Page 49 of No Place Left to Hide

“Can’t argue with that.”

I smile at him. “And, if you’re still feeling bad, you can tell me how amazing I look for a few days. To balance out the universe or whatever.”

His laugh is so much lighter this time. “That I can do.”

“I don’t care who you drove with!” Jena yells from the foyer, dragging our attention from each other. “The party’s over. Get out. You too, Beau.”

The last of the stragglers make their way out the front door and down the steps. Beau hovers in the doorway, phone in hand, shifting his weight between his feet like he’s trying to think of an excuse to stay longer. Before he can come up with anything compelling, Felix shoots him a more-than-threatening glare, and Beau practically throws himself out.

Felix closes the door, and he and Jena stand there, awkwardly staring at each other in the entryway, not saying anything. After two or three seconds, they still haven’t spoken and I’m intensely uncomfortable watching them.

“Did Felix talk to you about the Jena thing?” I ask Dylan, trying to keep my voice from carrying across the room.

“He didn’t have to; I watched them hash it out in the driveway. I only stayed to make sure they didn’t kill each other, but it seemed way more constructive once they got away from everyone. I think they’re okay, but he’s still not happy.”

I look back at them. They’re talking now, but too low for us to hear.

“That looks like an understatement.”

“From what I gathered, he was more upset that she didn’t tell him that it happened. He knows they weren’t together at the time. He probably wishes it wasn’t one of his teammates, because that stings, and he has to deal with Beau at practice after this. But he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on and I think he knows it.”

That doesn’t make any sense to me. That was probably the third time Felix had broken up with her that month; why would she wait around for him if he’s stupid enough to let her go? And why would she tell him? It’s not like he sat down and made a confession list of everyone he made out with whenever they got back together. The double standard is upsetting.

“I hope they work it out and stop with the whole on-again-off-again thing,” I say. “They’re good together when they’re not picking each other apart and looking for a reason to break up.”

“I agree. It’s hard to be with someone who would rather fight than talk.”

The words are innocent enough, but the way he says them seems to imply something else, and I wonder if he’s thinking about Claire again.

I lean my hip against the sink. “I hope they find a way to stop hurting each other.” I catch Jena’s eye across the room and she blows me a kiss. I let the frozen corn drop from my face and send her one back. “That, or end it for good, you know? Stop the will-they-won’t-they stuff.”

“Sometimes the fighting pain is easier than the goodbye pain,” he says with a faraway look in his eye.

What the fuck did Claire do to him?

Jena pops into the kitchen and leans against the island. “Everyone’s gone. We’ll help you clean up before we go.”

I look around at the sea of plastic cups on nearly every surface,despite my earlier efforts to clean up along the way. “God, thank you. I just want to forget this party ever happened.”

“Keep icing that or you’re going to regret it in the morning,” she says, pressing the bag of frozen corn back to my nose.

We split up and each of us takes a room. In less than ten minutes, Dylan and Felix put the couches in the den back in place and reposition the coffee table. Jena helps me dump the rest of Beau’s magic punch down the drain and runs a load of bowls and cups in the dishwasher.

While the others are gathering trash, I covertly scour every single inch of the den, wiping down surfaces as I go. I rummage through end table drawers, through electronic storage, under couches, behind picture frames, between cushions. I search high and low and find absolutely nothing, only a few extra Solo cups. I do the same in the living room and the library. I even check the bathroom cabinets and the closets in there, then make another pass through the kitchen, where Jena’s been cleaning.

There’s nothing here. I’ll do a deeper clean later, but apart from my quick trip upstairs to look for Dylan, I had my eye on her all night. Claire didn’t go upstairs, and she was only outside when she was with me.

She’s full of shit; she didn’t plant anything in my house. She only wanted to scare me.

My anxiety levels drop and my shoulders release from my ears for the first time in hours. This could have been really bad. Throwing a party like this while my dad is still being vetted was a stupid move. I left a door open for Claire to cause some real damage to my family. Rookie mistake.

While I’m rounding up the bottles of alcohol I stashed around the kitchen, Felix comes in with a trash bag full of plastic cups and half-eaten snacks. I don’t miss the way he skirts around Jena. Or theway he downs whatever’s left in a random cup on the counter before he tosses it.

Gag, who did that even belong to?

Jena asks if he can pass her some clean paper towels, and he ignores her.

Apparently, all isnotwell with them after all.

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