the fancy Victorian homes Jamaica Plain is known for. This one looks particularly imposing, with a large porch and three floors, the windows blazing with light.
“I probably wouldn’t have gone, but since I’ve got company and I’m holding, it was a no-brainer. Unless you want to go back to my place and play video games.”
I wrinkle my nose. “No, thanks.”
He laughs as he heads up the walkway.
We get inside, and it’s already packed. The house is very Saint Francis, all grandfather clocks and heavy drapes, real art—not some shit you buy at a home store. Drew grabs my hand and pulls me toward the kitchen, where there’s an impressive assortment of bottles on a counter—good stuff, too.
“Let me guess,” he says, giving me a once-over. “You’re not a rum-and-Coke kind of girl. Whiskey?”
I nod. “Straight.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You came to play.”
Drew gets me a cup, and I’ve barely taken a sip before someone is pulling on his hoodie and palming cash. Drew looks at me, and I make a go on motion.
“I’ll be right back,” he says, and follows the guy upstairs.
I push through to the open sliding glass door that leads to the patio. It’s quieter out here. It’s a pretty big backyard, and it’s filled with people I don’t know. There’s a fire pit and s’mores. Someone has a guitar. Someone always has a guitar. Nobody talks to me and I don’t talk to anybody. I just drink my whiskey, then go back into the kitchen for more. I notice Drew coming down the stairs, and it occurs to me that Drew Nolan is hot. Like, really hot. Maybe I haven’t been sober enough since I met him to notice that.
I feel a twinge of guilt and slide my phone out of my pocket. I send Micah a text, but he doesn’t text back.
“Skittles?” a boy asks, holding out a heavy crystal bowl toward me, the kind in Gram’s fancy hutch.
“Uh, sure?”
But then I look in the bowl—not Skittles. Pills. All kinds.
“How do you know what’s what?” I ask.
“You don’t,” he says. “That’s the fun.”
“Yeah, no,” Drew says, pushing the bowl away. “She’s good.”
I glance at him. “I am?”
“You are.”
The boy shrugs, sidles away to offer pills to the group of girls lounging on the couch.
“It’s a thing,” Drew says. “Everyone raids their parents’ cabinets, throws the pills in the bowl. Don’t mess with that, okay? You have no idea what’s in there. Mixing shit—that’s how you end up in the ER, you know? Fucking idiots.”
My mouth turns up. “Well, I don’t need that bowl, since I have my very own private dispensary, anyway.”
He throws me a hooded glance. Maybe he really meant it when he said he wasn’t going to give me more than that last set of ten.
“The boyfriend?” Drew nods toward the phone in my hand as he reaches past me for a cup and the bottle of Maker’s.
I nod. “He’s MIA. Probably screwing some girl from his dorm or the surf club.”
I say this as a joke, but it suddenly occurs to me that it’s possible. Maybe he’s with someone like I’m with Drew and he sees her come down the stairs and he realizes she’s hot. Maybe that’s how it starts.
“Then he’s a fucking idiot.” Drew keeps his eyes on mine as he says it.
“Whatever.”
“Hannah. You’re gorgeous and smart and cool. If he’s fucking someone else, he’s an idiot.”
I don’t like the way his words fill me up. Also: No one has ever called me smart before.
“This isn’t a date,” I say.
My voice trembles a little, and I hate that.
“I know. If this were a date, this would be the last place we’d be.”
“What are you, a moonlit-walk-on-the-beach kinda guy?”
He shrugs. “Sometimes.”
I shake my head. “You’re an enigma.”
Every time I try to put Drew into the dealer/druggie box, he hops out.
“I think I’m okay with that,” he says, with that small half-smile.
I’m starting to get a nice buzz, a warm-all-over kind of feeling. I’m annoyed by the people around me. How loud and dumb they are. How they keep jostling me.
“Drew?”
“Yeah?”
“This party sucks. Let’s go.”
He steps back. “After you.”
We end up going to his house and liberating beer from his dad’s fridge, then stand around the kitchen drinking it, because couches and beds are for dates. And this isn’t a date.
“So, you packing tarot cards tonight or what?” Drew says as he pulls another Sam Adams from the fridge. “Because I distinctly remember being promised a reading.”
I laugh as I grab the