She approached the car and opened August’s door. “Back seat, buddy. I called shotgun for all time.”
August didn’t put up a fight, just got out and glanced at me as he moved to the back seat. I was still standing on the front steps of Brit’s house. I wanted a whole lot more space between August and me than a back seat could provide.
But I couldn’t explain that—why he absolutely couldn’t come with us—without explaining the whole thing. So I just got in the car.
“What are you doing here?” I said as we made our way toward the interstate, and Brit began to queue up road-trip music.
He shrugged, his expression neutral. “Felt like coming along.”
“Why?”
“Why not? It’s not every day you get to meet Megan Pleasant’s brother.”
I didn’t reply.
* * *
Brit asked Dash to stop at a gas station outside town, “so we can change for the party.”
I hadn’t brought anything special to wear, but apparently that was what was in Brit’s duffel.
She emerged from the bathroom stall wearing a short skirt and a sparkly top that was little more than a scrap of sequined fabric that tied around the neck and across the back.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mom,” Brit said. “It was her ‘going out’ top back in the day.”
I raised my eyebrows. “And she gave it to you? To wear?”
A shrug. “She didn’t say not to wear it.” Her face was already made up—“Flora did it,” she told me, when I commented. “She should’ve done yours too.”
“I didn’t know we were being fancy,” I replied, though fancy wasn’t quite the right word.
“You could do something with your shirt.” She stepped behind me, grabbed the hem of my T-shirt in the back and bunched up the fabric, twisting it up and under in the back so an expanse of stomach was now revealed.
August and Dash said nothing when we walked out.
We made it into town as the sun was setting, and followed the directions to the address Brit had found. People were standing in front of the house as we approached, cars lining the street on both sides.
“We can’t all go in,” Brit said as Dash passed the place and turned the corner, looking for a place to park.
“Why not?” Dash said.
“It’s gonna be way easier for two girls to talk their way into this kind of thing than two guys.”
August frowned. “I think we should go too.”
“Trust me”—Brit popped her door open as Dash slowed to a stop at the next corner—“we’ll be in and out.”
We got inside without anyone stopping us.
It was all pounding bass, a crush of people, each group talking louder than the next to be heard. I scanned the room as we edged through the crowd to get into the living room.
I’d seen pictures of Connor Pleasant from back in the day—a skinny, gawky kid posing next to Megan in front of a banner for the America’s Next Country Star live shows. It was hard to find anything recent; his Instagram was private.
“You’ll probably recognize him better,” I said to Brit. “How’d you get him to add you, anyway?”
Brit was looking around too, but it didn’t seem like she was listening. She grabbed my shoulder all of a sudden, leaned in to speak in my ear.
“Don’t be mad.”
“Sorry?”
“Connor isn’t here.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I lied. He’s not here. I’m sorry.”
“What—why—”
Brit looked right at me, eyes lined dark all around, lashes thick with mascara. Her going-out top caught the overhead light and winked at me. “Because I needed you here for this.”
“For what?”
Brit’s eyes left me, scanning the room.
“Brit.”
Her focus landed on a cluster of guys in the corner.
I reached for her wrist. “Brit, I swear—”
She moved away before I could grab hold of her, cutting quickly across the room.
* * *
By the time I caught up, she was already in conversation with one of the guys. The others looked my way as I joined the group.
“This is Jenny,” Brit said, gesturing to me. “We’re gonna be roommates.”
“Freshmen?”
Brit nodded, and the guys laughed. “Starting early, huh?” and “Cool cool cool” and “How’d you get in here?”
“We can be super persuasive.” Brit’s eyes were glassy like she was level-three drunk. Her gaze kept darting toward a lean, blond guy holding a can of beer. I had never met him, but I knew for certain—it was Tanner Barnes.
Brit started chatting with him, meanwhile, one of his friends kept trying to engage me in conversation.
His fourth or fifth try: “So … what are you gonna major in?”
