Page 39 of Tell Me It’s Right

He chuckles. “Hardly. I’m here to get the crash and burn on video so it’ll go viral.”

Asher smacks him in the back of the head as he surges ahead onto the porch steps.

“See you around, Gracie,” says Miles, his eyes holding mine for a beat longer before the two of them slip inside.

I text Carson to let her know I’m here before forcing myself to step through the door. There are a handful of people I don’t know on the couch in the living room, and I pass a few more as I make my way to the kitchen at the back of the house. It’s nice, if a little old. Reminds me of a lot of the places people rented in college—squeaky floorboards, minimal furniture, empty alcohol bottles used as décor.

It seems more like the first breaths of a party, not one that’s well underway. As suspected, bottles and cups are lined up on the counter, and I quickly make myself a drink—mostly orange juice, but with enough vodka to hopefully take the edge off.

“You’re hereeee!” squeals Carson as she hurries through the kitchen door with a beer bottle in each hand.

“You didn’t think I’d actually show up, did you?” I ask as she tugs me into a suffocating hug. I grunt in surprise and awkwardly pat her back a few times until she lets me go.

“I had my doubts,” she admits, then sways on her feet. I reach out a hand, but she manages to steady herself against the opposite counter.

“You good?”

“Oh, grand.” She flashes a smile full of teeth, then throws back the rest of one of her beers.

“You look cute,” I offer.

“Oh, this?” She does a little spin in her strapless black dress, then pops one of her combat boots out to the side. “You too. Very effortlessly boho chic. The Converse really tie the whole thing together. Or maybe it’s the hair.”

She must be even drunker than she looks.

“Anyway, come, come.”

I clutch my drink to my chest as she grabs my hand and leads me up the stairs.

The door to the primary bedroom is wide open with two other girls inside. They’re both sitting on the ground in front of a floor-length mirror, their makeup spread around them.

“Girls, this is Gracie, my friend I was telling you about. This is Luna.” She gestures to the little redhead in a lacy dress covered in tiny red strawberries. “And Raquel.” The second dark-haired girl pauses applying her bright red lipstick and waves.

Luna finishes adding butterfly clips to her hair and stands. I know I’m staring at bit, but I can’t help it. Not after that talk with Asher on the way in. She’s just…not at all what I pictured. The smile she offers is polite but not overly warm.

“See you down there,” she says, then slips from the room.

Raquel and Carson exchange a glance I don’t understand, then Carson shrugs and lounges on the bed.

“You grew up around here like Carson, right?” asks Raquel as she turns to the mirror and dabs some fake freckles along her nose.

“Yeah. What about you?”

“I moved up here from Delaware a few years ago.”

“Why’d you move here?” I ask.

“Yeah,” chimes in Carson. “Why would you willingly move to Jersey?”

Raquel gives her an unimpressed look. “I wassupposedto move here because my girlfriend got a new job.”

“Supposed to…?”

“They broke up less than a month after she moved,” whispers Carson.

“I can still hear you.”

Carson raises her palms like she’s at gunpoint. “It’s true!”

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