Page 45 of Never Say Die
Aiden cleared his throat. “Is this stuff usually, like, accurate?”
“That’s up to you,” she said, and reshuffled the deck, fanning the cards before Shay. “Your turn.”
Shay stared at Aiden, pupils like black saucers, brows knitted with concentration. He didn’t face Laura until Aiden tipped his chin toward her, and he didn’t remove his hand from the low dip on Aiden’s back. Just stood there, still as the dead, and shook his head. “Soulmates,” he said, laughter jumping into his voice. He pulled a card near the edge of the deck and passed it to her.
She flipped the card. A skeleton knelt, skewered by blades, clutching its chest. “The Ten of Swords reversed,” she said, surprised. Her eyes transferred from Aiden to Shay. “Looks like you’re fighting something. Change, probably. You’re carrying wounds from an old fight. One you lost, I’m guessing?” She narrowed her eyes, nodding along with Shay. “Don’t dwell. Move on, trust yourself, become someone new. Kill the past and welcome your future.”
“What if my future is uncertain?” Shay asked.
“Nothing is uncertain.” Laura shuffled his card back into the deck. “But whoever put those swords in your back will probably do it again. Be careful who you. . .” She paused, clucking her tongue. “Make pacts with,” she decided, and turned her back to them, folding into the star-shaped circle on the blanket.
Aiden imagined that night at the Ocean Grove trailhead. Driving the blade into his own stomach, kneeling off the cliff, tumbling into the darkness, dying, coming back, texting Shay something reckless and ridiculous.I’ve loved you, I love you, I want to love you. But he’d had nothing to give, nothing to offer besides his wretched, rotten love for Shay—the goddamn key ingredient—decaying in his ribcage until he’d tried to rip it out. Realized how alive it still was. Clung to it, mercilessly, and raised the stolen future he’d bargained for back from the dead.
Except he hadn’t brought Shay back, had he? Camila’s bitch ass psychic thought otherwise.
Shay gave Aiden a gentle push, guiding him across the deck and around the corner. “So, that was weird.”
“It’s probably a bunch of bullshit,” Aiden said.
“Didn’t feel like bullshit.”
With his defenses scratched away by a drug he—arguably—should not have taken, Aiden nodded. Disagreeing would’ve been harder, would’ve taken more effort, and his melting inhibitions would’ve made a lie impossible, anyway. He would’ve opened his mouth and shouted the truth:I needed to grieve you. I needed a reason to let you go for good. So, he stayed quiet, and waved to Georgia who soaked her feet in the jacuzzi at the end of the deck.
Dylan had stripped down to his briefs and lounged in the crowded tub, passing a blunt counterclockwise. Surprisingly, Pru sat beside him, sucking on a vape pen, topless and unbothered.
“I texted her,” Georgia said. Chlorine steam curled from the water. She lifted one foot and wiggled her wet toes. “Figured we could use a babysitter.”
Shay laughed. Aiden did, too.
Pru exhaled white vapor. “Don’t worry, I won’t stick aroundfor long. We’ve got a pit-stop in New Mexico tomorrow and I’m the driver, so.”
“Hang out for as long as you want,” Shay said. He tucked his thumb beneath Aiden’s shirt, tracing the place where denim met skin.
Aiden fought against the urge to close his eyes. He stepped closer to the jacuzzi, away from Shay’s hand. “New Mexico?”
“Jacob booked you guys recording time at some po-dunk studio in Roswell,” Pru said.
“Sounds about right,” Dylan said, voice strained as he nursed the blunt, forcing another few sips of smoke into his lungs.
Georgia heaved a sigh. “Think we’re ready to record?”
“No, absolutely not,” Aiden said, and tried not to laugh. His eyes wandered over transparent reflections dancing across windows and landed on the makeshift dancefloor illuminated by firelight past the glass.Focus. He unclenched his jaw, gnawing on his lip. “But we might as well give it a go, right?”
“If Jacob wants a new single, he’ll get one,” Shay said. He shrugged, flicking his wrist.
Ecstasy, like most euphoric drugs, gave bodies a way to expand, release, decompress. Like stars, almost. Still glowing, still dead, still trying and reaching. Aiden needed to calm his fast-moving thoughts, but he kept seeing velvet gloves and flipped cards, kept feeling impossibly vast in a body he was still building. He took a step without realizing, then another.
Shay called after him. “Hey, Aiden—wait!”
“I’m just goin’ inside,” Aiden said over his shoulder.
People writhed together in the living room, straddled each other on the brown leather sectional, and undulated in front of the fireplace. Aiden leaned against the stone wall and breathed. Faces blurred and changed, warped by fast movements and strobing light. Someone said, “Dance with me,” and he ignoredthem. Someone else said, “C’mon, we’re cuttin’ lines,” and he ignored them. Another person said, “You like oxy?” Except it was his own voice, echoing. Then he heard, “This stays between us,” and followed the grating sound to Thomas, sea-soaked and bloated, standing across the room.
Fuck you,he thought.Am I awake?
Shay touched his hand, suddenly there,right there, stepping between him and a ghost. “Aiden, hey, you… Whoa, you okay?”
Aiden blinked. Like always, he found himself orbiting Shay fucking Bennett. Finding him, being found by him. “Am I awake?” he asked, too quietly, then again, “Are we awake?”
