Chapter 2

My excitement has given way to nerves. 

Grant’s here. He’s talking with some of his baseball buddies next to the bonfire, a red Solo cup in hand. He looks good, rocking dark jeans and a black hoodie with our school’s mascot, a bear, on the back in red. 

I check my phone but other than two messages from Mom checking in that Cynthia and I are okay at the movie theater I told her we were going to catch a film at, there’s nothing. I hope Levi shows. 

“Here.” Cynthia passes me a red cup. 

I look down at the clear liquid and sniff gently. I recoil. “This smells like nail polish remover.”

Cynthia laughs. “It’s vodka, babe.” She lifts her cup to mine. “Happy seventeenth.” Then she tosses the shot back. 

Applause rings out around us with a few guys calling out their support for Cynthia’s actions. 

She shakes her ass, her arms raised overhead. “Now, it’s the birthday girl’s turn.”

Eyes cut to me, and my nerves go haywire. Everyone is staring at me, waiting expectantly. 

“Shit, it’s Allegra’s birthday?” someone whispers.

“She’s not gonna do it.” 

“Her father would kill her.” 

At the murmured commentary that reaches my ears, my cheeks blaze.

“Come on, babe,” Cynthia says, her tone hard. 

Isn’t this what I wanted? For people to notice me? To be like Cynthia? To blend in?

Closing my eyes, I lift my glass higher and force myself to drink it all in one gulp. 

It burns sliding down my throat and I sputter, wiping the sleeve of Cynthia’s sherpa across my mouth. I cough and Cynthia taps me on the back. 

“She’s a newbie but she got the job done,” she announces. 

A few cheers and laughs ring out, but it doesn’t sound the same way it did for Cynthia. I frown, trying to understand the difference when another shot is placed in my hand. 

“For your birthday.” Grant grins, his blue eyes mesmerizing. 

Oh, wow. He’s standing next to me. Talking to me. 

He slings an arm around my shoulders and pulls me into his side. I breathe in his scent—cologne, the outdoors, and wisps of smoke from the bonfire. My heart races at my nearness to Grant—Grant!—and I try to steady my breathing. 

“You ready?” He smiles at me, boyish and charming and totally deserving of the Homecoming King award he won earlier this year. 

This time, I lift my cup with more bravado. “Ready.” 

Grant’s smile deepens and he taps his cup against mine. “Down the hatch, birthday girl.”

I follow his movements and take the second shot. This time, the burn isn’t as bad, and I chase it away with the Coke Cynthia thrusts in my hand. 

Grant squeezes me, his fingers finding the curve of my hip and holding there for a beat. I shiver from his contact, and he pulls me even closer, giving me that signature smile. 

“Grant! Can you help me?” Cynthia asks, standing next to the keg and shaking her empty cup. 

“Of course, babe,” he says, giving me an apologetic look. “Happy birthday, Allegra.”

“Yeah,” I mutter, my eyes narrowing as Grant saunters over to Cynthia. 

My friend gives me a shrug and turns toward Grant. Why would she call him over when he was finally—finally!—paying attention to me? 

And why does it bother me as much as it does? 

“There she is!” Levi’s voice cuts through my thoughts. 

Forgetting about Cynthia and Grant, I turn toward my brother. With the vodka thrumming through my system, I race toward Levi and vault myself into his arms. 

“Oof!” he cries out, catching me. He hugs me close for a long moment as we both silently acknowledge all the months that have passed without seeing each other. 

With my parents barely speaking to him, Levi stays away for longer stretches of time. Between school, swimming, and student council commitments, not to mention Church and Youth Group, I rarely, if ever, make it into Boston to visit him. The only time I’ve managed to pull it off was under the guise of looking at colleges.

Levi pulls back and his eyes widen. “You’re wearing makeup.”

“I’m seventeen, Levi.”

My brother places me down gently. “Hardly grown-up, A.” His voice is soft but the meaning behind his words hurts. 

