Page 17 of Not a Friend (Crescent Light #1)

Now

Distracting is an understatement. She is more than distracting. I’m trying to keep it together, I really am. But I can’t think straight when I look at her.

A fter the close call with Nate, I decided to keep my distance from the grad school gang. The less I was forced to be near him, the better, especially with Kieran around. There was absolutely no desire to dredge up the past; therefore, there was no point in giving it another second of attention.

For my emotional safety and sanity, I stuck near Kieran for the remainder of the party.

Saying that he had fun despite not knowing anybody at the beginning of the night would’ve been a massive understatement.

He had lots of fun. More than fun. He had a full-blown blast. Some would say he and Michael had too much fun.

As the drinks flowed, the two of them took full advantage of the open bar.

He went drink-for-drink with Michael, only Michael was drinking beer, and while Kieran wasn’t a small man by any means, Michael was much larger.

Kieran didn’t drink beer, and he’d barely eaten anything all day, saying he wanted to “save his calories” for drinks instead.

He went through gin and tonic faster than I could keep up.

“Good news, Olive. Bartenders let me grab one more drink before they closed.” Kieran flashed a bright, lopsided smile my way.

“Look at you.” I shook my head, wishing he wouldn’t have indulged so much.

The party thinned out quickly once drinks stopped flowing. I didn’t complain. My feet ached, and sleep tugged at the edges of my mind.

“Bedtime?” Kieran murmured into my hair once Michael bid us goodnight. A hand snaked down my back to rest on the top of my ass. The murky, watered-down shade of green in his eyes had me thankful the party was over. He was going to have one hell of a hangover.

“Please.”

“Olive! Get your ass over here!”

Kieran and I gave each other matching confused expressions—his reaction time a little slower than mine.

“Who was that?” He scanned the nearly empty courtyard.

A quick search revealed Martinez standing at the exit I’d taken earlier in the night to escape. He waved us over, not bothering to look back as we followed him down the brick path toward the designated smoking area.

“He does realize you’re my girlfriend, right?” Kieran asked, and for a split second, my heart bottomed out. Was it that obvious I was fidgety around Nate? But then, I realized he was talking about Martinez.

I snorted. “He’s gay.”

Kieran paused his steps, looking like he was doing mental math. “He doesn’t look gay.”

“What does being gay look like? ”

Martinez was a big guy, strong and muscular with tattoos covering every inch of his arms and chest, including the backs of his hands. Masculine in every sense, sure, but that didn’t make him straight.

Kieran shrugged, laughing off the question. “Like him, apparently.”

If I’d gone further down the path before, past the smoking area, I would’ve turned the corner to find picnic tables and what looked like a beer garden tucked away, half-hidden under a group of thick trees.

“Game night,” Martinez said simply when we caught up to him.

The space looked like something out of a storybook. The low-hanging tree branches provided enough cover to block most of the stars, and the string lighting overhead cast a warm glow across large picnic tables, and the people sat at them.

In the middle, at the largest picnic table, Jared, Gemma, Miles, and Nate all lounged, surrounded by Grant and Leo on bar stools they’d pulled up.

“Good, you found her!” Gemma beamed in greeting.

“Cards,” Jared said, grabbing a grubby deck of cards from the middle of the table and giving them a rough shuffle. “You in?”

Martinez plopped down on Miles’s left, meaning the only spot left at the picnic table was—as luck would have it—directly across from Nate.

“Oh, uh…” I crossed my arms. I did want to play, to spend time with my friends—with Gemma—but the precarious heaviness of the situation weighed down on me. Something about all four members of Crescent Light being present made it worse, too. Walking away would be easier.

I was just about to say, I don’t think so, when Kieran nudged me. “Go ahead. You play.”

“Do you want to play instead?” I asked him. “I can teach you.”

Kieran grabbed an unoccupied Adirondack chair and settled in. “Nah, I’m not really a fan of card games. ”

Gemma shot me a look, asking, What kind of person doesn’t like card games?

Kieran pulled his phone out of his back pocket and lounged back. “I’ll just watch.” But his eyes were already glued to Thursday Night Football streaming on his phone.

Unconvinced, I glimpsed Nate. Nonchalant as always, he ducked his head to pluck a cigarette from its box and place the end between his lips.

You’re letting someone who is completely unbothered dictate what you do and don’t do.

You have nothing to run from. You have nothing to hide.

You belong here. You deserve to play just as much as he does.

