Page 13 of Even in the Dark

She and Victoria both laugh nervously.

Good. Maybe they’ll back off from the topic now. Maybe they all will.

“Did he seem scary, though?”

Okay. So maybe not.

“He was shoveling potato salad in his mouth,” I sigh. “So, no.”

Taylor looks disappointed at this. Whether at the part about him shoveling potato salad in his mouth or him not seeming scary, I’m not sure.

“Does Killer Boy start school next week?” Deacon asks, looking almost as invested as Victoria and Taylor.

Those “killer” slurs are going to get annoying really fast. Especially for Killer Boy himself. I wonder if that will be the thing that tips him over the edge.

“No idea,” I say. And then, “Did you guys order already?” Hoping it will divert the conversation.

It doesn’t. They keep speculating and gossiping about Dylan; some girls pulling up those ads on their phones and re-watching the videos, like the guy is a legitimate celebrity instead of a freaking kidnapping victim.

Only I guess he did kind of switch lanes just weeks after initially being “found” and thrust into the limelight. He willingly jumped over from the “kidnap victim wanting to protect his privacy” camp to the “attention-seeking celebrity” camp when he cashed in on the chance at even bigger fame by signing on for those nation-wide, football field-size billboards, marketing his “killer” reputation more than the famous clothing brand itself. Which, on second thought, really doesn’t fit his personality, now that I've met him.

Initially, I assumed he was the kind of guy who liked attention and wanted a slice of fame to counteract all the horse manure he had to wade through for fourteen years. But having interacted with him, none of that fits with the closed off, subdued island of a guy he seems to be.

When my chocolate mint milkshake gets delivered to the table, I nurse it quietly as the conversations unfold around me.

A few minutes later, a tiny creamer cup suddenly comes soaring over the bench-seat across from ours and lands in my milkshake with a minty green splash.

“Slam dunk, baby!” Seb’s voice calls out, and I lift my head to find him perched on the bench-back of his booth two tables over, the corners of his lips curling into his legendary all-American Golden Boy grin. “Been calling your name for the past five minutes, but you were zoned right out,” he calls, reaching over Caroline’s shoulder to grab a fry off her plate and biting it in half. “What’s up, Scarly?”

“Green milkshake all over my halter top, asshole,” I dead-pan. But Seb knows me better than anyone. He gets that my bitchiness is mostly for show. And that I don’t really give a crap about a bit of green splatter. We used to play wrestle-tag in the mud flats by Marram Lighthouse when we were kids, and I’d get more caked up than him and Xave combined, if it meant making myself a harder target to pin down.

He laughs. “What’s that? You said you want some sugar to go with that creamer?” His grin stretches wider as he reaches across the table to grab a handful of sugar packets before I have time to react. Then he launches them one after another towards me. Three of them land in my milkshake, smack dab alongside the creamer.

“Seriously, Seb?” I roll my eyes, fishing the offending condiments out of my glass and plopping them onto Gavin’s ketchup-smeared plate. “What are you? Like, five?”

“You’re welcome.” He winks, grinning from ear to ear. Seb Murdoch’s dimples have allowed him to get away with everything short of murder since the day he learned how to smile. He hops off his perch and saunters over, grabbing Caroline’s hand and pulling her along with him.

“God.” I shake my head, blotting splattered milkshake off my top with a napkin. “You are such a dork.”

Seb is two-hundred-and-twenty pounds of sinewy muscle, brimming with equal parts charm and mischief, and lusted over by every girl in town. There is nothing dorky about him, except maybe his frenetic, puppy-dog personality. But I like to bring him down to earth every once in a while, just to keep him humble.

Or maybe Caroline does that for him now.

Seb leans in, picking up my shake. “Tell you what,” he drawls, all twinkling eyes and mischief. “Because I like you, Scarlett Thiels, I’m gonna step up and do whatever it takes to make sure there are no more milkshake mishaps this evening.” He brings the glass up to his grinning lips and knocks the whole thing back, chugging the entire contents of my milkshake in three long gulps. He slams the glass back on the table, sliding his tongue along his frothy upper lip.

“Future crisis averted.” He winks. Then shakes his head rapidly. “Whoa,” his eyes widen. “Ice-cream headache.”

“You owe me another shake,” I say, without missing a beat. “I only had three sips of that.”

“So did I,” he grins. “But you don’t see me whining about it.”

“Bite me, Murdoch.”

Seb wiggles his eyebrows playfully. “Anywhere?”

I sigh, shaking my head. Good to know his strait-laced girlfriend isn’t stifling his signature flirty personality, at least.

Seb slides himself into the bench seat, squishing his whole body against mine, domino-ing the rest of the booth’s occupants into each other in the process. Then he pulls Caroline onto his lap with one arm and drapes the other one along my shoulders, squeezing me into a sideways hug. “How are you, anyway? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

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