Summer Sons(30)

“I do,” Andrew allowed.

“Well, me too. We ought to test our builds out sometime.”

A chorus of encouraging, derisive whoops broke from the crowd. Andrew’s skin thrilled and his eyes narrowed. He sipped again, holding the stare over the rim of his cup long enough that Ethan’s smile morphed into a sharklike challenge. His fingers drummed a beat on the railing.

“We’ll see,” Andrew said.

“Goodie,” Ethan replied.

In another person’s mouth it might’ve been a threat. In Ethan’s, it held an edge of a laugh, partly mocking. Riley made a fist in Ethan’s shirt and yanked him toward the stairs. The pair wandered off to the bonfire-in-progress, heads together to speak under the rolling crash of the music. Andrew flinched when a hand plucked the blunt from his fingers. He turned a fraction and Halse was in his face, the cherry glowing a few inches from his cheek.

“I can’t figure you out,” he said in a low voice. “Did you just need a good push to get you going, princess?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Andrew said, though the truth was, I needed to see for myself what kind of trouble you make.

Halse blew smoke in his face and turned his wrist to stick the rillo back between Andrew’s dry lips. Reflex closed them around the earthy paper, soft with spit, earning Halse’s vicious grin.

“Finish that,” Halse said as he pushed past him to rejoin his unruly guests.

Andrew ashed the blunt on the ground. The sunset hid behind the trees, grey light seeping around their edges. Milling groups broke into the occasional shoving scuffle or cackle of hyena-laughter. At the center, four boys and one young woman were breaking pieces of particle board and sticks with their heels to toss on the haphazard pile of material that Andrew assumed would soon be lit. The girl’s hair was in a tight bun and her buff, thin silhouette reminded him of Del. Del wouldn’t have been caught dead at one of these get-togethers. Sam approached the group and patted her on the ass; she smacked his with a piece of wood, which he danced away from with a laugh.

He checked his phone—no messages. No one had a clue where he was, or who he was with, or if he was coming home. Had Eddie been standing here three weeks before, talking to someone who ended up doing him harm? Maybe so. Andrew rolled the tension from his shoulders and put his phone in his pocket.

“Sorry, sorry,” Riley said, stumbling up to him. “I shouldn’t abandon you so quick, dude. I just hadn’t seen Ethan in like a month and a half, he went to his parents’ for break.”

“It’s fine,” Andrew said.

Riley’s hair was going flat already, dripping sweat and product down his temples. The pink scar stood out sharply on his cheek. He tugged Andrew’s arm, saying, “Come inside, let me make you another drink.”

The kitchen countertops were strewn with bottles and cups, and the sink was full of bags of ice. Riley popped the plastic safe-pourer out of a handle of whiskey and offered it over. Andrew swigged straight from the bottle. The burn scoured his throat from the inside, cheap and medicinal. They passed it back and forth until Riley choked a little and spit into the sink.

Andrew snorted. “Sanitary, spitting on the ice.”

“Next to it,” Riley corrected him. “You feeling good?”

Andrew’s head swam pleasantly. He hadn’t had much to eat before coming out. He’d dropped the finished roach somewhere outside, and he wondered if people often set the yard alight by accident during drought weeks.

“Maybe I am,” he allowed. “Where’s your, uh, your girlfriend?”

Riley wrinkled his nose and said, “Did you check the scene outside? I think Ethan is the only person at this party who isn’t white, and Irene is the lone chick. Luca doesn’t want to deal with that, and I don’t blame her. Sam’s parties are kind of … their own thing, you know? He mixes business with pleasure.”

Andrew rewound his memory to check against Riley’s explanation. He hadn’t noticed the party’s makeup, but on second thought, he guessed it was true. Most of the faces he’d passed were variations on his own—or, more accurately, Sam’s. Scruff on square jaws, farmer’s tans, high-top sneakers and blue jeans. West’s initial warning took on a different significance in hindsight, with Riley’s comment that his girlfriend wouldn’t be caught in this white, rowdy crowd ringing in his ears.

“Hey,” Halse bellowed from the deck. “Stop hogging the guest of honor!”

“Get fucked, Sam!” Riley hollered back, voice cracking.

Andrew glanced at his own shaking hands. He kept expecting to hear Eddie’s voice in the cacophony outside, sliding between the gaps of the music when the track changed. Riley’s palm slapped onto the back of his neck and squeezed. Andrew blinked down at him as Riley searched his face with drawn-together brows.

“Quit that pussy shit,” Halse said from the doorway.

Andrew jerked free and Riley huffed, “Shut up, Sam.”

Halse shoved aside a stack of cups and said, “Go grab me a book, oh cousin of mine.”

“I don’t think—”

“He doesn’t have to, but I’m going to,” Halse said.

Andrew sat at the kitchen table while Riley disappeared into the bowels of the house. Halse leaned against the counter. His black jeans rode low on his hips, baring inches of an electric green pair of boxer briefs. The muscle tank he wore had a grease stain on the side in the shape of a palm, smeared and faded. He expected Halse to speak, but the silence settled. The weight of the ticking clock dragged them both toward sunset.