Page 1 of Tell Me It’s Right

Chapter One

LIAM

I need to get out of the truck. I’ve been sitting here for a good ten minutes now.

The typical sea of designer suits and dresses brushes past me toward the monstrosity of a home ahead. Even the gifts they carry are overly polished in a way that should be wildly out of place for a six-year-old’s birthday party. All polka dots and ribbons and shiny gold wrapping paper.

The house itself looks like a catalog ad for a party store. Streamers, lights, and balloons are spilling out the doors, windows, and over the sides of the balconies. But there’s a method to the chaos—every glittery decoration hung just so.

I glance at the bag in my passenger seat. Neon green tissue paper and a cartoon car with a missing tooth.

“Liam!” A fist pounds against my window, and I lurch back. Miles’s dorky smile stretches across his face—all freckles and dimples—as he presses his nose against the glass. “Didn’t think we’d be seeing you here.”

“Get off my truck.”

There’s an imprint left behind as he shrugs and pulls away. He has to be, what? Twenty-three by now? But I swear he doesn’t look any different than he did at fourteen. Must bethe baby face. Or the too-short pants that show off his chicken ankles.

Why he and my brother Asher are still friends is beyond me. I’d been hoping it would fizzle out after high school. I might be only three years older, but their debauchery threatens to put me in an early grave.

Finally, I force myself to open the door and climb out.

Miles takes off at a jog, triple-checking the pockets of his khakis as he goes. A tick of his I’m all too familiar with. I give it half an hour before someone busts him and Ash with a joint in the bathroom.

The gift bag crinkles as I tighten my fist around the handle and start the winding trek up the drive. There were spots closer, but I didn’t want to risk getting blocked in and forced to stay here longer than necessary.

I try to deduce a theme as I follow the music and chatter through the house—everyone must be gathered in the backyard—but the place looks the same as always, just with added glitter and balloon arches lining the dual curved staircases at the entrance.

I guess the walls look different these days. But Christine’s been slowly swapping out the art pieces since the day she moved in. Give her another few years and there won’t be any trace of my mother left in the house at all.

“Liam!”

Ah, just who I wanted to see.

Christine skitters around the corner, looking like she’s about to break an ankle in those shoes. They’re as gold and shiny as everything else in here. Her dress is skintight and red, white, and blue, topped off with an American flag scarf knotted around her throat.

“You’re just in time!” she squeals, and it’s too late now, because she’s barreling toward me with her arms spread wide. “The games are about to begin!”

Games? I peek around her at the open French doors moments before she yanks me into a hug. For such a small woman, she certainly knows how to knock the air straight out of you. Small stations are situated around the pool—a net, a Ping-Pong table, some kind of makeshift track.

An Olympics theme then.

I pat her on the back a few times until she releases me, and her eyes go comically wide as she takes in the bag I’m holding.

“Oh, you shouldn’t have!”

As if I’d show up to my own brother’s birthday without a gift.

She beams as I offer it to her.

“Where is Casey?”

“All the kids are out back! I was about to go check on the cake. They were putting some finishing touches on it earlier.”

“Liam! You’re here!”

Casey sprints down the hall, his little arms pumping at his sides. His swimming trunks are green, white, and red, and he has the same colors painted across his cheeks. I kneel as he lunges in for a hug, then ruffle his hair as he pulls away.

“Since when are you Italian?” I ask.

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