Page 27 of Bad Blood

Celine grinned, the expression less practiced than any I’d seen cross her face. “I like her,” she told Michael decisively. “She says what she’s thinking. Our social circle could use more of that, don’t you think?”

Yoursocial circle, I corrected silently.It’s not Michael’s. Not anymore.

“In the interest of saying what we’re thinking,” Lia interjected, “if you’re really here to celebrate Michael’s birthday, perhaps we should get this party under way?”

Michael had the good sense to look alarmed.

“I’m thinking a game might be in order,” Lia continued.

“A game?” Celine arched an eyebrow. “What kind of game?”

Lia looked at Michael, then smiled wickedly. “How about Never Have I Ever?”

I wasn’t sure how Michael had intended to spend his birthday, but I suspected it wasn’t sitting beside the pool in our backyard with Lia on one side and Celine on the other.

“The rules are simple,” Lia said, dipping her toes into the pool. Even heated, it had to be chilly. “Everyone starts with ten fingers up. Each time someone names something you’ve done before, a finger comes down.” She let that sink in, then started the game off with a bang. “Never have I ever been kidnapped, threatened, or shot by an UNSUB.”

I saw the subtext there: whatever world Celine and Michael had shared, this was Lia’s way of telling the other girl that she didn’t know a thing about him now.

I lowered a finger. Dean and Michael followed suit.

Celine remained remarkably unruffled. “Never have I ever used the wordUNSUBlike that’s a perfectly normal thing for a teenager to say.”

Dean, Michael, Lia, and I all lowered fingers. Lia cleared her throat to get Sloane’s attention.

“I don’t say anything like it’s perfectly normal,” Sloane clarified. “Ninety-eight percent of the time I’m not normal at all.” She paused. “Never have I ever not known the first hundred digits of pi.”

Michael groaned. Every player but Sloane lowered a finger. I was down to seven, and we’d only been through three rounds.

“Your turn,” Celine told me. “Make it a good one.”

I glanced over at Lia. “Never have I ever lived in a bathroom at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Lia smirked, then slowly lowered the middle finger on her left hand.

“Seriously?” Celine asked.

Lia met the other girl’s gaze, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Seriously.”

Dean must have sensed that the look in Lia’s eyes didn’t bode well—for Celine, for Michael, for Lia—because he chose that moment to enter the game. “Never have I ever,” he said slowly, “made out with Michael Townsend.”

“Someday, big guy,” Michael told him with a wink. “If you’re very, very good.”

I stared at Dean, then lowered a finger.Why would you say something like that?I wondered, but as Lia lowered a finger, I realized exactly why Dean had chosen that statement.

Celine didn’t move.

“Never have I ever,” Michael said after a moment, “rashly assumed that my significant other was in love with a girl that I’d never met.”

Lia lowered a finger and rearranged the fingers on her left hand so that only the middle finger was sticking up. “Never have I ever used the phrasesignificant other,” she retorted.

“Technically,” Sloane pointed out, “you just did.”

Celine snorted. “Never have I ever had a thing for blondes,” she said. And then, her eyes on Sloane, she shot our statistician a dazzling smile and lowered her own finger—meaning that shedidhave a thing for blondes.

You’ve never made out with Michael, I realized,because Michael isn’t your type.

“Never have I ever not wanted a miniature donkey,” Sloane offered, completely oblivious to the fact that Celine was flirting with her.