Page 40 of Before We’re More Than Friends (When We Faced the Music #1)
I didn’t understand why neither one of them had wanted to be a lead singer.
Their voices were pretty good, fitting together in harmony.
Sienna and her cousins swayed from side to side as Oliver’s sisters sang along, closing their eyes.
Lana waved her phone in the air with her flashlight on. My heart warmed at the sight.
“This is so cute,” Kami said as we sat with Oliver. “It’s like something out of a movie.”
Oliver nodded with a beam. “We love doing bonfires, especially in the winter.”
“They’re perfect,” Sienna said, still swaying her head as Hayden and Caleb sang. “We don’t do them enough.”
“We used to do them more often.” Oliver’s smile slipped, and he cleared his throat. “Raina and Arielle are still coming, right?”
“Raina just texted me a minute ago,” Sienna said. “They’re almost here.”
“Okay.” Oliver smiled at Hayden and Caleb as they finished their song. He clapped for them, and everyone else followed. “That was a great one, guys.”
“I wrote it a while back,” Hayden said, the golden glow of the fire highlighting the flush in his cheeks. “Caleb helped me fix it up.”
“Because the rest of you are no help whatsoever when it comes to songwriting,” Caleb said, wrapping his arm around Hayden. “I always knew I was the best.”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “I’d help if I knew how to write good lyrics. But the juices never flow.”
“Because you’re full of coffee.”
“And you’re full of crap.”
“And I want to be full of s’mores,” Hayden said, putting his guitar down. “Why do we have to wait until everyone is here to make them?”
“Because we’re supposed to be bonding,” Oliver said. “Like family.”
“What are we, siblings who don’t get along?”
Sienna snorted. “Since when did Caleb get along with anyone?”
“I get along with a lot of people,” Caleb said, puffing his chest out. “I have the most siblings out of all of us, and they all like me. My parents like me, you guys like me?—”
“That’s a bold statement.”
“You just love me.” Caleb winked at her. “Everyone loves me.”
“Not everyone,” Adam, Sienna’s cousin, said.
His twin sister—Eve?—nudged his shoulder. “Don’t mention it.”
Caleb’s face twitched, but he rolled his eyes. “Her opinion doesn’t count. I mean, she prefers passion fruit over strawberry. Can we really trust her?”
Sienna snorted. “You’re not wrong for once.”
I assumed the she they were referring to was his ex-girlfriend. I remembered Raina saying something about Gracelynn breaking up with one of the guys and hating him. It had to be Caleb, right?
“I think the girls just pulled up,” Oliver said, getting up from his seat. A minute later, he came back, Arielle and Raina trailing behind him. Neither twin looked happy.
Raina’s eyes met mine, and my stomach rolled over. She gave me a small smile, and I gave her one back.
“Okay, now that everyone is here,” Oliver said, “we can finally get?—”
“S’mores!” Hayden sprinted to the table where the s’mores ingredients were and grabbed a few marshmallows and a stick.
“Sheesh.” Oliver shook his head. “You act like you haven’t had s’mores in forever.”
“We haven’t had a bonfire all month,” Hayden said, already sitting back down at the firepit with his marshmallows on a stick. “The last time was in the middle of January.”
“Wow, less than a month and a half, you must’ve been suffering for so long,” Caleb said. “I’m proud of you for keeping yourself together through these difficult times.”
Hayden rolled his eyes.
The rest of us roasted our marshmallows, and I sat closer to the fire to warm mine up. Raina sat beside me, her presence causing my heart to tumble in my chest. “You’re here,” she said softly, her voice like music in my ear.
Stop thinking that way .
I tried for a smile. “I heard Hayden really likes the s’mores.”
“Really? Where did you get that from?”
“I can hear you!” Hayden, who was already putting together his first s’more, yelled.
“I don’t say things out loud if I don’t want people to hear them!” Raina shouted back. She faced me again. “He takes everything so personally.”
“Hey, musicians are like that,” I said, wishing I could come up with better banter. I wanted to have some fun before everything fell apart .
A moment later, Arielle pointed to my stick. “Dallas, your marshmallows are burning!”
“What?” I looked to see my marshmallows on fire, burned to a crisp, and I beamed. “Perfect.”
“Perfect?” She stuck her tongue out. “You’ll be eating coal!”
Raina rolled her eyes. “You know burned marshmallows taste the best.” Her marshmallows caught on fire, and she grinned. “Dallas knows what he’s doing. For once.”
My skin warmed, and not from the fire. “Sometimes I’m able to do things right.”
Arielle and Hayden, who already chowed down his first s’more, exchanged an eye roll, and I laughed before putting my sticky marshmallows on a cracker.
