Dark Wild Night

I look over to the bathrooms, wanting to see Oliver emerge and also dreading the way it will make me feel when he does. But something else snags my attention . . . a face I haven’t seen in forever.

It takes my brain several seconds before I realize who I’m seeing. I look over at Harlow: she’s smiling at something Finn said. I look more carefully at Mia: she’s reading something London has shown her on her phone. But Ansel’s attention is moving between my face and the person I’ve spotted over by the bar. Ansel knows something is up . . . he just doesn’t know why my eyes have gone wide. Because he wouldn’t necessarily recognize Luke Sutter.

From across the room, Luke sees me first, and his face falls. I can almost feel the way he doesn’t want to look at the rest of the table, doesn’t want to know. But he can’t help it: his eyes slide around the curved booth, tripping unseeing over Not-Joe, London, Harlow, Finn . . . eventually landing on Mia. For a second, the duration of a heartbeat, I see the life being punched out of him.

“Who is that?” Oliver asks as he returns to the table, jealousy making his voice sharp.

I startle at the sound and the vibrating warmth of him so close to me before standing to let him in. At his question, Mia looks up, following his attention to where Luke stands, and she goes pale. I can’t remember the last time she saw Luke, but I know it’s still hard for her, still weird how much things have changed. He’s barely the same person anymore.

“Um . . . it’s Luke,” I say, and Ansel’s body goes rigid at my words. “Mia’s ex.”

I realize I don’t know how much he knows about Luke, whether he knows they were inseparable from the age of eleven, how we all just assumed Luke and Mia were forever. Has Mia told Ansel about the worst fight they had? The one where Luke whispered, in tears, that it felt like Mia died under the truck that had pinned her to the street?

Over the past few years, Luke has been nothing like the guy I used to know, but I’ll always adore him even if on the surface he seems like such a cocky douche bag. The accident ruined two dreams—hers of dancing, his of having Mia forever. He got over it the only way he seemed to know how: by sleeping with anyone, and everyone.

I look back to Ansel and Mia, and I’ve never seen this before—anger on Ansel’s face—but I recognize it immediately. His gently ruddy cheeks turn red, his eyes harden. Mia slides her hand down his arm, whispering something in his ear, cupping his face and urging him to look at her. At first he resists, glaring over at Luke, and then he nods, closing his eyes and finally turning to her waiting mouth, claiming it deeply.

“Je t’aime,” he whispers. “I love you so wildly I sometimes forget you aren’t so fragile.”

Finally, I look away, giving them privacy. When I locate Luke across the room, I can see his jaw twitch as he watches them kiss, but then his easy smile is back and he turns away, flirting with a couple of women near the bar.

“So this is Luke,” Oliver begins, so close to my ear. Goose bumps break out along my arms. “The one who would drive you to concerts.”

I nod, nearly wanting to cry over the effort he’s making to talk to me. “He and Mia were together in high school, and for a bit . . . after.”

“After . . . you mean, after the accident?” he asks quietly.

“Yeah. It wasn’t a good time for Mia, and Luke was pretty heartbroken that she never really came back the same as before.”

“You liked him, then?”