“Luce, can you come back here?” Levi asks, bringing my attention back to the boat. “I’m getting ready to anchor.”
I’ve never heard him use that nickname before and I watch as he pats the seat next to him while Lucy stands up, stepping over our stuff as she makes her way toward the back. Images of the two of them flash through my mind again: Lucy in his bedroom, sinking deep on his mattress. Long fingers winding through his hair as she pulled him close, her lips on his. She plops down on the bench next to him and starts poking around the cupholder, always curious and forever bored, before pulling out a rusted fishhook and using it to pick at her nails.
“Make sure you girls don’t wander away when you’re drunk,” Lucas says, a giddy anticipation sweeping through him now that the night is so close to starting. “There are animals out there.”
“What kind of animals?” Sloane asks, crossing her arms.
“Spiders,” he says, his fingers crawling their way up her leg. “Alligators, snakes.”
“Just stay on the beach and you’ll be fine,” James says, and I turn around, startled at how close he is. With everything else going on, I forgot he was even here.
“Wait until you see the stars,” Lucas continues, hugging Sloane close. “It gets so dark without the ambient light—”
“Fuck!”
We all turn to look at Lucy, her sudden scream startling us all. A stream of bright red blood has erupted from her nail, running down her finger, and I watch as she throws the fishhook back into the cupholder like it somehow sprang to life and attacked her on its own.
“Here,” Levi says, rummaging through various cubbies in search of something to stanch the bleeding. I watch as it leaks out in a steady gush, perfect little circles dripping onto the floor of the boat, the cushioned seat, Levi’s shorts. He’s distracted, simultaneously trying to look and steer as the boat hits a wave at a weird angle and slams back into the water, hard, almost sending Nicole to the ground.
“Butler!” Trevor yells. There’s a subtle slur to his speech as he grabs ahold of Nicole’s thigh with his free hand. She winces, straightening herself on his lap. “Watch where the fuck you’re going!”
“I’m okay—” Nicole starts, but Trevor interrupts her, eager to keep fighting.
“Christ, dude, you’re going to kill us all.”
“It’s fine,” Lucy says quietly, touching Levi’s arm. “I got it.”
Levi peels his eyes from her and looks back ahead, through the windshield, purposefully avoiding Trevor’s gaze. I can see the tendons in his neck bulging, his jaw clenched tight like he has to physically restrain himself from snapping back. The tension on the boat is so palpable, so thick, and I realize, somehow for the first time, that it isn’t just between Lucy and us but the boys, too. Nicole and Trevor; Levi and me. This little group of us that was once so solid now warped and bending beneath the pressure of it all; little hairline fractures traveling slowly, threatening to burst.
“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice low as I watch Lucy hold her finger, the slow glide of blood between her hands like the wax of a melting candle dripping to the floor.
“Fine,” she says. “A little blood never bothered me.”
I watch as she lifts her head, eyes on mine, before pulling her finger to her lips and sucking it dry, and I get the sudden sensation of looming danger, watching her like this. Like eyeing a funnel cloud in the distance as it inches closer, collecting strength. Like we’re all marching toward something big, something permanent, the slow simmer of the last eight months morphing into full-blown boil.
The boat sidles up to the shore and lurches to a stop, the anchor plunging into the water with a violent splash. The night is officially alive with the sound of drunken shrieks and wild laughs, but all I can hear is my own blood in my ears. My own beating heart like the steady thrum of drums in the distance, the executioner’s call, intensity building until we hit the inevitable crescendo—and once we do, once we reach the top, there will be nothing left for us to do but fall.
CHAPTER 49
It gets dark fast, the little bubble of sun in the distance melting into the water as the boys work quickly, quietly, trying to pitch the tents and get the fire going before we’re swallowed by the sky. Already, I can hear the noises of the night: the quick thrash of something feeding in the distance, the buzz of bugs as they skim across our skin.
“Whiskey?” Nicole asks, walking up behind me. I turn around, registering a bottle in her hand that’s already half gone.