“So, ever been high?” Tucker asked when Davie was out of sight.
I balked at his forwardness, choking a little on the drink I’d just taken. I’m not sure why it caught me off guard—marijuana was legal in Washington and had been for a while—but I wasn’t used to being asked about it. There had been a time when I’d wanted to try it, right around when it was first legalized, but Keith had been so against it he’d flipped out that I even brought it up at all. He was in dental school at the time, and he couldn’t believe I’d risk his career for something so stupid.
“I have not,” I answered.
“Want to change that?” He pulled a joint from his coat pocket and held it up, waggling his brows. “A little Lemon Haze Sativa will set the night right. Trust me.”
I chewed my lip, eyes on the white rolled paper before they flicked back to his. His smirk was confident, eyes already low as he shifted his hand just a little closer to me.
Oh, what the hell.
It seemed like a perfectly fine response in the moment. What did it matter? Everyone at the bonfire was buzzed, I was only a few hundred feet from my own cabin, and I was having fun. There was absolutely nothing wrong with trying weed for the first time.
That thought held strong through my first hit, and my second, and even when the high started to float in, coating itself over the buzz I’d already laid as the red carpet. Everything was fine.
And then Anderson walked up.
I knew the moment I walked into Yvette and Davie’s backyard that I shouldn’t have come.
But it was too late. Momma Von noticed me first, and she jumped from her seat by the fire and ran to me, crushing me in a hug before screaming for Yvette and Davie. I saw her then, Wren, sitting next to Tucker by the fire, and her big doe eyes doubled in size when they saw me.
The noise died down as Davie helped Yvette climb out of the hot tub. He wrapped her in a large towel and then in his arms and they walked straight up to me, both of them with concern etched hard in their features.
They must have thought something was wrong. Why else would I be there? I didn’t party anymore, didn’t hang out, didn’t do anything at all. I was a shit friend—not even a friend at all. It’d been that way for so long now, I wondered if they even remembered who I was before.
“Hey, man,” Davie said first. His eyebrows pinched together and he looked behind me, probably wondering if my truck was here, if I needed him. We hadn’t said more than ten words to each other in years, but he would jump in and drive with me no matter where I needed to go. I knew that for a fact, because I’d do the same.
“Everything okay?” Yvette asked.
“Oh, everything’s fine,” Momma Von said, waving them both off. “He came to hang out and have a good time. Ain’t that right, Anderson?”
I cleared my throat, eyes finding Wren’s as she watched me with just as much curiosity as everyone else. “Yeah. I uh, I wanted to see Benjamin.”
“Oh,” Yvette said, exchanging a look with Davie. “Well, Davie just got him back to sleep, but we can go wake him up if you want to say hi?”
“No, no,” I assured her. “No, let him sleep.”
Momma Von’s eyes softened as she watched me trying. Trying to what, I wasn’t sure, and that thought settled in more and more as everyone stared at me.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come,” I murmured, just loud enough for the four of us to hear, but when I turned to leave, Davie grabbed my arm.
“Hey, come on. Let’s get you a beer.”
He held my eyes when I turned, smiling like he understood, and he probably did. If anyone would know how I was feeling in that moment, it would be Davie. Years had passed, we’d both grown up in different ways—he’d created life, I’d lost one—but he was still my best friend.
“Yeah, alright.”
Yvette and Momma Von shared a smile, linking arms and walking back to one side of the fire as Davie walked me toward the ice chest.
Which also happened to be right in front of Wren.
She was buzzed, that much I could tell just from one glance. Her eyes were glossy, lids heavy, full lips I loved to stare at curved just slightly at the edges as she watched me move toward her. She was all done up, eyes outlined in black and lips a deep red. She wore a long gray coat that fell in weird folds around the sweater she wore underneath it. I’d never seen a coat like that, never seen anyone dress the way she did.
“Hi,” she breathed when we’d reached where she sat.
Davie bent, retrieving a beer for me and popping it open before handing it over.
I popped the top, eyes still on Wren. “Hey.”
“You guys have met?” Tucker asked, and I ground my teeth, taking a drink to cool my temper before it even had the chance to warm up. Tucker was Dani’s boyfriend, when she was alive, and to say we didn’t get along would be a horrible understatement.
Wren just nodded, still smiling at me. “Look what I’m wearing.”
She popped her feet out toward me, showing me the black rubber knee-high boots she wore. There was a white boxed logo outlined in red on the top of each of them and it read HUNTER in all caps.
“They’re Hunter boots! I’m practically a certified mountain girl now.”
The fire light played with the shadows on her face, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away long enough to really care about the boots.
“Foot’s better then?”
She let her feet plop back down to the dirt. “Almost. Better enough for cute shoes, at least.”
Tucker’s eyes darted from her to me then, and I knew his curiosity was eating him from the inside out. And maybe the combination of her being adorable and him being jealous was just right to make me smile for the first time in longer than I could remember.
“Stay away from the hot tub.”
Wren’s cheeks flushed, and I kept my eyes on her even after Davie dragged me away to say hi to the guys.
I was surprised how welcoming everyone was, all things considered. No one really even acted like I’d been gone at all. They talked to me like I was there the night before, and the night before that, like I hadn’t ghosted years ago, like I hadn’t ditched every single one of them in favor of living in my own miserable existence alone. Still, I felt the unasked questions in the space between us. They asked with their eyes, with their gestures, with their stories, but at least I didn’t have to answer those.
Did I even have an answer? Not one they would understand, I was sure. Everyone knew Dani and I were close, but they didn’t know everything about us—about that day.