“You got it, Clipper,” Bree says. “Come on, I’ll get you your first.”
After grabbing dinner from the mess hall, everyone makes their way to the bar. Everyone but me. I can’t bring myself to celebrate a birthday with the fate of Crevice Valley still unconfirmed. I pace the halls, head to the barracks and shower just to keep my mind occupied. In the end, being anxious alone seems even more absurd than being anxious with friends. As it is most evenings, the bar is packed when I finally arrive.
I find Clipper and Jules facing off against Sammy and Bree in a game of darts, the others watching. When Clipper spots me, a dumb grin streaks over his face.
“How much did you give him?” I ask Bree.
“Enough.”
“Great, he’s just drinking so he can forget.”
Bree examines the tip of her dart, then glances up at me. “That’s why everyone drinks heavily, Gray: to forget.”
“You know that’s not what I . . . Look, he’s just a kid. I think—”
“Treating him like a kid is what’s dangerous. He’s one of us. If he thinks we don’t see him that way, it will be nothing but trouble.”
“He’s gonna be passed out in—”
“Relax. I let him have one drink and then switched him over to watered-down stuff. He doesn’t know the difference, and if he does, he clearly doesn’t care. Point is, he feels like he’s included, that we’re not babying him, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he needs right now.”
Clipper throws his last dart and turns to us, the grin still on his face.
“You need a drink,” he says to me. “I want a birthday toast.”
“We’d have initiated that in the end,” Blaine says. “You don’t have to demand it.”
I wave a thumb over my shoulder, letting Blaine know I’ll visit the bar.
“Grab one for me, too?” he asks, and goes back to teasing Clipper.
In many ways, the bar reminds me of Crevice Valley’s Tap Room. This place has cleaner edges and uniform tables, but the energy is the same. Music is seeping from a far corner—the strum of a lazy guitar. The lighting is dim and the space around the many tables crowded. After a day of work and a lifetime of worries, the Expats here are seeking out a little merriment, trying to forget the grim uncertainties for a while.
Forget. Just like Bree said. Does that girl have to be right about everything?
I raise two fingers for the bartender and tell him to charge the drinks to Adam. It’s worked every other visit, and I don’t think Adam is going to start complaining now. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if this is his way of bribing us: drinks at night in exchange for another day of pointless work in the greenhouse.
The bartender slides two glass mugs my way. I’m gathering them up, a palm cupping each, when I’m hip checked playfully.
“You were supposed to let me buy you one,” Jules says. “Remember?” She leans into me until we’re touching from shoulder to elbow. She’s so tall she barely has to look up at me as she blinks those lashes.
“Guess it slipped my mind.”
“Then why don’t we just talk awhile? I’ll drink my drink”—she waves for the bartender—“and you can drink yours. I mean, you owe me after all.”
“I don’t owe you anything. And aren’t you in the middle of a game of darts with Clipper?”
“Riley took my place.”
I glance over and sure enough, there’s Riley, a miniature Jules of fourteen, only skinnier and still without curves. Clipper sure seems pleased about the change in partners. I didn’t think it possible, but as Riley shows Clipper a better throwing technique, the dumbstruck expression that was previously only on his lips moves into his eyes.
“See? No need to rush back. In fact, we are perfectly capable of celebrating Clipper’s birthday from here.” Blink, blink, blink. “Or elsewhere.” She touches my forearm.
I pull away.
“What? You honestly don’t want to get out of this place with me?” She gives me the most seductive smile she can muster. She is pretty. “Well?”
I raise one of the mugs in Bree’s direction. “You see that girl, Jules? She’s the only person I want to leave this bar with. She’s the only girl I want, period.”
“And you’ve told her that? Because she doesn’t seem all that interested in you. Actually, I can’t help but notice she doesn’t seem to give you the time of day.”
This, like she knows Bree. Like chatting occasionally at dinner makes them best friends. Like offering Bree special Expat meds for her cramped gardening muscles or whatever they were going on about a few weeks back makes Jules an expert on Bree’s desires.
“Doesn’t change the fact that she’s still all I want,” I say.
Jules’s expression hardens. “Maybe you should start thinking about what you want if you can’t have her, Gray. Who are you on your own? Because it looks like you’re going to stay that way.”
She snatches up the drink the bartender delivered and heads back to the group.
I’m glad she didn’t wait for an answer, because I don’t have one. The truth is I never imagined much of my life beyond eighteen. For so long, that marker was a foggy, black void, a milestone draped in unknowns. The only thing I believed for certain was that my Heist would be the end. I’ve lived longer than I ever thought I would, and now that there’s more beyond eighteen—a possibility that we might actually beat Frank and I could carve out the life of my own choosing . . . Well, I don’t know what to do with that sort of prospect.
“Damn, if that’s not a look that scares me.” Sammy is standing beside me, ordering another round.
“Huh?”
He points at my face. “You went all serious.” He scrunches his nose in disgust.