“Why the hell not?”
He made a sour face. “Uh, fuckingboundaries, for one thing. She’s told me how she feels explicitly. Friends. I have to honor that.”
I snorted and finished off my beer.
“What can I do?” Miller asked miserably. “I told you, we swore a blood oath.”
“When you werekids. Does she suspect you like her?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.” Miller kicked at the sand at his feet. “There’s a party tonight. She’ll be there.”
“So go to the party and tell her.”
“I just said—”
“You gotta fight, man,” I said. Practically shouted. “You fight, because if you don’t, it’ll be too late. And too late is fuckingdeath.”
Miller stared, shocked. I looked away and forced my hands to unclench, waiting for him to tell me to take my crazy shit and get the fuck out.
But he didn’t.
“She needs me to be her friend,” he said after a minute. “She needs…me.”
“So you’re her pack mule. You carry all her shit and try to make life easier on her because you care about her. But what about you?”
Miller started to answer but then grew quiet. Thinking. Finally, he put his guitar back in its case and stood up.
“You want to come?” he asked. “I mean, it’s probably going to be a bunch of drunk jocks playing beer pong to shitty house music.”
“I’m coming,” I said, kicking sand over the fire. “I told you. I got your back.”
“Why?”
I stared. After everything he knew about me, he wanted to know whyIbothered to hang out withhim.
“You don’t annoy the living shit out of me,” I said gruffly. “Good enough?”
He grinned. “Good enough.”
I turned to grab my jacket so he couldn’t see my face.
***
The party was just what Miller had said it would be. Chance Blaylock, the center for the football team, invited half the school to his place at the start of every year. His team was wasted and playing beer pong in the kitchen while a sound system blasted popular music all over the huge house. We pushed through a crowd of dancers, Miller searching for Violet among the faces in the dark.
I realized I was searching the crowds for a face too.
Leave her alone.
We made it to the patio outside where lights were strung up. The crowd was thinner; people were talking and drinking in smaller groups by the pool.
“I don’t see her,” Miller said, taking a seat on a lounger. “This was a stupid idea.”
I caught a flash of a red dress in the kitchen and nodded my head. “There.”