the platter, tearing it in two.
“What did you think it was?” Kiki asks. “An intervention?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, right? She spent the night because—” I snap my mouth shut and shake my head. “Just because.”
“Okay, first, no; and second, hell no.” She scowls at me.
There are a million things I could say to her right now, things that would be hurtful and said out of anger. Things like you have no right to get pissed at me when you were hiding that you’d not only lost your V-card but were pregnant. However, in her defense, she didn’t know she was pregnant, until I made a joke about it.
Then she presses on, and I feel cornered.
“Look around, Truth, we all give a fuck and are worried.”
I shake my head.
“You don’t get to say no to your crew, T,” Justice says.
Him, I can be a bitch to. “And you don’t get to run your damn mouth about something you know nothing about.”
“T …” Patrick sighs. “He’d know if you’d be honest.”
“We all went to the party. I got stuck. No big deal,” I say, frustrated.
“She’s not wrong, Kiki,” Max says.
“Well, you all are for leaving her behind,” Kiki snaps, tears pooling in her eyes. “I wouldn’t have. Not ever.”
“And I love you for that, Kiki, but if you were there when the cops showed up, you’d have hid in a closet and waited them out, too. And you would have overheard them being assholes to a teenage girl who was worried they’d come back.”
“Well, she did have a party with underage drinking and—”
“Like we are tonight.” Amias laughs.
Kiki redirects the conversation. “I don’t trust her.”
I nod. “I was sober, I was fine, and Tobias was there, too, so I wasn’t alone.”
“What!” Kiki yells.
I look at Justice. “Left that part out, huh?”
Kiki again steps in. “The fucker Justice is fighting tonight because of your new bestie’s video?”
“I got no problem with him,” Justice says.
“Why’s that?” I ask, knowing damn well why.
“Told you last night; he seems like a good guy.”
“Yeah, so why is he fighting you then?”
“ ’Cause I agreed to fight …” Justice pauses.
“He didn’t ask to fight you, though, did he?”
“It was implied,” Justice answers.
“And how about Gabrielle? Did she ask you to fight him? Because I’m guessing not. As a matter of fact, she’s worried if shit goes down, he’ll be stuck here.”
“T”—Patrick grips my shoulder—“reel it in ’cause you’re kind of losing all of us in this.”
I throw my hands in the air. “I don’t know, okay? But from what I gather, it’s his asshole friends who get off on this, not him.”
“He could say no,” Patrick says in a calming tone.
“Well, whatever this is, Justice, it’s a one and done fight. Because that bitch, as you called her last night, seems to be worried you’ll get wrapped up in it, too.”
Tris asks, “Anyone ever consider that’s their intention?”
Silence.
“This is crazy,” Max says, looking around the rental as we put away a week’s worth of groceries for a one-night crew-cation that our parents agreed to allow us to have, away from their watchful eyes. We did have to agree it was just us in the rental property, that we would keep the partiers across the street at the beach, and that we’d stay away from any illegal shit that went down. The insurance that we would play by their rules? It was rented in Momma Joe’s name, holding her liable.
Apparently, Mom talked to Dad and Momma Joe about my breakdown, and then they all got together and decided if we’d be living in the midst of this lifestyle, as they apparently had at our age, then we should be given some leeway.
This here was a lot of leeway to be given by our over-the-top protective fathers.
Evidently, Justice pushed for us to have tonight and also mentioned that the eight of us, together, are more responsible as a crew than they were. We’ve proven it. Obviously, they didn’t know we bent a few rules and broke a few laws last weekend when Brisa, at fifteen, was driving around Jersey and kissing on bikers, but whatever. And they obviously didn’t know about the fight tonight and that would be the real reason Justice, my perfect brother, pushed for tonight, because he wasn’t sure what his face would look like later, and he didn’t want to freak Mom out.
I didn’t tell him that I ensured his face would be fine.
“Anyone hungry?” Amias, who was always hungry, asked, opening the