“Are we telling secrets?” she whispered conspiratorially. “Do you have a secret, Lance?”
He considered that then nodded. “Actually, I do. I have a secret about Gabriel, but I can’t ever tell anyone. It’s so fucking funny though.” He started laughing to himself about it and the twins immediately pounced on him.
“What is it?” Darcy demanded as Tory brandished her beer bottle at him.
“Tell us,” Tory pleaded. “It’s a girl’s right to have dirt on her brother.”
“Come on, Lance,” Darcy begged, giving him the big eyes. “Gabriel let me fall in a puddle the other day even though he totally saw it coming, and he laughed like a dick so now I want revenge.”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I swore I’d never tell. You’ll have to try and get it out of him.”
“If you tell us then I’ll…” Darcy leaned forward and whispered something in his ear that made him growl and I bounced in my seat.
“Did she say she’ll let you do her in every door? Front and back? In whatever order you like – you won’t even have to knock?” I asked and Darcy swung around and punched me in the arm, making Orion smile satisfactorily.
“What’s your secret, Seth?” Tory’s eyes flipped onto me again and I sighed, glancing over at Caleb who was still distracted by Geraldine as Tyler recorded her singing the song and Sofia laughed her ass off.
“It’s Caleb,” I mumbled under my breath.
“What?” Tory leaned in closer.
“It’s Caleb,” I repeated louder.
“What about him?” she asked and I tossed another look his way before blurting the truth. I was too drunk to have any kind of filter now anyway.
“I love him. I’m in love with my best friend and I’m a stupid fucking loser because he will never love me back and every time I think he might feel something for me too, I realise I’m just kidding myself, but I also keep holding onto the teeny, tiny possibility that maybe I’m not imagining things. But then stupid horse boys have to go around not finishing their beers and stealing kisses meant for hot Vampires and here we are Tory. Here we fucking are.”
“Woah,” she breathed, exchanging a look with Darcy. “You like Caleb?” she asked in shock.
“Yeah,” I said tightly, flopping forward to bury my face in Orion’s shoulder and he tried to nudge me away, but I clung on tight. “I think it started longer ago than I like to admit, because there was this one time in the Shimmering Springs where we started a threesome with a girl but then she left and we kissed a little, but he denies it ever happened, so maybe I’m crazy. But I think I need to find out for good, you know?”
“So ask him,” Darcy pressed and I lifted my head, turning to look at her and grabbing her cheeks between my hands.
“No. I won’t,” I said stubbornly. “I can’t face the rejection. I can’t look him in the eye when he turns me down and says I’ve been imagining this whole thing. I won’t do it, Darcy. I won’t.”
Orion grabbed my arms, yanking my hands off of his girlfriend’s face and baring his fangs at me, but I jerked free and grabbed hold of Tory’s face instead.
“Tell me you have ideas. You didn’t tell Darius you liked him for ages. You danced all around it beautifully. How did you figure out he liked you without actually admitting you liked him back? I need to know, Tory. How did you evade telling him the truth for so long, because I need your skills.”
“Well…maybe if we’d been honest with each other from the start, we wouldn’t have wasted so much time,” she said, her lips pushing out as I squished her cheeks.
I let go of her with a sigh of annoyance. “Useless. I need a solid plan where Caleb has to kiss me without knowing he wants me to kiss him, so I can get a read on his dicktuation while we’re cock to cock and then I’ll know. I’ll just know. And I had the perfect plan, but Xavier had to go and cock block me. Again.”
“Again?” Tory asked excitedly, but then Caleb dragged a chair over and dropped down beside me.
“What are you lot talking about?” he asked and I dropped the silencing bubble as my heart thundered up into my throat.
“Lance has got a mysterious ball rash,” I blurted the first thing that came into my head and Orion shot me a death glare, his lips parting to contradict me and his fist rising like he was going to punch me.
Darcy caught hold of his wrist, giving him a subtly imploring look as she pushed it back down to his side and - whipped asshole that he was - he gave in.