“If you die?” Oliver said, trying to right both himself and me. “Who makes driveways like this in real life? Why is it so long?”
“Because if you can afford this driveway, you can afford the car that’s good enough to drive on it,” I said. “It’s a show-off thing.”
“Well, where’s Drew’s car?” he asked, looking around.
“In the garage,” Caro said, gesturing a little without actually letting go of Oliver.
“Stop talking, we’re almost there,” I said.
Drew gets a little twitchy when people talk about his parents’ money. “It’s not even mine,” he says whenever someone brings it up, then he changes the subject.
Sometimes, the things people don’t say are louder than the words that come out of their mouths.
“You should’ve seen the moat they tried to put in,” I whispered to Oliver in a not-very-whispery voice as we climbed up the (massive, seriously) front steps. “Zoning laws and all that, but trust me, it could have been epic.”
“Well, an alligator is one thing,” Oliver said without missing a beat. “But when you need five or six, that’s a different story.” He grinned down at me as Caro slid off his back.
Caro noticed, though. “He’s picking up what you’re throwing down,” she whispered to me as Oliver started to knock on the door. “Wait, no, what are you doing?” She interrupted him, reaching up to stop his hand before he knocked again. “This is a party, you just go in.”
“Lead the way,” Oliver said, but Caro took an extra second to give me a Meaningful Look before plowing through the front door.
It looked like things were already in full swing. I could hear Drew’s brother, Kane, laughing from somewhere deep inside the house—or maybe it was just in the next room. Drew’s house was so large and the ceilings were so high that it made the acoustics weird, like that whispering spot at the US Capitol. (We took a field trip in eighth grade. And yes, my mom was a parental chaperone. No surprise there.)
“Hey!” I heard Drew yell, and he appeared at the top of the stairs, already on his way to very drunk and with a bottle of something in his hand. It was actually a double staircase, one on either side of the foyer that met at the landing at the top. We recorded ourselves acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet on that balcony for an English assignment back in freshman year, when Caro swooned so much that she nearly fell over the railing. “A-plus for effort,” our teacher had said when he saw the footage, but we ended up with a B-minus, anyway.
“Remember?” I grinned, turning to Oliver. It was instinctive and accidental, like my brain could place him there even though he hadn’t been there at all.
“Remember what?” he replied. His eyes were sort of wide and I realized that Drew’s house was probably a smidge overwhelming, what with the staircases and the noise and the total strangers.
“Nothing,” I said. “We should get something to drink.”
“A-fucking-men,” Caro echoed, and we went past some of Kane’s friends and into the kitchen, where a keg was sitting on the kitchen floor, with dozens of beer bottles and red cups scattered on the granite-topped island.
“I see Kane brought the refreshments,” I said, taking stock of everything. There was a bowl of Cheez Doodles on the counter next to a spilled cup and I grabbed it and held it to me. “Grab snacks when you see them,” I said to Oliver when he raised an eyebrow at me. “Otherwise they become victims of beer-pong games gone wrong.”
“Ah,” he said, then took a bag of chips that still hadn’t been opened.
“Good, you learn fast,” I said.
“Too bad I’m a Cheez Doodle kind of guy.”
“Yeah, that is too bad,” I teased. “Because these are mine and they’re going to be delicious and—”
“Hiiiiiiiiiii!” Drew said, suddenly draping himself over both Oliver and me. “You made it!”
“It wasn’t exactly a treacherous drive,” I pointed out, then gave him an awkward one-arm hug while protecting my Cheez Doodles.
“Did you have to go into Caro and Heather’s bedroom?” Drew asked, and I nodded. “Then trust me, it was treacherous. But you survived. You’re here now! You’re alive!”
“It feels like everyone’s here,” Oliver commented as two people jostled past him.
“How drunk are you?” I asked Drew. “Here, have a Cheez Doodle.”
“He gets one?” Oliver cried.
“I get two,” Drew announced, then popped them into his mouth. “Sorry, dude, I live here. I get preferential treatment. And to answer your question, Ems, I am somewhere between that one bonfire last summer and that time that you and Caro and I went to Steve’s party before finals week.”
“So, kind of drunk but on your way to very, very drunk?”
He bopped my nose. “Exactly.” He let go of both of us to greet someone else. Oliver, sensing his opening, immediately dove for the Cheez Doodles.
“Hey!” I yelped. “You have tortilla chips!”
“They’re boring! And unsalted!” Oliver shook the bag in my face. “Besides, fake orange cheese is meant to be shared with friends.” He dug his hand into the bowl and ate a huge handful, then smiled at me with a huge, cheesy (no pun intended) grin.
“That is so gross,” I said, trying not to laugh and trying not to show how I didn’t think it was that gross at all, not really.