Sometimes I still do. Other times, like tonight, when I’m trying to walk around the room and talk to people, his being glued to my hip is an encumbrance.
And, frankly, annoying.
Corinne set up a refreshment table in the small dining/living area. The party is BYOB, but she bought a variety of chasers and a couple bottles of tequila. I’m planning on drinking tonight, so I don’t waste any time organizing the first round of shots.
“Come on, guys,” I urge, waving everyone over.
Nico’s all for it. He’s more of a rum man, but he happily pours a waterfall of tequila over the row of shot glasses I lay out. I start handing them out, and then the eleven of us raise our glasses. “To Corinne, and her awesome new place!” I toast.
“To adulting!” Pippa adds.
“To adulting!”
The tequila burns a fiery path down my throat and instantly I’m warm all over. Someone turns up the music, and Nico and I drift over to the couch.
Pippa is sitting in Darius’s lap, his long fingers toying with her hair. They’re not a couple, but they flirt shamelessly when they’re together. I tried setting them up a long time ago, but it didn’t work out for whatever reason. I think neither of them wants a serious relationship, so their flirty arrangement suits them both.
Corinne stands nearby chatting with Kyler, and the others are gathered near the drinks table. Darius snatches the remote off the glass table when he notices what’s on TV.
He swiftly turns up the volume. “Aw shit, I love this movie!”
“You realize it’s for chicks, right?” Nico informs him.
“If it’s for chicks then why is Scarlett Johansson in it?” D challenges. “Cuz I highly doubt chicks jerk off to ScarJo as often as I do.”
Laughter breaks out. Kyler the math guy blushes. He’s kind of cute. I wonder if he and Corinne are into each other. He’s standing very close to her.
“Where do I know this actor from?” Pippa asks as a handsome guy appears on the screen. “He was in that movie about a cellphone, wasn’t he?”
“That’s the vaguest shit I ever heard,” Darius says, poking her in the ribs.
“You know the movie I’m talking about, right, Demi?”
I peer at the screen. “Is that Chris Evans?”
Pippa nods. “And I swear to God, he was in that cellphone movie. It’s an older movie with…that British guy, and that lady, and…”
Darius hoots loudly. “Fuck’s sake, P, stop being so vague.”
“Wait, I think I know the movie you mean,” I tell Pippa. “Shit. I can’t remember the title, either. Babe, let me use your phone to look it up?”
Nico reaches into his pocket and hands me his iPhone. It doesn’t require a passcode to unlock, which only serves as another reason why Hunter’s cheating accusations fall flat to me. Why would Nico willingly relinquish his phone if he were hiding something?
Nico’s data plan is shit, so rather than pull up a browser, I open his settings first. “Hey, what’s your Wi-Fi network?” I ask Corinne.
“Cwiley22,” she calls back. “Password is lower-case A, upper-case F—”
“That’s weird,” I interrupt, “it connected on its own.”
An uneasy feeling tickles my tummy as I glance at Nico.
“Huh.” A frown creases his brow. “You know what, my phone must have saved your network when the boys and I were here moving you in,” he says to Corinne.
“Oh, that must be it,” she replies.
I nod slowly and open a web browser to search for—what am I searching for again? Oh, right. Chris Evans. But my fingers are trembling as I Google his filmography.
Something’s bothering me and I can’t figure out what it is. I mean, I already knew that Nico and his co-workers moved all of Corinne’s boxes from the dorm to the apartment, and transported her new furniture. He never hid that, and neither did she. And of course she would’ve given Nico her Wi-Fi password if he’d asked. And he would’ve asked, because his data plan sucks and if he was here for a couple hours and wanted to use his phone, he’d definitely—
Then it hits me, the reason why my stomach is churning and twisting itself into knots.
Corinne didn’t have Wi-Fi until nearly a week after she’d moved in. When I came over to help with her closet, it still hadn’t been set up.
There’s no way it could’ve been up and running when Nico was there days and days before.
My entire body suddenly feels cold.
“Demi. What’s the movie we’re thinking of?” Pippa asks impatiently.