Page 18 of Love Collided

I’ve known Claire for a while now. I knew she was a nice person, seemingly kind to everyone. She never made a scene or raised her voice in these settings. She didn’t drink excessively, and I would bet my car that she wasn’t going out racing anytime soon. There really wasn’t anything wrong with her. On top of her personality, she was beautiful. There was no way to deny it, but it didn’t seem to matter.

My heart didn’t race any faster, my stomach didn’t flip around until I was nauseous. There was no spark of emotion, and definitely not the full on tidal wave of emotions that hit me when Scout was around.

At this point, though, I wasn’t sure if feeling all of that was a good thing or not.

We talked a little longer until my dad waved me over to him. For once, I was fine with having a reason to excuse myself and head over to him.

“Behaving?” he asked.

“Obviously.”

“Does this mean we are good? Things are still on track?”

“Was it ever not?”

“I wasn’t sure,” he said. “That’s all for now. You and Claire can continue enjoying your night.” He dismissed me right away, waving a hand as he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

My lip curled as I watched him go. Claire was back in conversation with her friends, and I had no need to go over there again. I turned away, heading over to Justin and waving for him to come with me.

I made it to the back room and sat down at one of the makeshift poker tables, a few of the other guys already surrounding us to pass around a joint.

I was king of a castle here, or at least they made me feel that way, but it wasn’t a celebration. It was a hollow feeling that seemed to stretch on forever. I could feel the emptiness seeping into my bones the moment I stepped into this place, the moment I woke up. Every minute of the day.

A picture of Scout flashed across my mind unprompted, but I shook it away.

“Make it quick,” I said. “I apparently have a date waiting out there, and if I don’t entertain it, my car will be gone.”

Justin took a hit and passed it to me. “Didn’t realize you had dates.”

“I don’t. This was apparently a surprise blind date,” I said, shaking my head immediately as I sucked smoke into my lungs. “No, actually, it was apparently a blind proposal. According to my dad, I’m engaged.”

A roar of laughter and sarcastic congratulations went around the room.

“No shit? You know what that means?” Justin said, lifting the bottle of tequila like he was giving a toast. “Time for a party!”

I should have guessed that would be his reaction. It would take a few hours, but he would turn my family’s lake house into chaos tonight.

I didn’t care.

I would have a party any night of the week if it kept my mind off of all of this bullshit. Even if the party tonight wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it might be exactly what I needed.

SEVEN

SCOUT

On one hand,I had managed to come up with three thousand dollars, get my car running again, and go out with Jesse tonight. On the other hand, it still wasn’t enough money, my car didn’t seem to want to go over seventy miles an hour, and Jesse was currently bitching about us being out because we weren’t going where he wanted to go.

It wasn’t even completely my decision. I agreed to go out with the crew before I knew where we were going, and didn’t realize we’d be going to Chase’s house tonight for a party until it was too late. Apparently, he had set up a huge, last-minute party tonight and invited us all to come.

By the time I walked around the back of the house, I already knew I wanted to leave.

Who had this much money for a random party? It wasn’t even a party for something, it was only because they were bored.

The entire backyard was covered in colored lights, balloons, and the pool was even filled with hundreds of light up floating balls. It was all over the top and everyone seemed to think that was normal. Someone yelled out, catching our attention as we turned towards the back of the house.

Chase was on the second-story balcony shirtless and yelling something out.

“Is he about to jump into the pool?” Quinn asked, apparently as surprised as me. No one answered, watching him step onto the ledge.

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