Sign Here(68)
“Like hell you are.”
“Not from you, bitch. From everybody else. We can’t trust these animals.”
As Madeline dragged her out of the room, Lily looked over her shoulder just long enough to see Philip unload three bottles of tequila.
Let’s see what Sarah thinks of that, she thought.
“Shall we do a shot or two, just to get the party started?” Madeline asked when she and Lily had found the right planter, tall enough to conceal the bottle but close enough to keep them in the action.
Lily put one hand over her belly button, over what some faraway part of her knew was growing there. But only for an instant. Then she shook her head—hard, as if she could dislodge the thought—and opened her mouth.
* * *
—
THE NEXT TIME SHE saw Sarah, the sun was reaching its crescendo in gold above the lake, and Lily had all but forgotten her. She was focused on Silas and their friends, the people who were supposed to be there. But when Terrance and Alex moved the folding table into the shallow water to play beer pong, she reappeared.
“Come play with us!” Silas yelled across the lawn as soon as he saw her. Like he had been watching. Lily looked and missed her chance to deflect a shot.
“Boom! There goes your top, Thompson!” Terrance yelled.
Lily whined as she pulled her shirt up over her tanned shoulders. The neckline held her long blond hair as if in a loose fist until she shook it free and tossed the shirt onto the sand. She could feel all eyes on her.
All but his.
“I’ll be right back,” Silas said into her neck before setting off across the grass. Madeline sidled up to the table and handed Lily a shot of the Malibu like a doctor with a pain-management plan.
“What’s that about?”
“Nothing. He’s probably just worried about Phil. We haven’t seen him in a bit,” Lily answered, shaking her head as the booze went down. It tasted more like sunscreen than alcohol, but she liked the way it made her feel.
“Well, sure, if Sarah doesn’t get drunk enough tonight, Phil might never lose his virginity.”
“Damn, Maddie with the kill shot!” Terrance roared. “And who’s getting you drunk tonight?”
“I am,” Lily said, grabbing Madeline around the waist and play-biting her neck.
“I’d pay to see that,” Alex added.
“It’ll cost you your college fund.”
“Worth it. My parents don’t have high hopes for me anyway.”
“That’s unsurprising,” Lily said, and they all laughed.
* * *
—
AFTER TWO MORE GAMES, Lily went looking for Silas. She walked out of the water in her bathing suit, leaving her shorts and tank top on the beach. She had been working for this weekend, weighing herself and her limited portions of food as many times as she could in a day and taking the diet pills her mom had left in her bathroom drawer when cheer season started.
It was the greatest irony of her life: how much she hated her body and how much she lived for the attention it garnered.
She saw Philip exit the woods at a clip and turn to the house.
“Phil! Wait up!”
He stopped and looked toward her, but she couldn’t tell whether he was happy to see her. Either way, he waited.
“Where have you been hiding?” she asked, punching him playfully on the shoulder. Philip was bigger than Silas and thicker. He wasn’t unattractive; he just wasn’t Silas. If he had been related to anyone else, he could’ve had a very different experience. Even though Silas was younger, Philip was always known as Silas’s brother.
“Around,” he said.
“Where’s Sarah?” She had meant to ask about Silas, but Sarah’s name came out instead. She didn’t correct herself.
“I don’t—” he said, taking a step back. “I don’t know.”
“What’s going on between you two, huh?” Lily asked, tilting her body with one hand on her hip.
Silas said he loved her hip bones.
“Nothing,” he said, but she could sense a ripple in his voice, and she wasn’t going to let go of it. Bonding with Philip was one of her main goals for the weekend, and she was just drunk enough to try.
“Come on, you can talk to me,” she said, leaning in. “I’m practically part of the family.”
Philip raised his eyebrows at her.
“Come on, walk me to the firepit and we can talk. I think Silas went down that way.”
“I think I’m just gonna—”
“Come on,” Lily said, pulling on his arm with her whole weight. Philip glanced back at the woods and exhaled, shaking his head.
“No, you know what? Come on this way. We’ll have a drink and talk about it.” He took her by the elbow and nodded toward the house. “We don’t need to go back there.”
Lily beamed and looped her arm in his. She couldn’t wait to tell Silas how she’d won over his brother. No one else had, as far as she knew.
“Lead the way,” she said.
* * *
—
BY THE TIME THEY were settled on the two-person porch swing, Lily with a vodka Sprite (“Diet, please,” she said three times to Philip’s back) and Philip holding a beer, it was fully dark.