Kieran doesn’t have to know anything. Nobody here will say anything. You are in control. Fucking relax.

“Alright.” The wood bench snagged on my dress as I slid into the spot beside Miles, across from Nate.

“Six-handed it is,” Jared said as he dealt the thick double deck of cards out to the six of us sitting at the table.

Nate reached a long arm across the table, offering his open pack of cigarettes to his bassist. Miles grabbed one without hesitation, catching Nate’s lighter as he threw it over. Martinez snagged the pack from Miles and pulled his own cigarette out.

“I’ll share one with you,” Gemma whispered to Grant as she took one.

Everyone’s just tipsy enough to smoke, I guess.

“Oli?” Nate offered the pack to me a second later.

My stomach fluttered.

If I was going to be around him, I needed to be able to hear him say my name without it feeling so jarring. Without it feeling like a promise. A curse. Something so much more than it was. My eyes flashed to his—golden hazel meeting deep ocean blue—before I shook my head. “No, thanks. ”

A loud scoff had me turning my head.

“She doesn’t smoke,” Kieran said, eyeing the pack with a disgusted look.

Gemma snorted, picking up her cards. “Not unless she’s good and tipsy.”

Nate laughed through his nose, toying with the butt of his cigarette with the tip of his tongue as he sorted his cards.

Kieran’s judging look landed on me. “Seriously?”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. I haven’t in a long time.”

It wasn’t until I clocked the uptick of Nate’s eyebrow that I remembered our shared cigarette earlier in the evening.

That doesn’t count. It was a moment of anxious desperation.

“The bride bids first.” Jared elbowed Gemma’s shoulder.

She’d be his sister-in-law in two days. Crazy.

I caught Grant’s soft smile from his spot behind Gemma, as though he had the same thought I did.

He leaned forward, looping his arms around Gemma’s slender waist as she called the first bid of the night.

She sat straighter. “Three spades.”

The game was a modified version of the one we used to play, adjusted for six players instead of four.

For starters, teams of three. Miles, Jared, and Nate versus Martinez, Gemma, and me.

A double deck created twice the power and twice as many opportunities to screw over the other team.

Finally, bidding on what you think your team could score determined what the strongest suit of the round was and who went first.

Our team quickly took the lead after Martinez won the first bid.

“I’m going to the bar inside for a beer,” Grant announced, rising from his seat after the next hand. “Anyone need one?” Jared and Martinez raised their hands, and Grant took inventory .

“I’m good,” said Leo, returning his bar stool to its home and bidding us a quick goodnight.

“Need a refill?” Grant said a little louder, directing the question at Kieran, who was preoccupied with his phone.

I nudged his knee.

“Huh? No, I’m good.” He could have left it at that, but then he added, “I’m done with empty calories for the night,” to the end. I felt Gemma’s eyes as she shot me another look.

In the next round, Jared had the highest bid, but Gemma swept in and upped the bid at the last second. We won that round, too.

Nate dealt the next round, and his team won. Then, it was my turn to shuffle and deal.

Great.

Trying—and failing—to make quick work of it, I shuffled the deck the only way I knew how.

None of that fancy bridge stuff, only plopping cards from the front of the deck to the back over and over again.

Nobody cared that I was a little slower and sloppier than they were, but I could never shake the distant insecurity that I was being laughed at.

When a few cards slid out of my hand onto the tabletop, I scooped them up, thankful nobody was paying attention.

A hand silently reached across the table, palm up, halting my movements.

I rolled my lips together, debating, before placing the deck in Nate’s silent, waiting hand. Thank you , I mouthed.

He dipped his chin as if to say, Don’t mention it , as he split the deck in his hands and shuffled with ease.

“Can you not shuffle?” Kieran asked loudly, leaning forward in his chair .

Nobody else seemed to hear him, but Nate cast a brief, irritated look at Kieran before sliding the deck back across the table to me.

I shook my head as I doled out the cards one by one, ignoring the embarrassment climbing my neck. “I can. I’m just not very good at it.”

Round after round, our scores stayed neck and neck. Our competitive natures became more and more apparent as we settled back into the familiarity of being in a big group together, and the shit-talking only increased with each hand. My tongue was no exception to the loosening.

“Oh, fuck off!” I shouted to Jared when he threw a card, beating me in a hand I was winning.

“ Babe ,” Kieran murmured behind me, annoyed. I supposed he’d never seen me get competitive before.