Page 116 of Hide and Keep

Not trusting my voice, all I can do is nod.

Kota snickers, but I don’t look at her to investigate why.

Ever hands over her jade before she and Kota run out of the tent to join the rest of the team.

The tape and jade back in Ever’s bag, I’m about to zip it up when I hear, “So…did you keep someone?”

I turn around to find Eighmey, a half-smile dancing on her red-stained lips. With hair longer than Ever’s, it’s all up in a ponytail, curls both on top of and around her head giving her an additional seven inches of height. Damn. These cheerleaders are something else. Kinda makes me grateful wrestling matches don’t get cheerleaders. I never would’ve been able to focus.

“No, we were interrupted.” Not that I wouldn’t have liked to keep my butterfly. It’s just I was on the clock that night and didn’t really have anywhere to take her. Which she didn’t seem to mind… Until she disappeared.

“Mm. I know about that.”

“Do you?” Was it her? She’s short enough.

“Yeah. Ever…”

Oh, the interruption from the other night.

“She can be a real bitch,” she adds.

I bite my teeth together so hard my temples ache. Ever is a bitch. I call her that in my head at least a dozen times a day. But that doesn’t mean I enjoy hearing anyone else say it.

Unclenching my jaw, I ask, “How about you? Did you find anyone?”

She shrugs a shoulder. “Maybe.”

Maybe? What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? If anything, that leaves me with more questions.

“Eighmey!” some girl yells as she jogs through the opening, keeping me from asking if Eighmey was dressed as a monarch butterfly. “Oh, sorry.” She laughs when she sees us. “Did you bring hairspray?”

“I did but there wasn’t much left. I used it all up.”

“I think Ever still has some,” I offer, then search through Ever’s bag until I find some brand I’ve never even heard of.

I walk over to hand the can to the girl.

She thanks me and promises to return it when she’s done.

“Keep it,” I tell her. Ever can afford to buy another. Hundred.

Outside is a flurry of activity. There’s a lot of running around, counting, nodding, different types of flips, ass-shaking, that girl now spraying another girl down with the hairspray, and—

“I don’t want tomonopolizeany more of your time, but could I get your…”

Eighmey’s voice fades away as Ever comes into focus. She’s airborne again but not like the other night. She’s fucking soaring through the air, high up above everyone’s heads, her body spinning too many times to count before coming right back down into six arms instead of just Nathen’s two hands.

What the fuck was that?

Next to me, Eighmey says, “That’s a basket.”

Did I ask that out loud?

“She’s gonna get hurt.”

The sound of bodies colliding when Ever landed was not natural. It sounded painful. It looked painful.

Eighmey latches on to my elbow, making me realize I was moving. For Ever.

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