Page 43 of Alive At Night

“Who is?” Gemma popped up next to me. I didn’t look away from Greg and Juni, but I’d know her curious voice anywhere. I didn’t need to answer for her to figure it out, though. After a few beats of silence, she sighed exaggeratedly. “Oh, I should have known.”

“Do they still talk?” I asked while studying how Juniper tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and flashed a smile that couldn’t be genuine. Could it?

When Gemma withheld an answer, I turned to see her grin.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why do you care?”

I glanced back at Juniper; she seemed to be shrinking into the horrendous floral wallpaper that had been there since the ’90s. “Idon’tcare how you look at me,” I said to Gemma. “I just—”

“No, why do you care about Juni and Greg?”

I immediately busied myself with restacking the pumpkin-printed napkins. “I don’t care about that either. I’m just curious. As her best friend, I’d think you’d be discouraging this. She doesn’t exactly look enthused.” I waved a hand in Juniper and Greg’s direction. “Plus, he cheated on her at least once in high school.”

“Is Jules ranting about Juniper again?”

Josie popped up beside Gemma, her short auburn curls bouncing beneath her wizard hat. BigLord of the Ringsfan, that one.

Gemma nodded, almost proudly, as she stuck her chin in the air. “Yep. I’m about to rescue her from Greg Kennedy, but honestly, I think Julian should do it. You know, since he feels so strongly about the two of them.”

“He sure gives her a lot of attention,” Josie said, tapping her finger on her chin. Drama was Josie’s thing, and she sure was leaning into it tonight.

“He really does.” Janie joined us in the kitchen, leaning on the countertop with that goddamn mischievous expression I adored and hated all at once.

Mostly hated, at the moment.

Janie was the second oldest after Gemma and the sister I affectionately referred to as my mini-me. Bound for law school while currently playing D1 soccer, Janie had followed closely in my footsteps.

I stopped listening to all my sisters as Greg stalked away from Juniper, bursting through the door leading to our garage. I liked that he’d disappeared, but what the hell was he planning to do out there?

Leaving Josie, Janie, and Gemma behind, I followed Greg into the garage, and the minute he turned around to reveal that face I’d grown up despising, I started saying shit I probably shouldn’t.

“What are you doing, Kennedy?”

His lips curled as soon as he saw me, but he nodded at the cigarette in his hand. “Smoke break.”

The garage door was open. My parents had decorated the space as an area for the party to spill out into, but the rain of the last few days left a severe chill in the air, and I doubted anyone would leave the warm house. Meaning it was just me, Greg Kennedy, and a few bedsheet ghosts out here.

“Don’t you think it’s a little embarrassing how you throw yourself at Juniper every time she comes home?” I asked, shoving my hands into my pockets.

“Fuck off, Briggs,” Kennedy snarled, flicking his cigarette ash to the ground.

“Did you forget this is my house?”

His eyes rolled up, and I immediately had to resist the urge to punch him. “It’s none of your business.”

I begged to differ. “Shit that happens at my house is, actually, my business.”

“Fine,” Kennedy conceded, “but nothing else involving Juniper is.”

“False.”

As much as I hated it, for the past two decades,everythinginvolving Juniper involved me. We all but grew up in the same house, graduated from the same high school, pursued the same careers, and now started at the same job. Theexactsame job.

“False?” Greg puffed his chest out, clearly feeling challenged. I reveled the hell out of that because there was nothing I loved more than watching guys who were full of shit attempt to flash nonexistent peacock feathers. “Is that so?”

God, I wanted to deflate this son of a bitch so bad. He was always on my ass in high school, a sore goddamn loser about not being team captain our senior year. It irked me to no end because I tried so damn hard to make our team into a family, and he always wanted to ruin it.

---