Page 42 of 16 Forever

“I haven’t been to a high school rager in so long,” Marigold says. “They’re so cute!”

“Condescending much?” Shana asks.

“No, I really mean it! Look at them bouncing around overthere like adorable schoolchildren.”

“Maggie, right?” Chord says, giving my arm a gentle touch just below the shoulder that sends a small chill ricocheting down my vertebrae.

“Yes,” I say. “Me Maggie.”

“Would you mind showing me where the beverages are at?”

This is too much. Yes, Chord is a good-looking man-boy with a thin layer of stubble that I would be intrigued to run my hand over, but Carter is fifteen feet away and drunk in the other room, and none of this feels right. “Actually, I’m about to head—”

Shana’s eyes go wide as she mouths a silentWHAT?

I see her point.

I don’t know if I’ve everstoodnext to a guy as put-together as Chord, let alonekissedone.

“To the place where the beverages are!” I say, finishing the sentence with way too much gusto. “As I, too, am in need of another.” I take a few giant gulps from my beer. It is a mild torture that ends with me coughing for fifteen seconds after some of the beer goes down the wrong pipe.

“You all right?” Chord asks with genuine concern.

“I am,” I say once I can speak again. “I am all right, Chord Ramirez.”

I lead him through the kitchen to the back door. As we step outside onto the patio where the kegs are, there’s a loud thud from the family room behind us. This is followed by a chorus ofOh!

“Well, that didn’t sound good,” Chord says.

“No, sir,” I say, handing him a red Solo cup and trying to pretend we’re on a small island far away from everything and everyone happening inside Shana’s house. “It most certainly did not.”

Carter

“Come on,” Bodhi says, pushing me toward the kitchen.

“What? Why?”

“Because. We need to hit up the keg again!”

“I actually don’t.” My red plastic cup is still halfway full.

“Okay, fine. ButIneed to hit up the keg again! And I want some company!”

After killing time before the party by walking around a series of nearby streets and cul-de-sacs in the dead of winter like a couple of creepers, we finally entered the house around seven thirty. The beats were going, and there were already at least twenty people there, but none of them was Maggie Spear. Not like I was lookingthathard for her, but after seeing that girl Shana flip out on Bodhi, it was hard not to feel likeSomething is going on here, so, uh, what the hell is it?

We got our first beers from the keg, me and Bodhi both pouring mostly foam until a girl with headphones around her neck showed us the right way to do it. Amir and Robbie arrived not long after we did, seeming every bit as psyched to be there as Bodhi was, eyes wide like little kids in Magic Kingdom, hoping to catch a glimpse of Elsa.

“That’s Eric Rogers,” Amir quietly pointed out with awe as we stood in a hallway, people-watching, awkwardly bouncing to the music, and sipping our beers. “He’s the student council VP.”

“Check it,” Robbie said, flicking his bangs toward the other room. “Janessa Suher. She’s the point guard on the basketball team.”

It’s been twenty or so minutes of that until now, when Bodhi is suddenly desperate to get back to the keg even though I can see his cup, like mine, still has liquid in it.

“YO!”

We’re stopped on our way through the kitchen to the patio by this muscular, vaguely Captain America–looking dude. Except he has a wider face.

“You wanna know what’s in this?” he asks with a smile, shaking a flask in the air.