Page 22 of Walk With Me
Hereyes soften and I feel her body relax ever so slightly. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. Honestly. Um, I’d just prefer not to sleep around a bunch of other people.”
“No worries. I always have a room to myself. You can share with me. Or you and Pia. Or Bella. Whatever you need.”
Ugh, I just rambled like an idiot.
Pia is beaming. “I’ll see you in there,” she calls, skipping over to Todd. Becca lifts her chin. It’s a question. I wave her off. Bella takes her arm and they head inside.
“I’m really sorry,” I say because I feel awful. It didn’t even occur to me that she wouldn’t know about the sleepover.
Eden rolls her shoulders. “It’s not your fault. That’s on Pia, and wewillbe discussing it later.”
I grip her arm again. “Maybe it can wait until tomorrow. I really want you to have a good time tonight.”
She shifts from foot to foot. “I’ll try, I promise, but this really isn’t my scene.”
I nod. “Got it. There are loads of places to go if you need some quiet or space. Just let me know.”
“Sloane, you’re not here to babysit me. Pia is right about one thing, you do deserve to let your hair down and have fun with your friends.”
“You’re my friend, aren’t you?”
The tension from earlier is back, and I badly want to kiss her, but I’m a chickenshit, and she looks two seconds away from running home.
“Yeah, we’re friends,” she says.
“Then trust me.”
7
Eden
Icould murder Pia. Likemurder, murder her. I only agreed to come to the party because she said we’d have a film night together. I naively thought she meant this evening once we got back to my place.
Crafty fucker.
The music is obnoxiously loud, and I already know the place is rammed with drunk teenagers. Ugh, I could be tucked up in bed watching Netflix, or in my garage painting. Anything is better than this nightmare.
One thing that’s making the situation slightly better is Sloane’s hand in mine. She’s tugging me forward towardsthe entrance. I feel like resisting just so she holds on a bit tighter and longer.
Flashing lights greet us upon entering. Bryce lives in the fucking Wayne mansion. God knows how many bedrooms it has. No wonder his parents allow everyone to crash here. The place has wings. Like East Wing kind of shit.
Bodies jump and slam into each other on the makeshift dance floor. I hope to God Sloane doesn’t take me that way. She glances over her shoulder and smiles, pulling me in the opposite direction. I catch a glance of Keira, the evil soccer captain. She’s eyeing Sloane like she’s a piece of meat. Her gaze then shifts to me and narrows.
Great.
Sloane doesn’t give me any more time to worry though, because she’s hauling me through a group of people draining beer cans through the bottom. Why? They have perfectly good ring pull openings.
Bryce’s kitchen is the size of my entire house. The island is stocked with enough alcohol to qualify as a liquor store. Pia, Todd, Bella, and Becca are surrounding a keg. Todd does the honours and pours—what I guess will be expensive—beer into red cups. It doesn’t seem Bryce does anything on the cheap.
Becca turns and hands one to Sloane. I reluctantly accept a cup from Pia, who is smiling at me, even though she knows how pissed off I am. Ugh, I can’t stay mad at her for long.
So far the party is exactly as I pictured it. How the hell am I going to cope all night?
“Let me show you around,” Sloane shouts. I let her pull me along again. I swear I can feel Keira’s eyes tracking me.
We see the living room, office, den, dining room, games room, and the gym. All very impressive, and all crawling with drunk people.
Back in the kitchen, Sloane grabs another drink while I hold firmly onto the one I’ve still got. I don’t like beer, but I’ll pretend to drink it if that’s what it takes to keep people off my back.
