Shuffle, Repeat(65)

Shaun shrugs. “You had her last.”

I shake him—“Oliver’s here!”—and see the Oh, shit blossom across Shaun’s face. He knows what I know: if something starts between Oliver and Theo, it’s not going to end well for Oliver. Sure, he’s strong and muscly, but he doesn’t know how to fight. We all saw Itch’s face after Oliver hit him and—let’s be honest—there wasn’t much damage done.

“They might be upstairs,” Shaun tells me. “I’ll check.”

“I’ll look outside. Meet me back here.” I race down the hallway, careening between pockets of acquaintances who are kissing or smoking or doing something that I think is supposed to be dancing. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on what path Oliver took), none of them are Ainsley and Theo. I round the corner into the kitchen and see that the body shot thing is still happening and that Oliver is here, waiting his turn to take one. As I arrive, Mark Silver leans over to take a shot glass out of Jeana Katz’s cleavage with his teeth. He kicks it back and goes for the lime in her mouth. Major tongue action ensues, leading me to believe that we’ve passed the sobriety point of the evening.

I rush up to Oliver and grab him by the arm. I ask, “What are you doing?” which is the first thing that comes to my mind.

“Getting a drink.”

“Here?”

He gives me a funny look, which I actually take as a good thing, because at least it’s cutting through all the anger and tension he’s currently sending out. “Yeah, this is the kitchen.”

I spot a full bottle of tequila on the counter and I snag it. “Gotcha covered,” I tell him in an extra-cheery voice, holding the bottle in front of his eyes. I grab him by the wrist. “Come on, let’s go.”

I tug him into the hallway and Oliver goes along with it for a dozen steps before pulling me to a stop. “Wait, what are we doing?”

“You said you wanted a drink. I am in possession of a drink. Thus, we’re going to go have a drink.” I wave the tequila. “This drink, to be specific.”

Oliver frowns. “I told you I came here to be social.” But then he looks down at my fingers, clasped around his arm, and his expression softens. “What’s going on, June? Are you okay?”

“No.” It’s not entirely a lie. “Look, can we go hang out somewhere private?” My whisking Oliver away will give Shaun enough time to warn Ainsley and Theo to knock off the PDA. I don’t know what I’ll say to him once we’re alone, but I’m sure I can come up with something about school or our playlist or anything besides “Your ex is hooking up with your besticle.”

There’s a pause, during which Oliver scans my face and I suddenly realize we’re standing very close together in a place of heat and humidity and hormones. What had been urgency morphs into…awareness. All I can see are Oliver’s eyes and all I can hear is my heartbeat in my ears. Oliver’s pupils dilate and something swells in my chest. I open my mouth to talk but words don’t come out, because he’s taking my hand—the one on his wrist—in his own. “June,” he says, but I’ll never know what the rest of that sentence would have been, because Theo’s voice drowns it out.

“Got your sloppy seconds right out in public?” And there’s Theo, hulking from a door that I think leads to the basement.

“Shut up,” I tell Theo, because for God’s sake, that’s not even what “sloppy seconds” means, but then two manicured hands are sliding around his waist from behind, and Ainsley’s face emerges from the darkness below. When she sees us, she gasps and jerks away from Theo, but it’s too late. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. What’s been going on.

“Oliver!” she says, coming all the way up into the hallway and closing the door behind her. “Theo and I had to get some beer from the—”

“You weren’t getting beer,” says Oliver.

“Are you calling her a liar?” asks Theo.

Oliver turns to face him, and since I’m so close, I can see his jaw tightening. I grab his arm but he shakes me off. “You said it,” he informs Theo. “And by the way, what are you doing with my ex-girlfriend?”

“Same thing you’re doing with her, I guess.” Theo makes a suggestive gesture in my direction and Oliver grabs him by the shirt and slams him into the wall. It’s fast, it’s violent, and it makes someone scream. A second later, I realize it was me.

In the living room, the music stops and, from the kitchen, we hear Kaylie’s voice. “No fighting! No fighting in the house!”

“Stop!” No one listens to Ainsley’s command.

Oliver and Theo are glaring full fury at each other, their faces an inch apart. People pour into the hallway, and since apparently everyone is drunk, no one does a damn thing to stop them, so I grab Oliver’s arm while Ainsley grabs Theo’s.

“Oliver, don’t!” My tone is pleading. “Please stop.”

There’s a beat, during which they keep staring at each other, and then Oliver’s muscles relax under my fingers. He takes a step backward and slowly lowers his fist. Theo does the same.

“Thank you,” I whisper as Ainsley tugs Theo toward the kitchen. She and I make eye contact, and a flash of something—understanding, clarity, grace—goes between us, and then they’re gone and I’m pulling Oliver out of the party and into the night air on the porch. “Come on.” I lead him down the steps as music blares back to life behind us.