As the party grew, more people shifted into the kitchen, pushing us closer to each other. I saw Kaidan on the other side of the room, leaning against the counter while the girl next to him talked, swishing her white-platinum blond hair. My stomach tightened. I hadn’t seen him come in. The girl poured a shot of something golden and handed it to Kaidan. He tipped back the shot glass and glanced my way, unsmiling, as he set it down. I put my back to him and sipped my drink.
The crowd’s aura tonight was a mix of vivid, positive colors with a handful of fuzzy grays sprinkled throughout. As drinks were consumed with speed, colors began to fade and voices grew louder.
Marna and Jay squeezed through and stood with Kopano and me. Ginger and Blake were not far behind. Two minutes later Kaidan materialized through the crowd with the bottle of liquor, shot glasses, and slices of lime. He had somehow managed to rid himself of the girl.
“Tequila, anyone?” he asked our group, but his eyes were on me.
“Hell, yeah, K, break it out,” Blake said.
I tried to take a step back, but I couldn’t go far.
Kaidan poured the drinks, handing one to each twin and Blake.
“Jay?” he asked.
“Nah, dude. I gotta drive.”
“Kope? Anna?”
We both stared at him, not answering.
“Oh, that’s right, I nearly forgot,” Kaidan said with smooth indifference. “The prince and princess would never stoop so low. Well, bottoms up to us peasants.”
What was up with that? The group shared a round of uneasy glances. Jay’s mouth was set in firm disapproval as he stared at Kaidan, who wouldn’t meet Jay’s eye.
The four of them raised their glasses, taking the shots and chasing them with bites of lime.
I got a strong whiff of the pungent, salty tequila and gripped the counter with one hand.
“How’s your soda, princess?” Though Kaidan spoke with a calm air, there was underlying menace that pained me to hear.
“You don’t need to be hateful,” I whispered.
“If you ask me, I’d say the princess prefers a dark knight.” Ginger smirked and took a long drink of her beer.
“She only thinks she does,” Kaidan said to her.
I opened and closed my hands at my sides. After all we’d been through, how could he stand there and have the audacity to throw temptations in my face and insult me? I wanted to say something to shut him up, but the more flustered I got, the more tongue-tied I became.
“Anna?” Jay asked. “You ready to bounce?”
There was no way Jay was ready to leave.
“No! Don’t go yet,” Marna begged. She yanked the front of Kaidan’s shirt. “You’re scaring everyone off, Kai! If you can’t be nice, then don’t get so pissed.”
“She means drunk,” Blake said to me in a stage whisper; then he added, “Brits,” with a roll of his eyes.
Blake’s attempt at comic relief didn’t lighten the mood much.
“My apologies,” Kaidan said to Marna. He slid the bottle away with the back of his hand, and Marna patted down the bit of shirt she’d crumpled. I stared at Kaidan, but he wouldn’t meet my eye.
“Come on,” Jay said. “It’s too crowded in here. We can go out back.”
The seven of us slipped onto the porch and down the deck stairs, finding lawn chairs to sit in under a giant oak tree. Kaidan leaned back in his chair, balancing it on the back two legs.
“How about a game of Truth or Dare?” Marna offered.
I was immediately apprehensive. Just as I was about to suggest something else, Kaidan spoke and my heart faltered.
“I’ll go first,” he said. “I dare Kope to kiss Anna.”
Everything inside me flooded with fury and embarrassment. Kaidan leaned far back with his arms crossed, cocky. I stood up without thinking and hooked my foot under his chair, swiftly kicking upward and causing him to topple backward. He looked up at me from the ground with a stunned expression that morphed into a grin.
The twins and Blake were in hysterics. Blake laughed so hard he fell sideways out of his own chair, which made Jay join in the laughter. I couldn’t sit there with them anymore. This whole night was a disaster. I turned and walked through the yard, toward the side of the house. I heard Ginger talk between gasps of mirth.
“Maybe she’s not so bad after all!”
I didn’t know where I was going. I made my way between the two houses, toward the street, and I heard steps running through the grass behind me.
“Wait up!” It was Jay. “You okay?” I stopped and let him catch up.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come.”
“Yeah, you called it. But maybe it’s not such a bad thing. He saw you flirting with that other guy, and it’s got him thinking—”
“Shhh!” I said, my eyes rounding. I peered over his shoulder, but we couldn’t see the others.
“What?” he asked, confused. “They can’t hear us.”
“I wasn’t flirting!” I whisper-hissed.
“Well, you were standing real close and talking all serious—”
“Okay, okay! Maybe it looked bad, but we were just talking. It was crowded.”
“Hey.” Marna came around the corner toward us. “Don’t worry about Kai. He’s a nasty drunk. Come on back.”
“I don’t think I should,” I said. I wished I could just shake it off and be cool, but he’d hurt me.
“Do I need to send him over to apologize?” she asked.
“No!”
“Kaidan!” she hollered. “Get over here!”