“It’s not too bad,” Mike lies. “Give it to me when we leave, and I’ll get my mom to patch it up for you.”
My first instinct urges me to tell him that his mom has already done enough for me, but since I never told Danica about Mike’s mom helping with my stained hoodie and I’m guessing she’d read a whole lot more into it than she should, I don’t. “Your mom would be able to fix this?”
“Mike’s mom can fix anything,” Joel praises, his long legs stretched out on the purple blanket. He tosses a pebble into the water, his blond mohawk waging a silent but valiant battle against the brisk afternoon breeze. “She can get blue hair dye out of yellow T-shirts.”
“And lava cake out of white carpet,” Mike says to Shawn, and Shawn chuckles as he coughs into his arm.
“And grass stains out of zebra-print boxers!” Adam throws in from where he’s smoking a cigarette at the side of the dock, and all four guys crack up laughing at some private memory they share.
“She made me a scarf once,” Danica interrupts, her cheeks dimpling with the memory. She shifts in Mike’s lap to give him her smile. “Do you remember that?”
“For your sixteenth birthday,” Mike recalls, and Danica practically squeals at his jogged memory.
“Yes! She gave it—”
“You said you hated that scarf,” he interrupts, and Danica’s smile vanishes.
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did,” Mike says, his voice devoid of all the nostalgic warmth it held a second ago.
Indignant, Danica begins to argue, “I would never—”
“You said you’d never be caught dead in it, but it might look cute on one of your family’s pigs.”
My jaw drops open, and Danica’s expression changes. Her eyes widen, her lips unpurse, and she shakes her head wildly because she knows she messed up. “I wouldn’t—”
“You would,” Mike says. “You did. I wouldn’t forget something like that, Danica.”
My cousin’s expression hides nothing as a million excuses race through her head. I have no idea how she’s going to get out of this one, and I’m not sure she deserves to.
“What a bitch thing to say,” Dee remarks unapologetically, and even though Mike doesn’t owe it to Danica to come to her defense, he does. It’s the chivalry in him, and I should know by now never to expect less.
Or more.
“Hey—” he warns, looking over my cousin’s shoulder at Dee, and with stark clarity, I can see it happening: I can see all of Dee’s Yoko predictions coming true. This is the moment Danica is going to put a wedge in the band. This is the moment she’ll come between Mike and Dee, and Mike and Joel, Mike and everyone.
“Danica just puts her foot in her mouth sometimes,” I blurt. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t!” she hastily agrees, even though I’m sure no one believes her, because I sure as hell don’t.
“Why are you defending her?” Dee snaps, and I shrink under her steel gaze.
Rowan speaks for me when I can’t find my voice. “Can we all just stop fighting?” she pleads. “This is ridiculous. We’re in a freaking meadow, for God’s sake. It’s pretty.” She sneezes and wipes her nose on her sleeved elbow. “It’s like . . . something out of Twilight. There are probably vampires around here or something, and they’re probably . . . like . . . glittering.”
Adam chuckles and wraps his arm around her shoulders, kissing her hair. “Only rock stars, Peach. No vampires.”
“So I won’t get to make out with Robert Pattinson today?” Rowan pouts, and Adam picks her up and threatens to throw her into the pond. She’s screaming and laughing and kicking, and then he’s tickling her and she’s crying with laughter. The next thing I know, they’re kissing, and then they’re disappearing into the woods while the rest of us hang around wondering what the hell just happened.
“I’m eating their sandwiches,” Kit informs everyone, walking to the other side of the dock and kneeling down to unzip Rowan’s backpack. Shawn, Dee, Joel, and I follow her lead, claiming spots on the checkered picnic blanket at that side of the dock to give Mike and Danica some privacy.
“I’ll fight you for them,” Joel challenges, crawling to sit by Kit.
“I’ll throw you into the pond.”
“So?”
“You’re a shit swimmer,” she says, pulling out handfuls of Saran-wrapped sandwiches and tossing them onto the blanket. “You’ll probably drown before you reach the shore.”
“You’d let me drown?”
“I’d be too busy enjoying my sandwiches to notice,” Kit says, unwrapping a sandwich and taking a big bite out of it to prove her point.
Joel chuckles and wisely picks up only a single sandwich, and the rest of us follow suit—all of us except Mike and Danica, who stay where they are to have a hushed conversation that the rest of us pretend not to notice.
Well, most of us. Dee doesn’t try to hide the fact that she’s watching them like her own personal soap opera.
“So Kit,” I start as I unwrap a ham and cheese sandwich. I take the ham off and offer it to Joel, who shoves the whole slice into his mouth. “You went to school with everyone too?”
Kit nods, her mouth full and her hands holding two half-eaten sandwiches. It takes her a minute to finish chewing, and then she swallows and says, “Yeah. I was a few grades lower though.”
“Did you all run in the same circles or something?”
“Not really,” she says, and then she amends, “Kind of. Uh. Well, one of my brothers knew the guys. They weren’t really friends or anything, but they went to the same parties.”
“Sometimes Kit came to those parties too,” Shawn adds, smiling as Kit’s cheeks turn bright red.
“And Danica?” I ask, too curious about my cousin to try to find out why Kit is blushing from head to toe.
“What about me?” Danica asks, joining us at our side of the platform as the guys laugh at my question. I make room for her to sit down, and Mike sits on her other side just as Adam chases Rowan back onto the dock.
“I was just asking if you guys were all friends in high school or something,” I repeat, and to my surprise, Danica laughs just as hard as Shawn and Joel did.
“No.”
“Let me guess,” Dee says, pointing a manicured finger across our makeshift circle at her. “Cheerleader.”
“Captain,” Danica boasts, and Dee huffs before going back to ignoring her.
“So how did you two end up together?” I ask, turning my head to question her and Mike.
Mike looks from me, to Danica, to me—and Danica finally gives me an answer.
“He asked me out at the school talent show our freshman year.” She gazes lovingly at Mike. “He’d had a crush on me forever.”
“Since third grade,” Mike agrees on his cue, and the few bites of cheese sandwich I ate nearly make a reappearance.
“Before the last song,” Danica continues, her gaze returning to mine, “he walked up to the mic, told everyone that the next song was for the prettiest girl in school, and then pointed his drumsticks at me.”
“He was so fucking nervous.” Adam laughs, digging his whole braceleted arm into a bag of barbecue potato chips.
“I thought he was going to throw up,” Shawn teases, and Mike’s cheeks turn a bashful shade of pink.