Page 12 of No Place Left to Hide

His gaze dances across my face. “So far, so good. But then again, I’ve always been great at making fantastic decisions, so it’s no surprise.”

I laugh and someone in the other group bumps into my back. I stumble into Dylan, and he grabs my shoulders, maneuvering us in a circle until I’m between him and the books. “You good?”

He’s so close now. My dad’s bookshelves are to my back and he hovers a breath away. “Yeah. Of course.”

“Nothing rattles a Goodwin, right?” He winks.

“It’s one of our greatest features. Well, that and the genetics.”

He looks down at my pink party dress and grins. “There are a lot of features to admire at this party.” My cheeks flame, and he seems surprised that he said that out loud, because he clears his throat and steps back. “So your parents don’t mind you throwing parties like this at their fancy lake house?”

“They might, if they knew about it,” I say, lacing my fingers beneath my chin to feign innocence. “They think I’m at Jena’s tonight.”

Dylan rests the back of his hand against his forehead in mock horror. “You lied to the life bringers? Brooke Goodwin, I never would have guessed.”

I shrug. “These things are always really tame. I make sure everyone gets home okay, and nothing has ever been broken or damaged, so it’s a victimless crime. Besides, we all need a party from time to time to stay sane under all the pressure.”

“NowthatI can understand.” He runs a hand through his dark hair with a sigh. “Still, I’m surprised they haven’t caught you yet. Don’t they use this place?”

“Almost never. There are perks to having parents who are too busy climbing their respective career ladders to notice what their daughter is doing. As long as I get straight As, show up to all my volunteer opportunities, and get into Yale this year, they’re pretty hands-off.”

His gaze bores into me. “That sounds exhausting. Especially when you factor in student government and dance team too.”

I wave it off, but I’m shocked he’s noticed so much about my extracurriculars. I could probably recite his entire soccer schedule, but I thought that attention was one-sided. “I’m pretty good at juggling all the plates and keeping them happy. I think our party space is safe for a while.”

He looks like he doesn’t believe me, but he lets it go. Someone calls his name from the doorway, and he turns and holds up a finger for them to wait. But I’m not ready for our moment to end yet.

When he turns back toward me, I tug his shirt until he leans closer.

“Do you want to dance?” I ask.

He straightens and looks at me, pensive. With anyone else, I might be offended that he’s not immediately taking my hand, but I know Dylan. He never does anything without thinking it through, and right now, he’s thinking about where he’s at in his post-breakup timeline and whether he’s ready for what’s in front of him. I know it like I know this party is the start of an epic senior year. Like I know Felix and Jena are endgame, even if they’ve broken up three times this summer.

So when he holds out his hand and says, “I’d love to,” it feels like I’ve won the lottery.

My stomach fills with butterflies. I reach out and his fingers wrap around my hand. His touch sears my skin in the best way. We make our way out of the library to the living room, and I can feel eyes on us.

I’m so wrapped up in the moment that I don’t hear the front door slam until a pause between songs quiets the room, and someone shouts, “Oooh, look. Another party I wasn’t invited to.”

Dylan rips his hand from mine, and I twist to face the door.

Clad in an above-the-knee faux-leather dress, Claire Heck stands on the landing. Her dirty-blond hair hangs in waves around her shoulders, and her ice-blue eyes stare straight into my soul as she takes in me and Dylan standing side by side.

I feel all the blood drain from my face, and I only have one thing to say: “Shit on a cracker.”

Four

Now

City lights finally fill the road ahead of us. Coming off this coastal highway is like crawling from an evergreen black hole. One second we’re surrounded by dense trees, and the next we’re flying past a Cold Stone Creamery, a brightly lit gas station, and a surf rental shop. (Though who in their right mind would surf the Oregon coast is beyond me.)

Jena’s phone starts buzzing with freshly unleashed text messages. Cell service is a laughable pipe dream on the highway between home and the coast. For more than an hour, there’s nothing but rolling farm fields and thick forest—and not a single cell tower for miles. I always know I’m close to the ocean when the bars reappear on my phone. Not today though. It’s still in airplane mode. I can’t risk Jena seeing a blocked call come through on the dash screen.

One downloaded playlist and she’s none the wiser.

Jena picks up her phone and goes through her messages, her knee bouncing. “Lots of people are already there. They must have left straight from school.”

That means a lot of them got their news en route. They’re braver than I am. If I got a no from Yale while on the road, I might have crashed my damn car.

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