Page 56 of Paper Hearts

WHEN I ACTED MY AGE

“Have you talked to Ender?”

“No. Why?” I ask, tying my bikini strap a little tighter than necessary. I’m pissed off today. Freaking pissed.

“He said he’d be here.” Arya pulls her tank top over her head, buttoning her jean shorts and reaching for her cowgirl boots on the floor of her messy room. “Carter is coming too.”

“Carter?”

She stands from her bed, kicking aside the clothes scattered on the floor. “Ender’s friend from his team. You know, the one who gave me the big O and bit my stomach.”

Right. That guy. I can’t focus on the party. Not when Ender is ignoring my texts. “Why is she here?” I stare at Arya in the mirror, hating the jealousy working through me. I slip my tank top over my bikini and turn to face her.

Her brows dip in the middle, her bright blue eyes standing out against her golden skin. “Kamila?”

I draw in a heavy breath. “This is our place. Not hers.”

I’ve never sounded more like fifteen than I do right now, and that pisses me off. Why am I being this way? Because behind closed doors, he treats me like I’m his favorite person? I don’t even know. It’s like I think I have an entitlement to him at the lake. Ender’s turning eighteen soon, and that number scares the crap out of me. Next summer might not be like this. Who knows if I will even be allowed to come next year, or that Ender will. If you ask him, he’s falling off the face of the earth when he turns eighteen and leaving this place. Does that mean me too? I’m too afraid to ask.

“He doesn’t even like her.” Arya reaches for her lotion and squirts a glob into her palm before setting it on her dresser.

I turn around and face her, watching her lather up her bare shoulders. “How do you know?”

Arya’s smiles, making an up-and-down motion with her hand. “Because he thinks of you in the shower,” she says, giggling.

Regardless of if he’s thinking of me, he’s not here with me now.

* * *

Ender sendsme a text after his game and says he’s coming back to the lake, promises even, but I’ve yet to see his face since this morning when he left for a baseball tournament. And Kamila showed up in town this afternoon. Apparently she’s friends with Carter, or Roman, or whoever the hell else she’s trying to hook up with.

I keep my phone close, thinking maybe Ender might text me, but after a few shots, I don’t care that Kamila’s here and Ender’s more than likely with her.

I shouldn’t care at all, but I shouldn’t have been drinking either. The entire summer has been filled with firsts for me and tonight isn’t much different.

We’re in Wiley’s barn, wet and soppy from the earlier rain, mud and clay clinging to our boots. There’s a large group of Arya’s friends from school, plus Carter and a guy named Fisher, sitting on the tailgate of Carter’s pickup.

Arya is on my lap, her arms wrapped around my neck, telling me how good a friend I am and matching me shot for shot of Fireball. The music is loud, rattling the barn’s board walls but not too loud conversation and laughter can’t be heard. A couple of trucks show up, but who makes their way over I can’t tell.

I feel like I’m floating away into space but in the best possible way. I completely understand why people one, drink, and two, become alcoholics. Totally makes sense to me. You forget everything and anything around you. It’s… glorious.

As I pick at my chipped nail polish, Arya slides off my lap onto a hay bale beside us. “Do this shot with me.” Wiping the dirt from the bed of the truck off her jeans, she takes the bottle of whip cream vodka from Carter and pours equal amounts in our red plastic cups.

That’s when Fisher looks at me with liquor-glossed eyes, his red cup at his lips, smiling. The way he’s watching me makes me think he knows something I don’t.

And that’s about the time Arya decides to play truth or dare.

It’s a nice distraction outside my own head.

“Okay, okay. I got one.” She giggles into her hands, the bottles around us clunking against the rivets and metal in the bed of the truck we’re in.

Carter sits next to me on the tailgate and my legs are bent up near my chest, hugging them with my drink in hand. Carter, he’s kind of attractive in an adorable way. He’s gotten taller lately, muscles more defined, and I know he likes me and Arya. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t care who liked him back, as long as it was one of us.

Daisy, another girl I’ve met at the lake over the years, starts first in the game, and Fisher kisses Arya, then dares Arya to kiss me. Arya gives me some tongue, and it isn’t bad. Not that I’m into that sort of thing, but she’s actually a good kisser. Like her brother.

When it’s my turn to be dared or tell the truth, I stop and chug my drink so fast the truck feels like it’s moving. Half it spills on my chest and between my breasts. By the way, I’m only wearing a bikini. Lost my shorts after the first couple shots and my tank went with it soon after.

“Take it easy, Hads,” Carter says, taking my cup from me.

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