Page 43 of Perfect on Paper

just at the party with luke and finn, i’ll message you when I get home. cant wait to see you tomorrow. thinking about you

Hunter shoved his phone in his pocket and hopped to his feet to clap Luke on the back. I hadn’t even noticed Luke approach, what with the lack of light and the swarm of bodies. There must have been at least thirty people in the room. “Hey, Finn’s in the yard,” Luke said. I couldn’t hear Hunter’s reply, as they turned to walk off together, leaving me alone on the couch.

He hadn’t even said bye to me. And there I’d thought we were couch buddies.

I also wondered if he happened to be the guy who’d called his girlfriend a psycho once. If so, I hoped Finn and Brougham didn’t let that shit slide if he said it out loud. But, on a positive note, if it was him, at least he had the ability to learn. His message couldn’t have been more suited to soothe an activated attachment system if I’d written it myself. The thought injected a little warmth into my otherwise sour mood.

Even still, I was out of emotional energy to do anything but sit alone and observe.

Which I did. I observed Brooke and Ray get into some sort of chugging competition with Jaz acting as referee.

I observed Alexei working the room, dropping in on various conversations and making sure the living room stayed reasonably clean and tidy, which made sense given their parents were just upstairs. While they were obviously in the running to win the “most chilled-out parents” award, I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate a trashed house, and it wasn’t like Alexei could do a quick cleanup to hide the evidence if things got out of hand.

I observed Finn glide into the living room from the direction of the backyard, look around slowly, then sort of drift unsteadily down the hall. He might have been going to the bathroom, but he looked… odd. I wasn’t otherwise engaged, so I followed him, half out of concern, half out of curiosity. He wandered down the hall ahead of me in no great rush, taking in the family photos hanging on the wall, and the ceiling, and his own feet. He paused at the bathroom, looked in, then kept walking. He found a door, pushed it open and slid inside, leaving it open behind him.

I peeked around it. I half-expected to find someone else in there, but it was just Finn, spinning around slowly in the center of the room on top of a cream shag rug. The room was a sort of second living room/study combination, with a heavy chestnut desk, a ceiling-high bookshelf running along half a wall, and a maroon sofa and armchair set up by an expensive-looking coffee table.

I knocked to announce myself and walked in. “Hey, dude. I’m not sure we’re meant to be in this end of the house.”

Finn looked positively delighted to see me, and he held out his arms for a hug. “Darcy!”

I came closer to him, crossing my arms uncertainly. We’d never hugged before. But he kept his arms out, so I cracked and gave him a quick embrace. “How’s your night?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s great. It’sawesome,you?” Before I could reply, he went on, pulling back from me but keeping his hands firmly on my shoulders. “I’ve metgreatpeople, everyone here isgreat.My friends are all here! Well, not all of them. But Hunter and Luke are here! Isn’t that great?”

“So great,” I agreed, equal amounts amused and confused. “How come Brougham’s not here?”

Finn waved a hand, then looked at it for a long moment, and waved it again while he narrowed his eyes in suspicion at the limb. “He has a swim meet in the morning. Besides, he doesn’t drink.”

“His body’s a temple,” I said wryly. I didn’t know why I was being mean about Brougham. He was all right, really. We hadn’t talked at all since Disneyland, but we’d ended our business relationship on okay terms. And hehadkept my secret for me. I was just mad at the world after reading about what Ray had done to Brooke, I guess.

Finn shook his head. “No, it’s not that. It’s—whatis wrong with my hand?”

He held it out between us, wide-eyed. It seemed standard, as far as hands went. “I don’t know, what’s up?”

Finn shoved it in his back pocket, then sat down hard on the sofa, pinning his hand under his body weight. “Oh,” he said vaguely.

“Finn?” I asked, uncertain. How much had he drunk? “You okay?”

“I did a thing.”

“What did you do?”

He shifted to release his trapped hand, then slowly tipped backward on the sofa until he and the sofa had all but become one. “I had some gummies.”

It took me a second. “Wait, like weed gummies?”

His eyebrows drew together, and he adjusted his glasses while he focused in on something in the distance. We sat in an endless pause. Then he blinked slowly and sighed. “Pardon?”

“… I asked if you ate weed gummies.”

“Oh. Yes. I did that.”

Uh-oh. I had approximately zero experience with this kind of situation. I was only recently getting used to how to support drunk people, and it involved way too much vomit for my liking. Was Finn going to vomit? Should I get him to the bathroom?

“What?” Finn asked sharply.

“I didn’t say anything.

---