Page 23 of Revelry
“Oh, everything’s fine,” Momma Von said, waving them both off. “He came to hang out and have a good time. Ain’t that right, Anderson?”
I cleared my throat, eyes finding Wren’s as she watched me with just as much curiosity as everyone else. “Yeah. I uh, I wanted to see Benjamin.”
“Oh,” Yvette said, exchanging a look with Davie. “Well, Davie just got him back to sleep, but we can go wake him up if you want to say hi?”
“No, no,” I assured her. “No, let him sleep.”
Momma Von’s eyes softened as she watched me trying. Trying to what, I wasn’t sure, and that thought settled in more and more as everyone stared at me.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come,” I murmured, just loud enough for the four of us to hear, but when I turned to leave, Davie grabbed my arm.
“Hey, come on. Let’s get you a beer.”
He held my eyes when I turned, smiling like he understood, and he probably did. If anyone would know how I was feeling in that moment, it would be Davie. Years had passed, we’d both grown up in different ways—he’d created life, I’d lost one—but he was still my best friend.
“Yeah, alright.”
Yvette and Momma Von shared a smile, linking arms and walking back to one side of the fire as Davie walked me toward the ice chest.
Which also happened to be right in front of Wren.
She was buzzed, that much I could tell just from one glance. Her eyes were glossy, lids heavy, full lips I loved to stare at curved just slightly at the edges as she watched me move toward her. She was all done up, eyes outlined in black and lips a deep red. She wore a long gray coat that fell in weird folds around the sweater she wore underneath it. I’d never seen a coat like that, never seen anyone dress the way she did.
“Hi,” she breathed when we’d reached where she sat.
Davie bent, retrieving a beer for me and popping it open before handing it over.
I popped the top, eyes still on Wren. “Hey.”
“You guys have met?” Tucker asked, and I ground my teeth, taking a drink to cool my temper before it even had the chance to warm up. Tucker was Dani’s boyfriend, when she was alive, and to say we didn’t get along would be a horrible understatement.
Wren just nodded, still smiling at me. “Look what I’m wearing.”
She popped her feet out toward me, showing me the black rubber knee-high boots she wore. There was a white boxed logo outlined in red on the top of each of them and it read HUNTER in all caps.
“They’re Hunter boots! I’m practically a certified mountain girl now.”
The fire light played with the shadows on her face, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away long enough to really care about the boots.
“Foot’s better then?”
She let her feet plop back down to the dirt. “Almost. Better enough for cute shoes, at least.”
Tucker’s eyes darted from her to me then, and I knew his curiosity was eating him from the inside out. And maybe the combination of her being adorable and him being jealous was just right to make me smile for the first time in longer than I could remember.
“Stay away from the hot tub.”
Wren’s cheeks flushed, and I kept my eyes on her even after Davie dragged me away to say hi to the guys.
I was surprised how welcoming everyone was, all things considered. No one really even acted like I’d been gone at all. They talked to me like I was there the night before, and the night before that, like I hadn’t ghosted years ago, like I hadn’t ditched every single one of them in favor of living in my own miserable existence alone. Still, I felt the unasked questions in the space between us. They asked with their eyes, with their gestures, with their stories, but at least I didn’t have to answer those.
Did I even have an answer? Not one they would understand, I was sure. Everyone knew Dani and I were close, but they didn’t know everything about us—about that day.
They didn’t know how I’d drunkenly berated her for everything that made her who she was, that I’d pushed her and made her think she needed to change, that I was the reason her lifeless body was pulled from that river. No one in their right mind would have tubed it that day, not with the water the way it was, but I’d made her feel like she had something to prove.
She was the one person in my life who showed me what it was to have a family, the one person who cared enough to slap some sense into me when I was throwing my life away.
But that night, the drugs had been too strong. I’d told her it washerwho needed to change, not me. And it had been those words that killed her.
