Mr. Blythe raised one of the cups, eyes narrowed with suspicion. When he sniffed the liquid inside, his face softened. “There’s nothing in this.”
“No alcohol in this one either,” Ms. Vaughn said, looking contrite. “Sorry to bother you. We just needed to make sure.”
“Right,” Jax muttered.
“If either of you see anyone with alcohol, be sure to let us or one of the PTO chaperones know,” Ms. Vaughn went on. “Okay?”
“Sure,” I replied, giving her a tight smile.
The teachers passed our drinks back to us and moved on to a group of girls standing a few feet away. As they inspected all the cups, I let out an amused snort. “Do they honestly not realize that everyone pre-games these dances? Half the people here were already drunk before they stepped through the door tonight.”
“No shit.” Jax smirked and looked around. “I doubt there’s a single person in this room who’s completely sober.”
“I guess they have to be careful, though,” I said. “A girl got roofied a couple of years ago at the Homecoming dance at my old school. She had a really bad reaction and almost died.”
“That’s fucked up.” Jax’s forehead creased. “We don’t need to worry, though. The only people that have touched our drinks all night are you, me, Erin, and Brent. So unless one of those two is actively trying to kill us, I think we’ll be fine.”
I smiled and pressed the side of my cup against his. “Cheers to not getting murdered by Erin and Brent.”
With that, we knocked back our drinks, washing down all the lingering crumbs from the cake.
“What were you saying before?” Jax asked a moment later, wiping the corners of his mouth. “Something about Cerina?”
“Oh, right. Yeah.” I nodded slowly, knowing he wasn’t going to be happy with how this conversation played out. “She texted me while I was on my way to the bathroom. She wanted to apologize for being such a bitch to me.”
“Huh,” he said, knitting his brows. “Didn’t know she had it in her to say sorry.”
I paused for a beat and cleared my throat. “She, uh… she wants me to meet her in the gazebo. She said she has something important to show me.”
Jax snorted. “Sure she does. She probably wants to tip a bucket of pig’s blood on you.”
“I thought the exact same thing at first. But she seems serious.”
“Wait.” Jax frowned and cocked his head. “You aren’t actually going out there to meet her, are you?”
“I think I should.”
“I’m coming with you, then.”
I shook my head. “She said she wants to speak to me in private.”
“And that doesn’t make you suspicious?” Jax asked, brows shooting up. “The way she’s trying to separate you from everyone?”
“Of course it does,” I said. “But I really want to know what she has to say to me.”
“Kinsey.” Jax lay a heavy hand on my shoulder and stared right into my eyes. “Cerina literally tried tokillyou. You can’t meet up with her alone. It’s not safe.”
I bit my bottom lip. “Well… I’m not actually sure it was her behind the Tahoe thing now.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s just… the messages she sent me seemed so earnest. I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.” I slowly shook my head. “I really think she wants to bury the hatchet. And it sounds like she’s just discovered something, too. Maybe about who really tried to kill me at Tahoe.”
“Kinsey, the only hatchet she wants to bury is a hatchet in your skull. That’s it.”
“No, seriously,” I insisted. “She sounded different. Like she’s genuinely sorry. I think she actually has something real to show me.”
Truthfully, I had very little doubt that Cerina was messing with me yet again. Even so, I couldn’t suppress the dark flurry of worry worming through my guts. What if shewastelling the truth? What if there was something going on with Jax? Or Erin? Neither of them had given me any reason to think so, but I needed to be absolutely certain. I needed to see whatever it was Cerina claimed to have found… if it actually existed, that is.