Page 109 of Stop and Seek
Alyssa sat up. She pulled the curls through her hands, littering sparkles all over their drivers backseat. “How’re you doing? Good?”
“I’m fine. Getting a little carsick.”
The happy pill wasn’t doing it’s thing, and he was having second thoughts about why he was going in the first place.
Was itonlyto see Noah? God that was desperate as fuck. Alyssa was going to be there. And Benji had texted saying he wanted to hang out before he left. Decker had even started sending weird-ass memes all hours of the day and night.
It wasn’tjustfor Noah.
It wasn’t.
At all.
Theo took his phone back and turned off the music. “How many people are going to be there, exactly?”
“Like, sixty or eighty. Do you ever,evercheck the group chat? At all?”
Great.
“I would rather eat glass,” he said flatly.
The car lurched when it rolled up the hill and he closed his eyes to fend off the new wave of nausea.
Reaching over, he groped for her hand blindly. Squeezed.
“You’ll be alright,” he murmured. “If you need me to rescue you, let me know.”
“My knight in Goodwill clothes,” she teased, but her grip tightened.
Theo couldn’t help but laugh.
The car slowed to a stopped in front of what looked like a fucking castle.
Theo rolled down the window, sticking his head out.
Castle? That didn’t even seem like the right word for this monstrosity. What the hell was bigger than a fucking castle?
The house could have swallowed their entire high school whole. Twice. Maybe three times if he counted whatever the hell was on the sides.
If the front was wild, the light show happening in the backyard should have been an epilepsy warning all on its own, and it wasn’t even dark yet. The neon beams cutting through the dusk felt like it belonged in a much bigger place than Ohio.
The driveway had two other cars in it, one of which Theo recognized as Noah’s.
Where were the rest of the people? Did they park somewhere else or did they get dropped off too?
He didn’t even have time to ask if it was the right place before Alyssa was chirping out her thanks and dragging him out of the backseat.
As the driver pulled away, Theo couldn’t be bothered to move. His feet were glued to the rough stone walkway, his head permanently lodged to the side. The windows were so big he could see entire rooms.
Holy shit.
Alyssa grabbed his elbow. “Yes. Max is richer than most people you’ll ever meet. Stop staring and let’s go.”
“You’ve—you’ve been here before, haven’t you?” Theo stammered out. He still couldn’t shut his mouth.
“I was here yesterday helping set up.” She pulled him forward. “After Noah ditched us, Max needed the extra hands. It’s kind of a museum inside, though.” She paused. “Oh, and don’t like, smile at the catering staff. They’re super weird. Like, weirder than weird.”
“I’m sorry, the fuckingcatering staff?You told, you—you asked if I’d ever driven by!”
