “Don’t talk to me again until you’re three beers in. Cool?”
I glare at him. “No, it’s not fucking cool. You have no idea…”
I can’t finish that sentence without explaining Lee, and that’s not something I’m going to tell him, even if we didn’t have an audience. No one needs to know about my fucked up family.
“Ooh, she swears,” Lennox taunts, smiling down at the girl on his arm. “I bet it was her first time.”
She giggles and gives me a smug look, nestling her head against his bare, tattooed chest. “Yeah, chill out,” she says. “Don’t be such a drag. We’re just having a little fun. Aren’t we,papi?” Smiling up at Lennox, she slides her hand down the front of his trunks.
“Get those three beers down, and I’ll give you your first time for something else,” Lennox says to me. “I’m too big for a virgin unless she’s got a few in her to relax and help numb the pain.”
I gulp down my rage and jealousy and take a swig of my beer like I don’t even notice the girl jerking him off in front of me. Stupid me thought that he might like me, but it was all an act to get what he wanted. I glare at him, and he stares back at me coolly, his eyes hooded as the girl continues stroking him, looking up at him with such eager eyes it almost hurts. I can’t hate her. I’m just like her—gullible and desperate for his approval.
Yeah, fuck that. Now that I know what he’s about, and I’m not going to waste another minute falling for his sweet words and flirty smiles. He’s nothing but a honey trap who was using me to get what he wanted all along, knowing I was too naïve to see through the manipulation.
I can’t do shit about it now, and he’s clearly not going to get anyone to leave, which means I have to. Gathering my courage, I tip back my head and down the entire beer, then go and start telling people it’s time to go.
No one gives me the slightest indication they’re going to obey my orders. Instead, they look to the North brothers, who are clearly here for the long haul. At last, I give up, grab a beer, and flop down on a chair, trying not to cry. Maybe I should give in to the night, like Maddox suggested. I can’t do anything to stop it, so I might as well enjoy it. There are only two dozen people left here, but they’re all drinking and having fun, with no intention of leaving until the guys who invited them tell them the party’s over.
I’ll just have to take Lee’s wrath as it comes. Won’t be the first time, won’t be the last.
A shriek draws our attention, and I turn to see a handful of pink fluff from the marshmallow dessert flying through the air. It splatters onto Lexi, who’s nothing like what I expected from our first few meetings. She’s normally the wide-leg jeans and flannel kind of girl, but in a bikini, she’s fucking gorgeous. She can’t be more than five feet tall, but she’s got curves where it counts, and her creamy skin beckons like an unopened invitation.
Four tall, dark-haired guys seem to have decided to answer the invite. They’re surrounding her, wolf-whistling and taunting her while she curses savagely at them.
Maddox has parked himself on a plastic chaise, a beer in one hand while three girls sit on the edges of his chair, swinging their hair around and giggling and generally fawning over him. Lennox is watching the guys mess with Lexi, ignoring the girl hanging around his neck. Another flare of jealousy goes through me. Does he like Lexi?
One of the guys smears the pink goop down her hip and thigh, almost taking her bikini bottom with it. She tries to push him away, but he keeps groping her while she shrieks and struggles. I wonder if she’s scared, surrounded like that.