Page 3 of The Glittering Edge

“Your summer,” Alonso says slowly, as if he’s talking to a toddler who doesn’t understand the concept of seasons. “Is it good?”

Is this… small talk? Does Alonsodosmall talk?

“Uh,” she says, but incoherent sounds don’t count as answers, so she adds, “Good. Yours?”

“It’s fine. Listen, sorry about what I wrote in your yearbook. I was drunk.”

Penny suddenly feels like the single-celled organism she was pretending to be. Alonso wrote something in her yearbook? How had she missed that? And what would embarrass him enough to bring it up like this? Maybe it was a nasty drawing, or a government secret. Or maybe he wrote something awful about Penny’s mom. He wouldn’t be the first person to do that.

All Penny manages to say is, “You were drunk at school?”

Alonso narrows his eyes. “Just forget about it, okay?”

“Okay! Already forgotten!”

The corners of Alonso’s mouth twitch downward. “You didn’t even read it, did you?”

Penny tries to smile. “I must’ve missed it?”

“Then you should’vesaidthat.”

Maybe it’s the beer giving her confidence, or the fact that she already messed up this conversation, but Penny gives up all pretense. “It’s fine, Alonso. I don’t even want to know what you wrote.”

Alonso’s glare is so intense, he doesn’t even blink. “Why not?”

Penny grits her teeth and forces the words out. “I know you don’t like me, okay? And I don’t need you to like me. So let’s forget you ever wrote anything in my yearbook. I’ll never bring it up again, I swear. Just leave me alone.”

Penny expects Alonso to laugh at her, or maybe turn into the Hulk. But he doesn’t move. Instead, he stares at her, a vein bulging in his neck, his eyes wide and impossible to read.

Then another voice cuts through the silence.

“What are you doing here, Alonso?”

The words come from behind Penny. Alonso starts, as if he forgot for a second where he was. Then a slow smile spreads over his face.

“Hey, Corey,” he says. “Great party. Guess you forgot to invite me.”

Even though the night is hot, Penny’s blood turns to ice. Because she’s somehow found herself right in the middle of a battlefield.

Penny

SLOWLY, PENNY TURNS AROUND.

Corey Barrion is standing a few feet away, arms crossed over his broad chest. He glances at Penny, and she feels the heat rise in her cheeks.

Where Alonso is disheveled, pieced together like a collage, Corey is his opposite. His white T-shirt is tight in all the right places, his brown curls shorn close to his head. Where the dim light makes Alonso ghostly, it lends a gentle glow to Corey’s brown skin. And while Alonso is smirking like a stand-up comedian who doesn’t realize he’s bombing, Corey is as impassive as stone.

“I know harassing people gets you off, but you’re not doing it here,” Corey says. His eyes are serious, and behind them is a weariness that makes him look older.

Alonso is still grinning. “Penny and I were catching up. Right, Emberly?”

Just like that, the party’s attention is on Penny.

Oh no. She can’t do this. Between the Indiana humidity and her animal fear of conflict, she’s sweating enough to create a moat around herself.

Corey must see the desperation in Penny’s eyes, because his gaze softens, and he turns his attention back to Alonso. “Fine. Then stay. Hope you have fun.”

The party shivers with whispers and laughter as Corey walks away, and Penny almost relaxes. Maybe this will be okay, and for oncethey won’t fight. Just because their family hatred goes back three generations doesn’t mean this night has to end badly!

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