Page 11 of Life of the Party

“I don’t know. I don’t want to bad mouth the guy. I just think you could do better.”

“I think the same for you, whenever you meet someone,” I admitted, meeting his deep brown eyes. “I think it’s a curse of ours, Ry. We care too much about each other to only be friends, but friends are all we’ll ever be. Don’t you agree?”

He stared up at the ceiling, hesitating before he slowly nodded his head.

“Right. Just friends. That’s all we’ll ever be.”

I’d said them first, but for some reason, it bothered me when he uttered the words.

Ever since we’d reached adolescence, the possibility had always been there, like white noise in the background, a constant subconscious thought that flirted with our deep bond of friendship and threatened to make it more.

Those words, spoken aloud, agreed upon, brought with them a feeling of sudden loss, a detachment in our closeness—as though certain things forever available were now forbidden to each other, off limits. I wondered if he felt it too. It was a terrifying feeling, as though we’d just mutually agreed to go our separate ways.

“Riley—” I tried hard to control my voice. “Promise me that no matter what happens, no matter who we end up with or what we go through, promise me you’ll always be there. Promise that, that you’ll always love me.”

He turned back to me then, a little smile curving his lips. His dark eyes were the same, warm and comforting. But the detached feeling remained.

“You don’t need me to say that, Mackenzie.”

“Why?”

“Because. You know it’s the truth.”

CHAPTER 4

Dad was waiting for me on the front porch of our house when I slowly ambled up the sidewalk, frowning from the lack of sleep and tormented emotions. He looked worn from a day spent on the plane, his suit rumpled, his face in need of a shave.

He didn’t look overly impressed with me, either.

“Is this a habit of yours? Staying out all night without telling anyone?”

“Well, hello to you, too.” I squinted. “No, it’s not a habit. And what difference does it make? No one was here anyway.”

“The difference is, you are seventeen years old, and you have a curfew, which you’ve only broken by, oh, twelve or thirteen hours.”

“How do you know? Maybe I came home last night and left early this morning. You’d never know.”

Dad didn’t answer, just sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. It was easy to beat him at this game. Most of the time, he didn’t have the patience or the energy to battle me.

“Well, you made it just in time.” He smiled then, his voice overly chipper, his I-just-want-to-get-along-with-you-today voice. “Marcy’s coming over to dinner! She just called.” He grinned broadly.

“What! Wow.” My sarcasm was obvious. “What are you still doing here? The fattened calf isn’t going to kill itself.” With that I brushed by him, rolling my eyes, heading quickly in and up to my room before he could bother me anymore.

To my horror of horrors, my mother had laid a neat little cardigan set on my unmade bed for me—bubblegum pink, with a grey plaid skirt to go with it.

A whisper from her. A subtle hint.Be more like Marcy.

Nothing made me want to be less like Marcy more. And I knew just how to show it.

An hour or so later, Mom called me down to supper.

“I’ll be right there!” I called back, smiling in anticipation. I looked in the mirror and made a few last-minute adjustments to the outfit I’d created.

The bubblegum pink top was now the owner of a great black skull that sat across my chest, a credit to my old art classes and a faithful black Sharpie. The grey skirt I’d left basically alone, only adding a few well-placed rips, which, of course, had to be fixed with an overabundance of safety pins. Beneath those were some fishnets I had worn for Halloween one year, and to top it all off, I put on some heavy, black army boots I found in the bottom of my closet. They were Riley’s, from his short stint in Cadets (which his mother forced him to quit when someone stole his brand new and very expensive boots).

He’d really hated that group.

With a dab more eyeliner, I bounded down the stairs and into the dining room.

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