She wiggles her head side-to-side and shrugs at me.
“Hey, I’m gonna go talk to Tor for a bit. I’ll be right back,” Lucas says, kissing her softly and glancing at me mid-kiss. I can tell by the awkward bend in his brow that there’s more to this story than just Tory moving out. I let him get several steps away before I grill my friend.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
June’s mouth twists up.
“June,” I beg.
“I guess there was a sweatshirt or something?” She shrinks into her shoulders as she talks, and I immediately roll my eyes.
“Oh, my God,” I say, waving my hand in the air in a big circle. It lands at the bridge of my nose and I pinch.
“Tory came by once for a visit, just to talk, while he was out for a run a few days ago. He took his sweatshirt off and forgot it. Hayden saw it today and said he was going to give it back to him. I had a feeling he was getting the wrong idea.”
“Abby, he sucker punched him in the middle of practice,” June says.
My head pops up and my mouth hangs open.
“For real?” I challenge, hoping she’s exaggerating.
She nods toward Tory across the field.
“Go check out his eye. It’s purple.”
I look back toward him, squinting to see if I can make anything out from the light of the flames. It’s too dark to see for sure. I knew something like this would happen. I had the worst feeling when Hayden left, and he’s been off today. We’ve barely talked, other than him telling me he had to work tonight. I just figured he was stuck in his feelings, and I didn’t want to push.
That’s become the problem. He’s always in his feelings or my life is chaotic, so instead of having the tough talk about what we’re even doing together, I just kick the can down the road for the next day, and then the next.
“So, he moved out because they got in a fight . . . over me?” I look back to June and her expression isn’t definitive, one eye scrunched and her mouth twisted up along with it.
“Sorta?” She says it like a question. “I don’t think it’s a permanent thing. He told Lucas he was driving here from his dad’s tonight. I think he’s just staying there until things get sorted out, or until graduation, or—”
“Until graduation?” I blurt out.
I hand June my beer and roll down the sleeves of my sweatshirt to cover my chilled knuckles. I hug myself to keep the midriff of my shirt from blowing up in the cross breeze as I cut in front of the fire. The warmth feels good, and moves into my cheeks, injecting more of that confidence I’ve been missing in my spine. I catch Tory mid-conversation with Lucas and Cannon, and something about the way I march up must signal to the other guys that they should leave. They split without me even having to ask.
“You wanna tell me why you’re living with your dad?” I cross my arms over my chest and stare at his smirk. Shit, his eye is pretty fucked up. The bruise is worse on his cheek. He can tell I’m staring at it, so he reaches up and touches it lightly with the tips of his fingers.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore. Sometimes, I almost forget it’s there.” His hands drop to his pockets and he lowers his gaze to the ground, glancing back up at me with his eyes more than his face. “Hayden didn’t like that you had my sweatshirt. That’s basically all there is to that story.”
His gaze lingers as he chews at the tip of his tongue, his lips curved with a hint of a drunken smile.
“You drive after a few?” I jut my hip out and stare at him with judgement.
“Just one beer. I’m fine,” he says.
My eyes haze and I hold them on him until he has to look away.
“What? Fine, okay, maybe two. And I just rolled up to McCaffey’s house to haul down the keg. No main roads. And I’m sleeping here, so just . . . don’t worry about me, birthday girl.” He leans forward and touches the tip of his finger to my nose, then walks away.
I’m left there all alone, wondering how I got here, to a place where I’m both livid that