Page 53 of The Way We Are

The excited babbling of her and her friends sounds through my ears until they reach the ladies' restroom at the side of the ballroom. Just as they enter, a thick arm curls around my shoulders, while another presses something against my chest.

"I know you've got some in your wallet but figure it wouldn't hurt to have a spare," Chris says, dropping his eyes to the condom he’s shoving into my suit-covered chest.

“He hasn’t used it,” Brax laughs when I step back from the offending product like it has cooties. “Oh, hold on, maybe he has,” He views the condom from a safe distance. “Has that got puncture marks in it?”

Not hearing the jeering in Brax’s tone, Chris scoops the condom off the floor to inspect it like a valuator would scrutinize a priceless gem.

“I’m joking, you dimwit,” Brax reveals, snatching the condom out of Chris’s hand and slapping it back into my chest. “Use this. No matter what.” When I attempt to speak, he continues talking, cutting me off, “I don’t care that you’re leaving at ass-crack o’clock tomorrow morning. If one day you wake up and decide you want to come back to Ravenshoe, I don’t want a baby momma scaring you away.”

His voice holds the same mocking sentiment he used when stirring Chris, but I heard the words he doesn’t want to say out loud. He’s afraid I’m never going to come back. I will—one day—maybe.

Spotting Amelia and her friends heading our way, I snag the condom out of Brax's hand and hide it in my pocket.

“That’s a boy,” Brax praises, assuming my eagerness to secure the condom is because I’m planning to use it. I’m not. I just don’t want Amelia to see it and assume I am. “Time to get back on that horse.”

Rolling my eyes at him comparing my date to an animal, I shadow Amelia and her friends to our awaiting stretch limo.

“He didn’t wantyou to make a mess in his back seat,” Brax stirs as I hand our driver his excessive tip at the entrance of Bronte’s Peak. “Some smells you can never get rid of.”

When our middle-aged driver discovered the destination of the party we wanted to attend, he refused to drive us here. It was only after I promised to pay him a substantial tip did he succumb to the plea of Amelia and her friends.

His agreement came with two conditions. We weren't allowed to start our "shenanigans" until we were out of his vehicle and that he would drop us at the entrance of Bronte's Peak lookout, leaving the half-a-mile trek up the windy hill to our aching legs. Although not ideal, when the odds are stacked against you, you take what you can get.

“Are you cold?” I ask Amelia as we begin our climb.

She tightens her arms around her chest before replying, "A little." The goosebumps breaking across her skin strengthens her easy-going response.

A flare ignites in Amelia’s eyes when I shrug off my jacket and drape it over her shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispers, her low voice scarcely heard over her friends’ heavy sighs.

I swear Mecca and Chloe have sighed over a hundred times tonight. They sighed when I presented Amelia with a corsage of her favorite flower. They sighed when I asked Amelia to wait so I could open the car door for her when we arrived at the hotel tonight. They even sighed when we kissed. I'm so tempted to tell them if they paid more attention to their dates instead of Amelia and me, they might have something more interesting to sigh over.

“Do you know whose party this is?” I ask when the thump of bass wobbles my polished black dress shoes. “Looks pretty packed.”

Amelia screws up her nose. “From what Chloe said during our drive, it's a private school in Hopeton.”

I start breathing again at the end of her sentence. I was seconds away from having a coronary, suddenly mindful Ravenshoe High isn’t the only school in our district hosting proms this evening.

“What was that school called again, Chloe?” Amelia asks, raising her voice to ensure it's heard over the waves battering the coastline.

Usually, Bronte’s Peak is a peaceful beach located approximately twenty miles from Ravenshoe, but with a storm in the forecast, the ocean has become temperamental, lashing the rock caves lining the foreshore as violently as my heart smashed against my ribs when I was fearful this was Savannah’s after-prom party.

Chloe taps her index finger against her lips. “Ah... Woolencott... Woolendale... Wool—”

“Ridge?” I interrupt. “Is it Woolenridge?”

"Yeah, that's it," Chloe replies, smiling. "Woolenridge. Some top-of-the-range all-boys school in Hopeton." Her eyes roll skywards when she reaches the pompous part of her statement.

Brax crashes into my back when I suddenly stop walking. “What the f—” His reprimand halts when he sees the mortified expression crossing my face.

“I can’t go to that party,” I murmur under my breath. “That's hisparty.” I don’t need to mentionhisname for Brax to know who I am referring to. I haven’t referred tohimbyhisname sinceheslapped Savannah nearly two months ago.

“Ryan—”

“No, Brax,” I interrupt, not willing to listen to another one of his lectures about moving on. “This isn’t about ‘forgetting my past and looking to the future.’ It's about not trusting myself around him.” I step closer to Brax, ensuring no one overhears our conversation. “I still want to kill him.”

“Then do it. The world would be a better place without that leech in it.”

Brax throws his fist into Chris’s stomach, winding him with his unexpected hit. “You’re supposed to bring him down from the ledge, not push him over the edge.”

---