Page 43 of For You & No One Else (Say Everything 3)

“Totally, for sure,” he deadpanned as she reached under the table and pulled out one of the phone sleeves. “The slumber-party theme is…an interesting choice.”

Jayleigh smiled as she slipped his phone into the sleeve and turned the locking mechanism. “Oh, come on, who doesn’t want to see everyone in their pajamas? And Truth or Dare plus alcohol? That’s genius. Tell me that’s not genius.”

He smiled. “So it was your idea?”

She tipped her head slyly. “It wasn’tnotmy idea.”

“Fair enough.” He lifted his palms in surrender. “I’m here and open to the possibilities.”

She gave him a nod of concession. “That’s all we ask.”

“I invited two new people, names are Eliza and Andi,” he added. “So if two women show up and give you my name, can you let them know I’m already here?”

“Will do.” She handed him back his encased phone. Now he wouldn’t be able to get to it without coming back to the front and getting it unlocked. And if he did that, he wasn’t allowed back into the party. “Have fun.”

“Thanks. You too.”

He headed up a set of stairs. Because the house was on the bayou, it sat on stilts. All the living areas were elevated and safe from flooding, and only the small garage was on the bottom level. The place was owned by Alice, one of the founding members of NoPho. She’d made a shit ton of money on an app she’d developed a few years ago and had bought this seventies-era place and renovated it. She lived in a condo in the city during the week, but kept this as a weekend retreat and let the group use it for the monthly parties.

The sound of voices and a Cyndi Lauper song greeted Beckham as he walked through the main door. A few clusters of people were already in the living room, chatting and drinking. The wall of windows that lined the back side of the house provided a view of a long porch that faced the still, dark water of the bayou and the cypress trees that guarded it, but no one was out there. Tonight was a little chilly for New Orleanians. People would probably wander out once they had enough booze to keep them warm.

Beckham went to the bar and got his usual club soda with lime and then caught sight of his friend Will, who was sitting on one of the couches and wearing an LSU tiger-stripe onesie. A lawyer in a onesie. Beckham shook his head, laughing in chagrin. What had he been thinking, inviting Eliza to this? She was going to tease him relentlessly about the ridiculousness of this whole thing.

Will spotted him and lifted a hand, waving him over. Beckham headed that way and greeted his friend with a fist bump before taking the spot next to him on the couch. “Looking sharp, man.”

“Hell yeah, I am.” Will patted him on the shoulder, his deep voice booming. “Beckham, meet Hannah and Kevin. You already know Khuyen and Trinity.” Will waved his drink at the two women and two guys sitting in the semicircle of chairs in front of the couch. “Everybody, Beckham.”

Beckham lifted his drink. “Everybody.”

He’d chatted with Trinity, a pretty Black woman with a nose ring, at a previous party—a dance instructor if he was remembering right. And Khuyen was a friend who owned a Cajun-Vietnamese-fusion food truck that served ridiculously good gumbo and pho. (Khuyen regularly complained about the NoPho name of the group because he said it sounded like a group against delicious soup.) The other two people—a blond woman in Hannah Montana pajamas (Beckham smiled when the joke hit him, a Hannah in Hannah Montana pajamas) and a stocky, dark-haired white guy with glasses and Christmas pj’s—were apparently Will’s guests this week.

“So what did I miss?” Beckham asked.

Will took a sip of his drink—whiskey. Beckham still picked up the smell of alcohol like a bloodhound, but thankfully, the pull of it didn’t affect him like it used to. Will leaned back against the couch, hooking his ankle over his knee, the ice in his glass rattling. “We’ve been debating which games we’re going to try. They’ve set up each room with something different.”

“What are the options?” Beckham asked.

“I went in one and they were playing Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board,” Trinity said, already shaking her head. “Who in their right mind is going to trust a bunch of hammered people to hold them up in the air? No thanks. I’ll end up going to work on Monday with a broken arm.”

Hannah made a sound of agreement as she sipped her bright-pink drink. “Yeah, I’m skipping that one. Next they’ll be playing Bloody Mary in the bathroom.”

“I’mout,” Trinity said. “That shit scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. I’m not calling forth any spirits out here on the bayou. That’s how horror movies start.”

“I think Truth or Dare will be fun—once I’ve got a buzz going, at least,” Khuyen said, shaking the ice cubes in his drink. “I might try all of the games. In middle school, I always wanted to be invited to a slumber party. I used to imagine what girls did with each other during those late-night games. So many possibilities…”

He got a goofy, dreamy smile on his face.

Hannah smacked him playfully with a couch pillow. “Ugh. Boys.”

“Hey, my parents didn’t have cable and the family computer was in the living room,” he said with mock woundedness. “I had to get creative.”

Trinity snorted. “We weren’t kissing at the parties, I can tell you that—much to my disappointment. My young lesbian heart was vastly let down. There was a lot of talk about boys—who was cute and who wasn’t. Yawn.” She patted her mouth and rolled her eyes in mock boredom. “I’m hoping tonight will be more fun than that.”

“You should try Spin the Bottle,” Will said as he pushed back the tiger-eared hoodie part of his ensemble and dabbed sweat off his shaved brown head with a cocktail napkin. “I heard that was in one of the rooms.”

“That’s not a slumber-party game,” Hannah replied with a headshake. “That was boy-girl party territory. Along with Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

“Well, thisisa boy-girl slumber party.” Kevin adjusted his glasses and cut a shy glance toward Hannah. “Conceivably, it fits. I bet there’s Seven Minutes in Heaven somewhere, too.”

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