“Where are Leti and your brother?” Joel asks me, oblivious to the way Shawn’s hand on my side is making it impossible for me to talk.
“Still haven’t come back yet,” Mike answers for me, still shaking his head at Adam’s bare chest. Adam wraps an arm around his shoulder and flashes him a white smile.
“Is he gay?” Joel asks me point-blank, tearing my attention from Adam and Mike. “Your brother?” His voice holds no disapproval, no judgment, but I avoid the question anyway.
“Is Adam?” I reach out and poke Adam’s unicorn, and he barks out a laugh, snapping Mike’s head forward when his arms jerk down to protect himself.
The boys get into a scuffle that forces me even tighter against Shawn, and it’s impossible to miss the way his body reacts to mine. We both feel him between us, but neither of us moves an inch, and neither of us says a word. Instead, I nibble at the inside of my lip when his fingers close even tighter around my waist.
Shawn and I stand like that, listening to the guys act like idiots under the downpour of techno bass—and ignoring one big, pressing, unspoken thing between us—until Leti and my brother emerge from the crowd, looking like they just danced twenty pounds off. My brother’s cheeks are red—from exertion or from crushing on Leti too hard, it’s impossible to tell. I try to shift away from Shawn before they can reach our group, but he catches the curve of my waist and refuses to let me budge. And all I can do is stand there, my heart doing flips and tumbles and cartwheels in my chest.
Does he know what he’s doing? He has to know what he’s doing. Why is he doing it? And why does he feel so. fucking. good? I purposely shift against him, and his fingers draw me even closer.
“Dude.” Leti laughs as he practically skips up to our group. Kale is right beside him, but they don’t so much as brush elbows. Leti may have gotten my brother out of the house, but he’s still firmly in the closet. “You know what those mean, right?” He points at Adam’s glow necklace, and when Adam simply lifts it up and raises an eyebrow, Leti starts laughing again. “They mean you’re DTF.”
“DTF?” Mike says.
“Have you never watched Jersey Shore?” Leti asks like it’s a crime.
“It means you’re down to fuck,” Kale answers, and Adam looks around to find that no fewer than ten guys are eyeing him up.
My bandmates get into a hilarious conversation about why Adam won’t take it off—with him insisting that he’s used to the attention and that glow necklaces are “cool as hell,” and Joel teasing that he’s been away from Rowan too long—while Shawn and I stay quiet on the fringes of the group, his front glued to my back and his hand stuck to my hip. I pretend that the way he’s touching me is normal, that this is what friends do, that I’m not tuned in to every breath he takes or every line of his fingerprints indenting themselves in my skin.
When I feel eyes on me, my gaze drifts to Leti to find him grinning my way. My brother, standing beside him, is busy glaring at Shawn’s hand.
“Come dance with us,” Leti coaxes, tugging my reluctant body away from Shawn’s.
Shawn’s hand slowly slides from my waist, and Kale finally meets my eyes.
“No way,” my twin says. “I’m not dancing with my sister.”
But Leti is on a mission, and he starts walking backward with my hands ensnared in his. “Suit yourself.”
He lures me up the stairs and onto the floor, and we drift deep, deep into the crowd. In the middle of it, Leti rests his big hands on my shoulders, his golden-honey eyes flashing with glee as multicolored lasers cut across our skin. He presses his mouth into my purple-and-black hair and shouts over the throbbing music, “He is so into you!”
When he pulls away, I simply shake my head. Shawn’s body might be into me, but the rest of him? That would be into a girl like me, if he was into anyone at all. I’m not even on his radar. I’m just one of the guys, which is a good thing. A really good thing. Definitely good.
I pull Leti down and rise to my tiptoes. “He said he could date a girl like me. Like me.”
“That’s a good thing!” he shouts back.
I shake my head against his cheek. “I’m not even an option.”
Leti is frowning when I pull away. He lowers his arms to wrap them around my waist, pulling me close and pressing his lips into my hair again. “You didn’t see the way he kept looking at you while you guys performed onstage tonight.”
I rest my forehead against Leti’s shoulder, because I know no amount of trying to convince him is going to make him believe that Shawn and I were over before we even began. I feel him sigh against me, and then the room is spinning, laser lights blurring as he twirls me in circles and makes me squeal and laugh. We dance until one song ends and another begins, until I finally feel far enough away from Shawn to think of something—anything—else.
“You and Kale . . . ” I question with Leti’s arms around me, and he grins down at me, the honeycomb in his eyes sparkling.