Page 110 of All Along

Hudson arrives with baby Iliana in his arms. “I think she’s hungry.”

“Which is the only time you allow me to cuddle my own daughter.” Hudson hands Nova the baby and they disappear down the hallway.

“We’re finally alone.” Sophia rubs her hands together. “What do you want to do first? Replace the potato chips with kale chips? Swap out all of Maya’s pictures for pictures of mermaids? Put a toilet sign on the door to the creepy basement? Put clear plastic wrap across the door to the kitchen? Start a drinking game? What about using that app you developed to cause the lights to flicker and scare everyone? Place whoopee cushions on the chairs? Stick googly eyes on everything in the bathroom?”

“Do you have any kale chips?” She shakes her head. “What about pictures of mermaids? A toilet sign? Whoopee cushions? Googly eyes?”

“Those suggestions might not work. But the others were good ideas.”

I lift my eyebrow. “Really? You’re going to put plastic wrap across the door to the kitchen without anyone noticing?”

She shrugs. “We can play a drinking game. Or cause the lights to flicker.”

“Didn’t Flynn forbid you from playing drinking games?”

“Flynn doesn’t own me.”

“I’m not scaring people with flickering lights. It’s nearly hurricane season.”

Someone behind me claps and I whirl around to find out who it is. Damn. It’s Eli. I quickly whirl back around to continue my conversation – inane though it is – with Sophia but she’s disappeared.

My friends suck. They abandoned me at this party knowing I don’t want to get caught alone with Eli, the douchebag.

“Paisley’s ruining everyone’s fun again.”

I turn around to face him. I don’t want to be near him but I won’t hide. Other than the time I hid behind the bar at theBootlegger.But that was an emergency. I didn’t realize he was back on the island. I hadn’t had the chance to prepare myself to see him.

I cross my arms over my chest. “Would you rather pee into a toilet wrapped in plastic wrap?”

“Sophia didn’t suggest tampering with the toilets.”

I narrow my eyes. “How long have you been eavesdropping on my conversation?”

“I wasn’t eavesdropping. This is a party. I’m mingling. You should know better. You’re an excellent eavesdropper.”

My face warms. Does he know I heard him all those years ago back in high school?

“Except when the door to the boy’s locker room opened up and you fell inside.” He chuckles.

The warmth on my cheeks spreads down my neck. Ending up on your hands and knees in a boy’s locker room filled with seventeen-year-old boys was not my finest moment.

“It was a dare.”

“You do realize you don’t have to actually perform the dare. You can say no.”

“I’m aware.”

“Of course you are.” He rolls his eyes. “Paisley the Perpetual Know It All knows everything.”

I spit daggers out of my eyes at him. How dare he? “We are no longer adolescents. Childhood nicknames areinappropriate.”

He barks out a laugh. “Still sensitive.”

“Enough!”

Everyone stops speaking and I realize I shouted. Stupid Eli. He makes me irate. Whereas I can usually keep my cool in all circumstances. Even when a chemistry experiment is exploding and the entire high school has to evacuate.

I have his attention now, though. I might as well make things absolutely clear.

---