“Um … education, probably.” I wanted to grab Brit’s sleeve, but there were no sleeves to tug on. I settled for wrapping a hand around her wrist, leaning in close to speak: “Hey, I think we should go.”
She pulled away from me, lurched toward Tanner.
“So you’re on the track team, huh?”
“Uh-huh. Yeah.” He took a long pull from his beer.
“I do track too.”
“Yeah?”
“Uh-huh. Let’s race.”
He was drunk already, getting drunker. But he smiled. “Yeah okay. We could race back to my place.”
“A hundred meters,” Brit said.
“For real?” The smile widened.
“Yeah.” Brit smiled too, teeth gleaming, and she swayed closer toward him. I alone knew she was stone-cold sober. “I bet you’re fast.”
“Well, not all the time,” he said. “Like not with everything. Don’t want you to get the wrong idea, if you know what I mean.”
She laughed, and it sounded like a stranger’s laugh, like someone I hadn’t known all my life. “For sure. But I wanna see how fast you can go. Then you can show me … how you take it slow.”
Brit would punch Brit for saying something that stupid. But she was possessed right now. And this was a bad, bad, bad idea.
“Okay, let’s do it.” Tanner pounded the rest of his drink back.
“A hundred meters,” she said again.
“Are we going like regulation here or what?”
“Fuck yeah we’re going regulation.” She grabbed his hand, leading him away.
“What dorm are you guys gonna be in?” Tanner’s friend said to me.
“Sorry,” I replied, and went after them.
thirty-six
Brit somehow convinced Tanner to take us to the university track. “I wanna see it!” she said, and “It’s on the way to our place,” smiling coyly at him and studiously ignoring me.
We made it to the track and managed to get in, Brit flirting with Tanner all along.
“I’ll time you,” I said, and headed down to the 100-meter mark. Instead of bringing up the timer, I first tapped out a quick text:
We are at the IU track please come pick us up
Brit is doing something stupid
Dash’s reply came instantly, as I brought up the timer.
On our way
I called out the ready, set, go, and they took off.
It was only a matter of seconds, but you could see exactly when Tanner realized Brit was good. He was half-assing it to start, but he pushed forward, lengthening his stride, increasing his speed for the final seconds. It wasn’t enough to close the distance between them as Brit crossed the 100-meter mark first.
They kept going after, propelled by their own momentum. You can’t just stop dead when you go that fast, Brit told me once. You can’t just turn it on and off like a faucet.
He said something to her as they slowed to a stop, a grin breaking his flushed face. I watched as he reached out, snaking his arms around Brit’s waist.
She turned and wrenched out of his grip. Punched him in the stomach once, and as he doubled over, shoved him to the ground.
I moved quickly, running toward them, grabbing Brit around the middle and pulling her back before she could do anything more. She struggled against me as Tanner wheezed.
“The fuck,” he choked out.
“That was for Luke.” Brit’s voice was tight, tears streaming down her face.
“The hell is wrong with you?”
“You ruined it, you ruined everything,” she said, trying to pull out of my grip, but I held fast.
“Brit, stop.”
We were alone, it was dark, and even though he was drunk and momentarily down for the count, Tanner Barnes could get his feet back under him at any moment, and I didn’t want to be there when he did.
“What the fuck?” He rolled onto his side, moving to get up.
“Brit.” I stepped backward, pulling her with me. “We’re going. Right now.”
I grabbed her hand and we ran.
Away from the track, out onto the street. It was Brit who pulled up first, her hand slipping from my grip.
She sat down abruptly on the curb, face streaked with tears, expression blank.
“You can’t do this right now.” I tried to pull her back up, but she refused to move, refused to look at me. “We have to get out of here, okay?” My pulse was punching fast, my lungs tightening.
And then the Cutlass pulled up. August hopped out of the passenger’s side before it had even come to a full stop.
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“She won’t get up.” I gestured hopelessly to Brit as Dash got out of the driver’s side and circled around. “We saw Tanner Barnes, she freaked out. We have to get out of here—”
“It’s okay.” Dash knelt down in front of Brit.