That’s when I realize there are two people I haven’t spotted yet. I have yet to see Tyler and Tiffani. I study the kitchen once more to make sure I haven’t just missed them, but they’re definitely not here. For a second I think that Rachael and I aren’t the last ones to arrive after all, but then something catches my eye.
There are two figures hovering outside the kitchen window, and, of course, it’s Tyler and Tiffani. I stare through the glass at them, both of them oblivious to my watching eyes, and soon my face contorts with disgust. Tyler’s smoking while Tiffani wraps herself around his torso as though she’s clinging on for dear life. She kind of is.
Taking a long sip of my drink, I place the bottle on the counter and head outside. No one inside notices me slipping through the kitchen door to the backyard, but Tyler and Tiffani do. They both fall silent as I click the door shut and spin around to face them. Tiffani’s lips are pressed together, irritated that I’ve interrupted their beautiful romance. I wish Meghan were here to snort.
“Can you go back inside?” she says, and she doesn’t even attempt to say it nicely. Her tone is sour, her attitude bitter. “And, like, give us some space?”
“Back off,” Tyler mutters, and I think Tiffani is just as surprised as I am that he’s actually defending me. She glares at him and turns back to me.
Ignoring her twisted face, almost as twisted as my iced tea, I roll my eyes toward the joint in Tyler’s hand. “What are you doing?”
“Relax,” he says as he lifts it to his lips, placing it between his teeth, and murmurs, “It’s just a cigarette.”
“That’s all you’re gonna smoke tonight, right?” I give him a hard look. “Just cigarettes?”
In the few seconds that it takes him to take a drag, drawing the smoke into his lungs and exhaling it back into the air, he just stares at me with a sense of nonchalance in his eyes. “Go back inside if you’re just gonna interrogate me, sis.”
Tiffani laughs, but I barely even pay attention to her, my eyes are so fixed on Tyler, everything else around him slightly blurred through the smoke. He hasn’t spoken to me in such a condescending tone in weeks. Nothing gave him the right to do so back then, and nothing gives him the right to do so now. I almost want to slap him across the face, but then I notice the way his eyes harden right before he glances away and takes another drag. It hits me then that he’s acting, because acting is all he ever does. His facade is back, the stupid badass front that gives him a sense of control over himself and a sense of power over the rest of us. Of course, I think, Tiffani is here. He can’t have her knowing the truth about what he is, which is lost. Totally and completely lost.
“We’re about to play shot roulette,” I say stiffly, acting as though I didn’t hear what he just said. “So if you wanna join in, then you should probably come inside.”
“I’m totally game!” Tiffani announces. She pulls away from Tyler and skips over to my side, her balance not quite steady, her eyes wide with excitement. I give her a quick sideways glance, wondering what her priorities in life are. At the moment, I’m guessing Louis Vuitton purses and tequila shots and my stepbrother.
My eyes drift back to Tyler, who is now taking a sip of beer in between each puff of his cigarette. I tilt my head and ask, “Are you joining us?”
“Obviously,” he says with that same haughty tone, and at that I shake my head and make my way inside to join the rest of the pre-party.
Everyone is gathered into a huddle around the island, circling the roulette wheel like vultures. Jake has the balls in his hands, throwing them up into the air and catching them again, which I find rather impressive considering the fact that he’s a little tipsy. He stops juggling and points a finger at Tiffani and me as he motions for us to come over.
I slide myself in between Rachael and Dean, grabbing my Twisted Tea from the counter as I pass. Dean throws his arm over my shoulders and drinks his beer with the other. He jerks around almost too roughly, to the point where my neck hurts, and then Jake kicks off the game, flicking the balls onto the wheel. TJ and Jackson pound their fists against the countertop and I swear the shot glasses almost fly into the air, but Jake grabs his drink and tips it down his throat.
“What the fuck is that?” he splutters in disgust a few seconds later as his face scrunches up at the foul taste of the brown liquid.
TJ howls with laughter and claps his huge hands together. “Mud water from the backyard!”
Jake presses his lips into a firm line as he fires TJ a furious glare, and then he shoves him to the side and pushes his way over to the sink, where he promptly spits all over it. While Jake is on the verge of throwing up, Tyler finally comes sauntering in, hands in his pockets, face blank. He joins the game: the awful game, the game of the unknown. I’m even more worried than I was a minute ago. Who knows what other cruel jokes the guys have thrown into the wheel?