Page 69 of After the Storm

“No uterus, no opinion,” Ravyn adds, sticking her hand up to stop him.

“What? I thought that was just about abortion rights?” he says with a pouty face.

“I prefer men stick to that all the time, personally.” She shrugs. All I do is laugh. Ravyn is pretty anti-men in all aspects of her life, not just romantically. Except of course, Ares. Probably because they’ve been friends since elementary school and she’s properly turned him into one of the girls. I take a little credit for that but for the most part, Ravyn had already done the work by the time I came around.

“Not fair! I have totally normal opinions.” He sticks his bottom lip out.

“Yeah, but they have testosterone on them,” she says with a dramatic cringe followed by a fake gag. Roman turns to me, mouth wide open and hands in the air waiting for me to come to his defense.

“Ohhh no, I don’t argue with Ravyn.” I shrug like there’s nothing I can do to help him.

“Well, now that I’ve successfully offended the only man in the room and seen some shit I absolutely should not have—I’m going to head back to bed,” she says, pointing over her shoulder at the stairs. She turns on her heels to head up the steps before she whips around and points at us.

“Oh and when you finally do tell Ares, leave me out of that mess,” she says pointing at us both.

“Yes ma’am,” Roman says with a salute.

“That’s the only way men should address me,” she says under her breath on her way out of the room.

Chapter29

Audra

Ravyn isinches from my face with glitter on a brush. I can’t say glitter has ever been a part of my style, but I told her she could do my makeup for the party tonight. It feels a little stupid on my part to keep trying to participate in parties when every time the attempt ends poorly.

I’ve really come around to the thought of never going back to the way life was before everything with Tyler. Some things still feel within reach, though, and when they do, I can’t help but reach for them.

Parties, for example, I always loved going with Ares and Ravyn, and I know it can be something that comes back to me. It’s something that feels within reach. So I keep trying despite it turning to shit every time. There’s been no word from Tyler since the bonfire incident, though, which has been nice.

“You need to stop blinking,” Ravyn huffs, attempting to put mascara on me.

“I’ll stop blinking if you stop putting mascara on my pupils,” I retort. She rolls her eyes and continues what she’s doing.

Ares and Roman are getting ready together at their house, and then they’re coming to pick us up. I asked Roman to tag along just on the off chance that something happens. I always feel better when he’s around. As long as I can remember, I’ve had this anxiety just buzzing in my veins from the time I wake up until the time I go to sleep at night. It wasn’t until I started spending time with Roman that I knew that buzzing could go quiet.

Ravyn holds up three different lipsticks to me. A deep maroon color, a bright pink, and a nude shade for me to choose from.

“Which one do you think?” I ask. She laughs and puts back all but the darkest shade. I open my mouth just slightly to let her paint them a deep red. Just as she’s putting the lipstick on me, I hear the beep of a car.

“Oh shit,” Ravyn says, spritzing my face with some spray that’s cold and wet. I do one last look in the mirror, smoothing out my dress over my hips, and when it all sits right where I want it to, I follow Ravyn out to the car.

The boys are in Roman’s Jeep as it was the car we were most comfortable leaving there if we had to pay for a ride home. Ravyn and I hop in the back, and it’s odd being in the back seat. Ares and Ravyn smoke weed the entire way there. I don’t take a hit because I know if I drink and smoke, everything will be spinning before I’m ready to go home.

When we walk into the party, the bass vibrates my entire body. The smell of beer is strong, and the smell of weed would likely hit me a lot harder if I hadn’t been surrounded by the smell on the drive here. Ares leads us through this random house and over to the beer. We all do the irresponsible thing and chug one before taking one to sip with us. As any house party is, it’s filled with people jumping around and dancing. I’m not sure this is really my scene anymore, but it feels important to me right now to know it could be if I wanted it to be.

“Pong? Girls against boys?” Ravyn asks, pulling me by my wrist into her side, claiming me as a partner. I nod eagerly. Roman sees me nod and he agrees to play, too. We walk over to the pong table and wait our turn, but eventually, we do get to play. In the first round, we kick the guys’ asses. In the second round, they win, but not by much. Now we’re playing for the best two out of three, and whoever wins this match takes it all.

Naturally, we’re idiots and agree that whoever wins gets to pick the losing team’s consequences. As I’m lining up my first throw, Roman winks at me with a mischievous smirk painted on his lips.Bite me.I mouth to him. His smirk turns to a full smile before mouthing back to me.You’d love that.I roll my eyes and throw the ball, it bounces right at the edge of one of their cups and then falls in. Roman lets out a groan before throwing the cup back and drinking all the contents.

The game is pretty even all the way through. The more we drink, the worse the shit-talking gets. Finally, though, we pull out the win, and the boys pout, slouching their shoulders and stomping over to us like a couple of toddlers who just lost a game of Candyland.

“Aww, not fond of losing?” I taunt. They both roll their eyes.

“You ready for your dare, pretty boys?” Ravyn asks, bopping Ares on the nose. He holds a middle finger up to her face, and she sticks her tongue out like she’s going to lick it. He yanks it away with a disgusted look on his face.

“You think I’m pretty, Ray?” Ares asks, wiggling his brows at her. She groans, rolling her eyes.

“I’m a lesbian, Ares. In your dreams,” she scoffs, shoving his arm. “New consequence: get out of our hair and go find some girls to dance with.” My heart rate quickens at the thought of Roman going off and finding some other girl to dance with at this party. I wonder if he’ll do it for the sake of keeping our secret.

---