He leans in closer. He smells like the Dove soap my mum bought in bulk on sale last month. “What was that?”
I scowl. “What?”
“What you just said. It sounded like…th…thaaaa…”
“Thanks,” I snap, knowing very well I am the most ridiculous person on planet Earth. There’s nothing wrong with thanking him! He did exactly what I asked—more than, really—and he did it well, and I’m grateful, and I have no idea why acknowledging all that out loud feels like a slippery slope into a dark and dangerous forest, but I am not Little Red Riding Hood and he’s no wolf. I’m not scared of him. So I lift my chin and repeat in a calm, mature manner, “Thank you very much, Bradley. You’ve done a wonderful job.”
He squints at me. “Where’s that G and T? Have you had it? You have, haven’t you?”
I flick him in the ribs and stick out my tongue without hesitation. This is coming back to me like a dance I can’t forget, but there’s too many spins and I can’t tell if I’m giddy or nauseous.
“Yeah, mate, how’d you get your hands on booze?” Raj interjects, grabbing the can off the desk. “And what’s— Are these cupcakes?” He’s peering into the Tupperware.
“Lay off,” Thomas says, snagging the box, “they’re for Aurora.”
“There’s six. What’s she going to do, scoff them all down and laugh at our pain?”
“My dad made them,” Brad says. “They’re gluten-free.”
Aurora sucks in a delighted breath and snatches the box faster than a seagull stealing a chip.
Meanwhile, I’m eyeing Brad incredulously. “Don’t tell me your dad brought the G and T too.” I won’t believe it. I think I’ve mentioned before that Trevor is a Good Man. He’s very like Bradley in that way: annoying.
“No,” Brad admits. “I got Dad to make the cupcakes and told him Giselle would pick them up. Met her at the edge of the woods earlier. She brought everything else.”
My jaw drops. “You engaged in a clandestine woodland drug deal with my sister?”
“It’s not a drug deal, Celine. She gave me a cocktail for free.”
“Why?” I demand. “She doesn’t even like you!”
“Newsflash,” Brad says like an early 2000s TV script, “your entire family loves me. You’re the only one who needs to get with the program.” He looks at the others, and I realize with a stomach thud of embarrassment that I forgot they were there. “It’s only for Aurora, though,” he continues, deadly serious. “I crossed my heart.”
“You’re adorable,” Sophie tells him.
He blinks rapidly, then smiles like a ditsy cherub. His neck goes splotchy red. Ridiculous, if you ask me. Why don’t they just make out right here on the floor?
“Do you want it?” Raj asks Aurora. “It’s okay if you don’t. I’m eighteen too. I can drink it.”
“Are you?” Thomas asks.
“In spirit,” Raj replies.
“That does not count—”
“I want it,” Aurora interjects, and we all whisper-cheer when she pops the tab and takes a sip. Then someone passes around the cupcakes, and from that point on, it’s really a party.
BRAD
We stay up until my eyes feel gritty and everyone forgets to speak softly, lying on the blanket-smothered floor like sausages in an oven tray. Sophie is on my left. I have a crick in my neck because I haven’t turned to my right in about an hour, but I know Celine is still there; I can hear her arguing with Thomas about Kanye West. Joking around. Or at least, she was.
Now she’s rolling over, her body bumping into mine as she moves.
She flicks the back of my head. “Hey.”
When I turn to face her, it is a very serious and stately roll in which zero part of my body touches any part of her body. She should take notes. It’s deeply impolite to brush your elbow against someone else’s back; that someone else might accidentally suffer a momentary but overwhelming neurological collapse. “Yes, Celine?” I ask pleasantly.
She eyes me like I demanded we fight to the death. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing’s up with me.”
“Then why are you being so quiet?”
“I had no idea you could hear my quietness over the sound of you and Thomas—” Flirting, I was going to say, but my brain remembers just in time that pointing out someone else’s flirting is pretty much its own form of flirting, unless you’re talking to a friend. Me and Celine aren’t friends.
She arches a single eyebrow. “Me and Thomas what?”
“Geeking out over ancient hip-hop,” I say, because my modus operandi is very simple: when in doubt, piss her off.
She is beautifully predictable. “Ancient?” Her eyes are wide with outrage and her nostrils flare. “We listened to Yeezus together. How ancient could it be?!”
“If you have to go back to 2013 to think of his last decent album—”
“I don’t,” she says hotly.
“Then what are we talking about Yeezus for?”
“What are you tormenting me for?”
I grin, genuinely amazed. “Celine. I think you’ve just reached a new level of social awareness. You know when I’m winding you up.”
She punches me in the arm. Well, punch is a strong word, but the point is, her fist meets my bicep.
Then she props herself up on one elbow and leans over me, and I realize she’s going to punch my other arm too. She’s going to help me feel balanced, the way she used to. One of her braids brushes my neck. Something weird and tight and up and down happens in my chest. Her eyes meet mine. They’re so dark I can see myself and I look winded.
“Um,” she whispers.
“Is not a word,” I whisper back.
Her hesitation dissolves into a reluctant tilt of the lips and she does it. She punches my other arm to even out the sensations. Then she lies back down beside me, and I try not to have feelings and monumentally fail.
Celine used to do anything I asked her to do. We’re lying here like different coins, but for years of my life we were two sides of the same. She had my back and I had hers.
“I…” I clear my throat, fumbling for words. “I don’t usually…need that anymore.”
Her eyes shift away from mine to stare up at the ceiling. “Sorry,” she says lightly, as if it doesn’t matter, which means it does. She’s embarrassed.
“No, I—” liked it. The words get tangled at the back of my throat, and then Sophie speaks to me, and the moment is gone.
“Brad, what about you?”
“What?” Her, Aurora, and Raj are all sitting up, looking at me expectantly. I sit up too. We all do. The too-soft, too-close feeling dissolves and this time, when she moves, Celine doesn’t touch me again.
“What do you want the scholarship for?” Sophie asks, nudging my shoulder with hers.
“Oh. Er…law.” Or rather, for solo housing while I study law.
Aurora seems interested. “Really? What field?”
Is that the sort of thing you’re meant to know at seventeen? I haven’t really thought about it. I bet Celine knows. I plaster on my best and brightest smile and hold up a hand. “Whoa, hold on a second—I want to know about you. What do you want it for?”