“Don’t fucking do it again.”
I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t want to break a promise.
No one seemed to notice.
“Let’s have drinks,” Mae said, pushing her way through her wall of men. “Maybe out by the fire? We need to celebrate. Heath is out, Liam’s back, and Ripley is here.”
“Can’t all go outside,” Heath pointed out. “We won’t hear Ripley if he wakes up. Shame, it’s beautiful out there tonight, and sitting around a fire with a couple of drinks sounds like heaven.”
“I’ll stay with him,” I offered. “You guys should go and celebrate.”
All three of them frowned at me. “We’re not celebrating without you.”
Rowe shoved me. “Trying to ditch your family already?”
I stopped in my tracks. Nobody else reacted, though. They all just went on like he hadn’t even said anything.
“Family?” The word slipped out before I could stop it, and then I felt like an idiot. Embarrassment heated my cheeks.
Rowe laughed, his mood sky-high. “You think everything we’ve been through the last few days, hell, the last few months, makes us anything less than family?”
“And Ripley cements it,” Mae added.
“You cement it,” Heath said quietly to her, kissing her cheek.
He held up Mae’s phone and flashed up an app. “Baby monitor app. One of you download it as well. We leave one phone in Ripley’s room and take the other outside with us. They sync up and act like a monitor, so we’ll hear if he wakes up. It’s got video and everything.”
Mae raised an eyebrow. “Impressive that you know of such a thing.”
He shrugged. “There are apps for everything.”
“Norma said he sleeps like the dead anyway. He probably won’t even move. He was a dead weight by the time I laid him down. Grab the chairs from the living room. I’ll go find us some wood.”
“I bought drinks when I went to the store, too. Refrigerator is fully stocked. I’ll get snacks.”
Everybody bustled around me, doing what needed to be done, organizing a mini party for four in the yard, while I felt like I was sleepwalking. I went through the motions, trying to shake off the mood. When Mae offered me a drink, I bypassed beer and grabbed a can of Coke and a bottle of bourbon gratefully. Maybe that was all I needed. A drink to relax and blow out the cobwebs of my bender.
The cold liquid slid down my throat and gave me something to do with my hands. Heath gathered up all the chairs. I took a cooler of drinks from Mae, leaving her to carry the lighter snacks, and by the time we got outside, Rowe already had a small fire going in the firepit. The night was warm, the sky filled with more stars than I’d ever seen, the quiet whisper of a soft breeze through the surrounding trees. Heath produced a small Bluetooth speaker, and I passed over my phone, since it was the one not being used as a baby monitor.
“What songs you got on here? Anything good?”
I unlocked it for him with a shrug. “Depends what you’re in the mood for.”
I remembered something, and for what felt like the first time in days, I smiled. “Do the playlist right at the bottom.”
He thumbed down the page and then looked up. “Seriously?”
I glanced at Mae. “Yeah, seriously.”
“Teenage emo angst, coming right up.”
Mae groaned, and I laughed, sitting next to her, taking another sip of my drink. But as the opening riffs of Paramore’s “Misery Business” came through the speakers, she closed her eyes and started singing out the lyrics.
Rowe and Heath both stopped and stared at her, but I’d seen her do this before and knew how good she was. She didn’t fit the part, with her innocent schoolteacher style, but Mae had a set of pipes on her that suited the grungy rock sound, and by the time she got to the chorus, she was belting out the words, like she’d only listened to this album yesterday.
God, I loved her. Her enthusiasm bled from her every pore. She found a release in music.
I found one in her.
The song ended, and she opened her eyes, immediately turning pink in the glow of the firelight when she realized we were all watching her.
She ran a hand self-consciously through her hair that had become tousled from her performance. “Right. Well, I guess the cat is out of the bag that I kind of like decade-old punk rock.”
“You’re good,” Heath said, his gaze glued to her.
“Really fucking good.” Rowe was staring at her with a mixture of surprise and desire.
I pointed at the phone in Heath’s hand. “Put ‘Fall Out Boy’ on. She knows all the words to that, too.”
She laughed, looking lighter and more carefree than I’d seen her in weeks. She sang along to a few more songs, until Heath leaned over to me. “You knew she could sing?”
“Yeah.”
“I envy that.”
The alcohol was coursing through my system now, just enough to relax me. I laughed at him. “Hey, you wanna sing, get up there. I’ll throw a bra at you.”
He sniggered. “I meant I envy what the two of you have. You know stuff about her I don’t.”
I sobered a little. I did have the advantage of knowing Mae the longest. But knowing someone for a long time didn’t necessarily mean anything when it came to loving someone. “I envy the connection you have with her. With both of them.” The words were too raw, too honest, and I immediately wished I hadn’t said them. They hurt.
But Heath stared at me like I’d said something committable. “What are you even talking about. She loves you, Liam. She was cut to shreds last night when you weren’t here. The only reason she’s like this now is because you’re back.” He jerked his head in Mae’s direction, and I caught her gaze. She was on her feet, dancing and thrashing her head around with Rowe.
“All of that, is relief that you’re okay.”