The downside of burning your marshmallows was that it was a royal pain to get them onto the crackers, and your hands were left as a sticky mess afterward.
Taking the first bite sent me into a high. I inhaled the s’more in about four seconds. “Oh my gosh,” I said as I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “I think I’ve converted to S’moreism.”
Raina smiled. “Guess I can’t blame Hayden for liking s’mores so much. One time he ate so many that he threw up in the bushes.”
“That’s not true!” Hayden shouted from the table, where he was preparing marshmallows for his next s’more.
“Yeah, it’s not,” Caleb said. “It was more than one time.”
“Uh, can we not talk about this?” Sienna asked as she got up from roasting her marshmallows.
“End of this conversation.” Oliver finished roasting his marshmallows. “No one’s getting sick this time.”
“Bet,” Caleb challenged, eating the marshmallows off his stick. Um, was that sanitary? Then again, all of our marshmallows had come from the sticks .
“You lost last time.”
“Losses don’t discourage me!” Caleb pumped his prosthetic fist in the air. “I’m made of steel!”
“That isn’t steel,” Hayden said, already sitting with his second s’more. The dude made them the way people made candy in a factory. “You told me it’s made of thermoplastics and other stuff.”
“Well, it’s strong enough to beat you up.” Caleb flexed his prosthetic arm. “Stronger than my old one.”
“Is it okay to ask what happened?” Kami asked.
“Well, you already asked,” Caleb said, but his voice was light. “You see, Hayden got bored once?—”
Hayden groaned. “You’ve used that one way too many times.”
“I like the dragon story,” Mollie said as she burned her marshmallows to a crisp. “The one where you saved the beautiful princess.”
“I thought he saved a girl from Oliver’s dungeon,” Bella quipped, blowing out the fire on her own marshmallows.
“Gosh, that one is the worst,” Oliver said, shaking his head as he sat with his stick. “How did I even manage to chop your arm off in the first place?”
Kami and I exchanged an uncertain look. I’d thought about asking Caleb about his arm before, but I didn’t want to be rude. Plus, it hadn’t occurred to me often because Caleb acted no different than the rest of us. If anything, he was the most confident in the group.
Caleb laughed. “Okay, okay, real story.” He cleared his throat. “I got an infection from a failed stunt during freshman year. It’d gotten to the point where the only option was to amputate my arm.”
Kami gasped. “That’s terrifying.”
“It was the worst day of my life.” Caleb held up his prosthetic arm. “But it’s all good now. I adjusted well to physical therapy and was back to playing the keyboard after a few months.”
“That’s great,” I said, hoping I wasn’t saying the wrong thing. “I’m sorry about the accident, though.”
Kami smiled. “Yeah, I’m glad everything worked out.”
“I wouldn’t say everything,” Caleb said, his smile dipping. “But I got through it. I’m happy where I’m at now and have the best friends.”
“Aw,” Sienna said. “You do love us.”
Caleb shrugged. “Sometimes.”
Around twenty minutes later, after eating a few more s’mores, I leaned back in my chair and faced Raina. “I think I made a mistake.” I clutched my aching stomach.
Raina giggled. “You’ll learn next time. Hayden learned the hard way.”
Hayden groaned, also leaning back in his chair and holding his stomach. “I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about that.”
“We’re not,” Oliver said.
“Can we hear another dragon story?” Mollie asked. “Or an Oliver story.”
Oliver sighed. “And why do I always have to host these things?”
“Where else would we have them?” Hayden asked.
“Caleb’s backyard is literally the size of my house.”
“It’s actually bigger,” Caleb said. “But at least my mom won’t check on us every five seconds here.”
While everyone else talked, the pain in my stomach subsided, but I didn’t want to sit here anymore. I got up from my chair and stretched.
“Where are you going?” Raina asked.
“Need to take a walk,” I said.
“Me too.” She got up from her chair. “Walk together? ”
The back of my neck prickled. I looked to see Hayden raise an eyebrow at me. He mouthed something, but I couldn’t decode it.
Arielle also glanced at us and exchanged a look with Hayden. Gosh, was I still on her radar?
I looked at Kami, who looked back at me with a steady expression.
“Um, why is everyone staring at Dallas?” Caleb asked, blinking in confusion. “Am I missing something?”
How many freaking people know what’s going on? “There’s probably something on my face,” I said, wiping away melted chocolate I knew wasn’t there.
“I think you got it,” Raina said.
Arielle still looked at her, but Raina only frowned before turning away and opening the back gate. Oliver lived in front of a lake, so there was an extra area of land with a small pathway.
We started with a short talk about how our week had been. She mentioned she and Arielle were going through a rough patch, and I told her about my improvements with Kami.