Page 22 of Our Forever Starts Tonight

“Tris!” Molly yelled down the stairs. “More of your friends are here.”

I let out an audible growl and Aria laughed. As frustrating as it was, I stepped back from Aria, glancing down to make sure I was okay, which made her laugh more.

“Why did I invite a bunch of people to our first date?” I asked.

Aria’s face was totally flushed and her eyes fluttered with happiness. “I don’t know. It’s probably a good thing though. I’m not a first date, first time kind of girl but… I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

I shook my head. “Don’t tell me that. I’ll shut this whole shit down.”

She giggled. “Fine by me.”

I looked at her and wanted so desperately to lean back in, but there was nothing I could do. “Maybe, when the party is like… up and going, we could slip away again?”

My heart jumped when she nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll come track you down later.” I started off, but looked back at her and didn’t want to go. She flicked her hands at me to shoo me off, so I groaned again and made my way upstairs.

As I got to the landing at the top of the stairs, I could already hear Ceradi’s shrill laugh. I rounded the corner into the kitchen and saw Ceradi, Hannah, Milton, Josh, and Capito standing there, already with drinks in their hands.

“There you are,” Ceradi said. “I was beginning to think you were going to leave us here on our own.”

Hannah smiled at me. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

“Ooh, what’d you get?” Milton said, snatching the orange bag with Aria’s gifts out of my hands. When my arms wrapped around her, I stopped thinking about the fact that I was holding it.

“Uh,” I said, but then decided to let them journey further and test the temperature.

Milton shoved his meaty hand into the bag and pulled back out the sketchpad and pencils. His face screwed in confusion as Hannah’s eyes widened and flicked to me.

Ceradi grabbed the tag on the bag and opened it up. “Aria? That new girl? She’s here?”

I waited for a minute, with no one doing anything to indicate which way they were going. Milton looked at Ceradi, then Hannah, then me, and then after a few seconds of silence, they burst out into laughter.

Ceradi looked at me with tears in her eyes. “What did you think when she handed it to you?”

I quickly glanced at Hannah, and she gave me a subtle shake of her head, then I cracked a smile. I didn’t want to be embarrassed or ridiculed in front of all of my friends. The party was just getting started. “What do you think?” I said. “I was like, is this girl serious? A coloring book? What am I, five?”

Though she didn’t laugh, Hannah let out a sign of relief, while Ceradi, Milton, Josh, and Capito roared.

8

Aria

My heart was still pounding out of control. No matter how long I sat there, the feeling of Tristan’s lips on mine and his hands caressing down my back lingered. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or sad for the interruption of his other party guests beginning to arrive. We were a speeding train, and I could say with certainty that if he tried to push for more, I would have let him. I didn’t expect that he would actually make a move that quickly, but something about that last hug we had snapped a strand of resistance that had already been pulled completely taut.

If he hadn’t made that move, I probably would have.

Hopefully we’d have a little more time later to continue to explore. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to goallthe way with him just yet—we should probably go on a date first—but again, I wasn’t in any position to slow us down. If he wanted to keep going, so did I.

Over the course of the next ten or fifteen minutes, party guests arrived in droves. I could hear the rumble of dozens of sets of feet on the floor above, and eventually, people started to spill their way downstairs. The music started to rock a little harder, and people started indulging in the food and drinks.

It was a party. A totally new experience for me.

I did see that there was a giant tub with ice in it, and the drinks people were pulling out appeared to be alcoholic. I’d never drunk before, and if I had any control over it, I never would. My father died because he was homeless and got so drunk in the middle of the winter that he didn’t realize how much heat his body had lost. The warmth of the booze convinced him he was fine, and he sat out in the cold until he froze to death. At work, at least half of the clients I helped at any given time came in completely wasted. A majority of our financial counseling was convincing people that liquor was a black hole of finances and that the beginning of not being without was not spending money on things like that.

In short, I hated alcohol. Nothing good came from it.

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