They sank into a pair of worn camper chairs.
“So it is true,” he lamented. “Why him? He’s a creep.”
She didn’t bother defending Dayton nor her love for him. It didn’t matter what Will thought. Shooting him a pointed look, she changed the subject.
“Do you guys still go to trivia?”
“Every Thursday. You should really come sometime. The team’s changed. Brandi moved to Portland. And so there were three. But Liam’s girlfriend joins in on occasion. She’s a little older than us but she’s cool.”
“Good to know he’s doing well.”
“Just so you know, he was torn up when you rejected him. For months.”
“I didn’t reject him.”
“Well, you didn’t really give him a chance either.” Will raised his brows, as if daring her to challenge him, and then something shifted in his features. His gaze fell to the dirt. “We stopped going for a while, after the whole Lacey thing. Freaked everyone out.” He took a long sip from his beer and found the courage to meet her eyes. “We were there when they found her. They stopped trivia but made everyone stay until they’d collected statements. Someone swore there were fingers dangling out of the dumpster. Maybe they were exaggerating, but God, can you imagine? I’m surprised you weren’t there that night.”
“Why would I have been?”
“You know, since you’re sleeping with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But then I guess it figures you weren’t there because it’s a school hangout. Don’t want to feed those rumors. Speaking of, why exactly did you bring him tonight?”
Kenna’s blood ran cold. Not even the warmth of the fire thawed her veins. “Dayton was there?”
“Dayton,” Will repeated with distaste.
“Will.”
“Yeah, he was there, alright? And Professor Scott.”
She didn’t offer him a goodbye as she sprang out of the chair and headed back to where she’d left Dayton. Will shouted after her above the din of the party but she didn’t acknowledge him and his pleas faded into nonexistence as she neared Dayton and the circle of students he stood among.
She stumbled into the group mid-conversation.
“The tightest p—” Dayton stopped talking as one of the guys mimed a neck slicing motion at him, nodding to Kenna.
“… Person-environment fit. Fascinating stuff.”
Stopping short of his toes, she spoke through gritted teeth. “We need to talk. Right. Now.”
A few guys provided unnecessary commentary.
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
“She can protest all she wants with her tight littleperson-environment fit.That shit will brainwash you into putting up with anything.”
She buried her rising outrage over whatever distasteful things had been said in her absence and grabbed Dayton by the hand, leading him away from the pack of boys.
He was much too inebriated to refuse her grasp.
As they traveled farther from the party, the noise faded and the fire’s glow dimmed. Wandering into the woods with a potential killer wasn’t the brightest idea but she knew they were the talk of the party and she’d be damned if anyone overheard their conversation.
Even if it was their last.
The pines swayed, everything around him spinning, as she led him through the forest. He had lost track of how many beers he’d consumed—somewhere between two and enough to open up to a group of students about his and Kenna’s sex life. And then she had returned from her chat with the Morris boy, understandably upset about what she had either overheard or inferred.
Even in his drunken state, Dayton was confident he could charm her into forgetting the vulgar conversation. But when she led him far enough into the creeping pines, he realized that wasn’t the issue.
She stared at him as if she had been fatally betrayed and a deep ache plunged into his chest, spreading to his limbs, fingers, toes.