Meet Me at Midnight - Jessica Pennington Page 0,52

pulls me along with him toward the house.

“What are you doing? Where are we going?”

“You’re coming with me.” His voice is firm, like he’s letting me know I don’t have a choice. We’re crossing through the sliding door into the house. Into the throngs of people, the little clusters of friends. All of the strangers I was trying to avoid. Asher isn’t like me, though. He gravitates toward people and they flock to him. He’s the kind of person who can talk to anyone, without knowing a single thing about them.

I try to pull my hand away, but he holds it tight. “I don’t want to talk to people.” It sounds sort of pathetic when I hear it out loud, but it’s also true.

“Then just talk to me,” Asher says, not looking back at me. I stop pulling against him, and his hand loosens around mine as we enter the kitchen. He stops at the counter where bottles and cups are sitting in a jumbled mess, and looks down at my cup. “You gonna keep drinking that?”

I take a sip. “Sure. It’s actually pretty good.”

Asher eyes the cup and smiles. “I bet it is.” He pulls a red cup from a stack of them and sets it on the counter.

I eye the cup warily. “Should I stop drinking? I mean, I can call my parents, I guess, if I need to.”

“Relax.” Asher rolls his eyes. “I said I wasn’t drinking. And despite what you saw last time, I’m not a raging alcoholic.”

“You’re a midlevel alcoholic?” I try to school my smile but the punch is pushing it to the surface.

“I’m entry-level at best.” He picks up a bottle of Coke and fills his cup. “But I’m thirsty.” With his cup in his left hand, he grabs my hand with his right, and we’re back into the mess of people.

“You’re very pushy, you know,” I say, tugging on his hand.

He laughs. “I know, but if I don’t drag you somewhere better, you’ll just sit in the backyard like a mosquito buffet.” We’re pushing through the living room and Asher is smiling and nodding at people as we pass. “I’d have to help Kara identify your remains by the time she got here.”

It’s true, mosquitoes love me. “It’s because I’m so sweet,” I say mockingly. That’s what my mother always said, anyway, while I was slathering myself with cortisone cream, trying to soothe the welts after a hike or a particularly rough bonfire.

“You’re mocking yourself? How much of that punch have you had?”

“Just trying to pick up the slack.”

Asher stops and looks at me. “I don’t mock you.”

I put my one free hand on my hip, my other still trapped in his.

“When?” His voice is incredulous. “When have I mocked you?”

“How about every morning?” He looks at me blankly and I grab a piece of hair between my fingers. “‘Your hair looks really pretty today.’” I do my best impression of his mocking, singsong voice, and roll my eyes.

“I do think your hair looks pretty.”

“Whatever.”

“Okay, I did say it to annoy you. But that’s because I know you don’t like it. I think it’s really pretty.” He shrugs, like this is a totally normal thing to say to me. “I’m glad you’re not flattening it anymore.”

I can’t help but smile. “Straightening it.”

“Whatever.”

I don’t say anything, because life makes no sense anymore. My brain might be broken by how little sense it all makes. But while I’m contemplating the weirdness that is now my life as Asher’s ally, he continues to pull me across the room, until we hit a carpeted stairwell leading to a basement. He lets go of me and we make our way down, single-file, barely squeezing past people making their way up.

The basement is one big long room with light green walls and a floor full of retro brown tiles. At the bottom of the stairs there’s a cluster of chairs and couches to our left. And beyond that, there’s a big round table in the corner. It’s a game table, the kind that has a wooden lid, and usually hides a poker board inside. As we approach I can make out a guy and two girls sitting in metal folding chairs around it. Three more chairs sit empty, and Asher tugs me by the hand until we’re standing behind two of them.

“Hey,” Asher says, and the guy nods. The girl to his right smiles, and the girl on his left is … Nadine’s daughter, Lindsay. A little wave