Page 12 of Becoming Mila
Stunned, I shake my head wordlessly at him. What a jerk. I press myself against the truck and hiss through clenched teeth, “Who do you think you are?”
Nonchalantly, Blake jumps down from the truck bed and closes the distance between us. He looks straight into my eyes. “Blake Avery,” he says with an infuriating smirk. “It’s nice to meet you, Mila.”
Ugh.I can’t take another second of his obnoxious self-confidence. Fixing him with the most intimidating look I can muster, I turn and stomp back over to Savannah, who seems to have been watching the whole thing.
“What was that about?” she questions, glancing between Blake and me. He’s talking to some guy now, casually waving his soda can around as he speaks.
“Nothing,” I mutter, ignoring the quick beating of my pulse. “Your cousin is—” I start, but as rattled as I am, my voice trails off when I remember it’s probably not a good idea to talk trash about Savannah’s relatives.
“You’ll warm to him,” Savannah says with a teasing smirk, but no, I definitely will not. “C’mon, let’s sit down.”
I don’t know whose truck it is that Tori is working from, but I help Savannah drag out some lawn chairs from the back of it and set them up. We sink down into them and I take the opportunity to really study the crowd.
There’s a mixture of ages and equal amounts boys and girls. Myles is sprawled out on a lawn chair with some girl in his lap who’s biting at his earlobe, and I give Savannah a sidelong glance to see if she’s noticed, but I’m pretty sure she’s actively avoiding looking in that direction.
I pay attention again to the truck from before, the one with the packets of hot-dog buns laid out on the tailgate. There’s a guy setting up a trio of the disposable grills and I assume that must be Barney.
“Any boys caught your eye? Or do you already have a boyfriend?” a voice from above us says, and my eyes fly upward to find Tori leaning over us from the back of the truck. She sticks her tongue out, upside-down, and then jumps down and gets comfy in the chair next to me. She passes out cans of soda to us, and I figure she must be satisfied that her playlist is now set up and running correctly.
“No and no,” I say. “What about you guys?”
“Savannah has ahuuuugething for Nathan Hunt. That guy over there helping Barney with the food.”
“No, I don’t!” Savannah protests, catapulting forward in her chair to lean over me and whack Tori’s arm. “I only said he was cuteone timeand now Tori thinks I’m obsessed with him,” she tells me.
“Oh, please,” Tori snorts. “You stalk his Insta feed daily.”
Tori goes on to tell me about some guy she’s been seeing, who isn’t here tonight, and then they fill me in on everyone whoishere. They give me the low down on who’s dating who, who was on the prom court, who’s on the football team (surprisingly,notBlake), and who went skinny dipping in the lake last month. Maybe there’s more to Fairview than meets the eye.
Barney and Nathan dish out hot dogs to everyone but I decline when they offer me one – when I was a kid, Dad bought me a hot dog from a food cart at the beach and I got sick with food poisoning, so I’ve never been able to stomach one since – but Savannah and Tori both wolf them down.
The “party” is more of a chilled get-together among friends than the wild night of debauchery I was worried it might be, so I’m pleasantly relieved. People are relaxed, lounging on chairs, on truck beds, sipping on sodas and seltzer, though I do spot the odd beer every now and again. The scent of hot dogs wafts through the air and Tori’s music is the heartbeat of the night. It’s nice, and I feel at ease with Savannah and Tori with no one else bothering me, until Blake starts banging those tongs against his truck again.
“Everyone well fed?” he asks, arm propped up on the edge of his truck. The small crowd nods and holds up their drinks. “Good. It’s time for Truth or Dare.”
Okay, so maybe this is where the “party” kicks in. A hush of anxious whispering and giggles ripples through the group and people shimmy their chairs forward to form a closer circle. I follow suit with Savannah and Tori, edging in to the point where the proximity to everyone becomes a little uncomfortable.
To the surprise of no one, Blake leads the game. He steps into the middle of the circle and sets down an empty Pepsi bottle, holding it steady under his foot. The music is still playing, perhaps a little too loud. He summarizes the rules of the game as though there would ever be a possibility that any teenager in the world doesn’t know how Truth or Dare works, then spins the bottle and leans against his truck. The white polo he’s wearing stretches tight across his broad chest.
The bottle points at Savannah.
“Truth,” she says anxiously, pursing her lips and giving her cousin her best puppy-dog eyes. Maybe she’s hoping Blake will go easy on her, but I doubt it.
“Is it true you dip fries into your milkshakes?”
Okay, pointnotproven.
“Laaaame,” someone drawls.
Savannah sighs audibly beside me, her face lighting up with a relieved grin. A lucky escape thanks to blood connections.
No one else is as lucky.
Poor Barney opts for a dare and Savannah orders him to streak across the baseball field. He laps it up, entertaining the troops with a faux striptease, then sprints around the field butt-naked. He returns, hands shielding his crotch, and bows to a round of applause that even I participate in. I get the feeling that this is something of a party trick. He seems like the kind of guy who’s destined to become the joker of any friendship circle.
The game continues and there’s a mixture of both dares and truths being chosen. The truths are the usual, obvious kind of questions, like who was the last person you hooked up with? And the dares are relatively tame in comparison to the one Savannah delivered – kiss someone in the group, post an embarrassing photo to your Instagram feed, chug the last remaining bottle of Bud Light that someone has found in the bottom of a cooler. Every time someone spins the bottle again, I stare at the dark sky and pray it points to anyone but me. So far, luck has been on my side.
Until. . .
