“I don’t do girlfriends.”
He frowned, and I knew what he was thinking—I was being awfully fucking chatty with the relationship advice. But just because I couldn’t have something real and good didn’t mean he shouldn’t.
Violet came out of the closet with a strange smile on her face. She shot a pained glance at Miller, and he immediately pretended to give a shit about the skinny blond beside him.
“Well?” Amber put her hand on his arm. “Do you know how to play that guitar, or is it just for decoration?”
I wanted to hear him too. I had a feeling whatever Miller had in him was better than the bullshit playing over the sound system.
Miller glanced around the living room. Violet wasn’t there anymore. The closet game had broken up, and everyone had followed their football king into the kitchen.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, a pained look on his face. “Yeah, I’ll play. Why the fuck not.”
Amber clapped her hands. “Yay!”
The small group around us went quiet as Miller sang Coldplay’s “Yellow.” Not my jam, but holy fuck, the guy could sing. He turned the song into something else, made it his own. Every damn lyric told the story of him and Violet.
A smashing of glass cut through the noise of the party. A guy with silver hair and fancy clothes stood on the dining room table, a broken bottle at his feet. I’d heard some people talking about him earlier by the pool—his name was Holden, and he was new to the school, like me.
“Everyone shut the fuck up!” Holden bellowed. His drunk, watery gaze was focused on Miller. The rest of the house followed his lead.
Miller didn’t miss a note as the entire house went quiet, listening. Violet came tearing in from the back and stopped short, recognition on her face.
Because this is their song.
Miller’s eyes met hers, and he sang straight to her.
“For you, I’d bleed myself dry.”
That could’ve been my motto. To bleed myself dry for those I cared about. It was too late to save my mother, and all that was left was the grief and anger. Anger that was the same as my father’s, coursing through my veins like it had in his. It flared and burned, and I wished it would flame out altogether, but it never did. The only thing I could do was use it to protect those who needed protecting. Like Miller. He poured his love out of his guitar, straight to his girl.
Violet, crying now, ran for the exit. Miller stopped the song with atwangand got up to follow her. Someone stopped him at the door.
“Well, lookit who crashed this party. Where you running off to, Stratton?”
Frankie Dowd.
My anger flared like fire when gasoline hits it. I shook out of my jacket and cracked my neck left and right.
Let’s go.
“Back off, asshole,” Miller snarled at Frankie.
“Or what? You going to have your convict bodyguard coldcock me again?”
I snorted. The dumbass hadn’t seen me. I moved in front of Miller and crossed my arms, cold and stony, while inside, the fire raged.
Frankie wore a bandage over his nose, and his eyes were rimmed with bruises. They widened in fear. “You’re fucking dead, dude. You have no idea who I am.”
“I know who you are,” I said. “I know exactly who you are.”
The cowardly, punk-ass bitch who tried to keep my friend from his medicine.
A handful of seconds passed, the air tightening with every breath, until a bellow sounded from the adjacent dining room.
“Dude! What the fuck are you doing?”
All eyes went to Holden, who was tap-dancing on the mahogany dining table, grinding shattered glass into the wood and drunkenly crooning “Singin’ in the Rain” while Chance Blaylock stared wide-eyed at the damage.