Page 22 of Revelry
Davie shrugged, beaming as he watched Yvette slip into the hot tub with a splash and a laugh. “She’s the adorable one. I’m just the lucky son of a bitch she decided to drag around with her.”
“You guys met in high school, right?”
“Yeah,” he said, a gleam in his eyes. He was still watching her across the fire. “She could have gotten better than me. Still could, but for some reason she picked me out of the sea of guys clamoring for her attention. I didn’t get it back then, and I don’t guess I ever will.”
“You ever feel like you’re growing apart?” I asked before I realized how rude I was. “Sorry,” I clarified when Davie’s brows bent together. “I just mean that you met so young, and I know a lot changes in those years.”At least, they did for me and Keith.
“No, I get it. I know the statistics on high school sweethearts.” He shrugged, tossing the baby monitor between his hands like a football. “We’ve grown up a lot, been through a lot of shit, and there were some trying times. But at the end of the day, our love was more important than anything else. She’s always supported me and I’ve always supported her, and that’s all that either of us needed, I guess.”
I nodded, feeling a dark pit in the center of my stomach. “Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
I shifted, uncrossing my legs just to cross them the other way. “What would you do if Yvette told you she didn’t want to stay home with Benjamin anymore? What if she, I don’t know, decided she wanted to write blogs for wine magazines and travel the world tasting different wine and touring wineries?”
The corner of Davie’s mouth quirked and he glanced from where I sat over to Yvette again. “I’d sign us up for a credit card with air miles.”
Tucker plopped down into the lawn chair next to me before I had a chance to respond, throwing his arm around my shoulders. “How you liking your first cabin party, city girl?”
I laughed uneasily, shifting out from under his arm, leaning toward the cooler under the pretense that I needed another beer. I didn’t, not only because the one in my hand was nearly full but because my buzz was strong and steady. Still, I chugged what was left as I reached into ice chest for a new one.
“It’s fun. Thanks for inviting me.”
“You’re welcome any time,” Davie said, but a sharp cry rang through the monitor. He waved it in the air like a trophy. “Duty calls. You,” he added, pointing directly at Tucker. “Behave yourself until I get back. Seriously, don’t scare her away. It’s not even midnight yet.”
Tucker threw his hands up. “I am a perfect gentleman,” he said, eyes low and grin wide.
Davie rolled his eyes and mouthed to me that he’d be right back.
“So, ever been high?” Tucker asked when Davie was out of sight.
I balked at his forwardness, choking a little on the drink I’d just taken. I’m not sure why it caught me off guard—marijuana was legal in Washington and had been for a while—but I wasn’t used to being asked about it. There had been a time when I’d wanted to try it, right around when it was first legalized, but Keith had been so against it he’d flipped out that I even brought it up at all. He was in dental school at the time, and he couldn’t believe I’d risk his career for something so stupid.
“I have not,” I answered.
“Want to change that?” He pulled a joint from his coat pocket and held it up, waggling his brows. “A little Lemon Haze Sativa will set the night right. Trust me.”
I chewed my lip, eyes on the white rolled paper before they flicked back to his. His smirk was confident, eyes already low as he shifted his hand just a little closer to me.
Oh, what the hell.
It seemed like a perfectly fine response in the moment. What did it matter? Everyone at the bonfire was buzzed, I was only a few hundred feet from my own cabin, and I was having fun. There was absolutely nothing wrong with trying weed for the first time.
That thought held strong through my first hit, and my second, and even when the high started to float in, coating itself over the buzz I’d already laid as the red carpet. Everything wasfine.
And then Anderson walked up.
I knew the moment I walked into Yvette and Davie’s backyard that I shouldn’t have come.
But it was too late. Momma Von noticed me first, and she jumped from her seat by the fire and ran to me, crushing me in a hug before screaming for Yvette and Davie. I saw her then, Wren, sitting next to Tucker by the fire, and her big doe eyes doubled in size when they saw me.
The noise died down as Davie helped Yvette climb out of the hot tub. He wrapped her in a large towel and then in his arms and they walked straight up to me, both of them with concern etched hard in their features.
They must have thought something was wrong. Why else would I be there? I didn’t party anymore, didn’t hang out, didn’t do anything at all. I was a shit friend—not even a friend at all. It’d been that way for so long now, I wondered if they even remembered who I was before.
“Hey, man,” Davie said first. His eyebrows pinched together and he looked behind me, probably wondering if my truck was here, if I needed him. We hadn’t said more than ten words to each other in years, but he would jump in and drive with me no matter where I needed to go. I knew that for a fact, because I’d do the same.
“Everything okay?” Yvette asked.