I know I’m not an adult yet but I’m getting there. Can’t anyone see how badly I want to get there? My shoulders dip. 

Levi shakes his head. “But you look beautiful.” 

I look up slowly, a smile working over my mouth. “Really?”

Levi frowns. “Always, A.” Something from behind me grabs his attention and he groans. “Don’t let Cynthia get you too drunk.”

I laugh lightly. 

“Levi!” a few people call out to my brother. 

He grins and lifts his hand in greeting. “Let me go say hey.” He tips his head to the guy walking up beside him. “You remember Reign, yeah?”

Derek Reiner—aka Reign to the band and fans—stops in front of me as my brother takes off. 

“Hi, uh, Reign,” I say softly, tucking my hair behind my ear. 

Reiner’s expression is unreadable as he studies me. He takes his time doing it, his deep, soulful eyes rolling over my face, lingering on my mouth, drinking in my outfit. “Derek,” he says finally. 

“What?” 

He lifts his chin. “Call me Derek.”

“Um, okay. Derek.” I test it out, liking the way his name feels on my tongue. Liking the way he looks when I say it out loud. 

One side of his mouth pulls up in a lazy smirk, like he can’t be bothered to smile fully. “Happy birthday…” He grips the back of his neck. 

“Allegra,” I supply.

“Allegra,” he repeats, and I wish he remembered my name without my having to remind him.

Still, the sound of my name in his voice is like a hit of adrenaline. My heart races, my palms tingle. The surrounding party flashes in my peripheral vision like a blur of colors but the sounds are muted, as if I’m underwater. 

For a heartbeat, all I see is Derek Reiner. 

His messy, dark hair, haphazardly styled and sticking up as if he ran his hand through it. His deep, mesmerizing eyes that look right through me. It’s almost as if he can see me, understand all the secrets I kept hidden just under my skin, both desperate and scared to let them rise to the surface. His lazy half smirk, contradicting as it simultaneously encourages and mocks. 

He’s unlike any guy I’ve ever known, and I’m captured by him, pulled under by the conflict in his eyes, the wild and the unknown. 

My breaths mark the night air with tiny puffs of white smoke, coming more rapidly, as Derek approaches me. When he’s close enough to hug—or even kiss—me, he reaches out and runs his finger over the back of my hand. One touch, casual in its appearance, purposeful in its pressure, runs along my skin but moves like an electric current through my nervous system. 

“Seventeen?” he asks, voice gruff and raw, gritty like the lyrics he croons. 

“Yeah,” I whisper. 

“Enjoy it,” he murmurs. Then, he walks away, the brush of his denim jacket running along the side of my body, until the party envelops him.

I stand, my back to the party, trying to regulate my breathing. 

What was that? Why did I feel so much for a guy I hardly know? 

I shake my head. It must be the vodka. I turn around and rejoin the party. My head feels foggy, my limbs loose. 

“Here, babe.” Grant pushes another red cup into my hands. 

Grant. Babe. I beam up at him, trying to lose myself in his bright blue eyes the same way I lost myself in Derek’s dark ones. But the adrenaline rush doesn’t come. 

I tuck my chin and take a long sip of my drink to hide my disappointment. To my right, Levi is chatting up a group of his admirers. 

“The crowd was insane,” he says, his arms gesturing wildly. “I swear, this guy…” He pauses, hits Reiner on the back. “Big things are gonna pop off.”

Reiner flips his chin in agreement but doesn’t say anything as excited laughter and questions pour forth from the group. Levi responds to their questions, his voice growing louder as his former classmates praise him. 

I drain my cup and swirl it in my hands. I have no clue what I just drank but it didn’t burn like the vodka. It didn’t taste much like anything. 

I focus on the fire, the leaping flames. Orange and yellow and red. Like the leaves in Autumn. They burst with color and vitality until winter’s cold, extensive reach crushes them. Makes them bleed out, wither, and die. 

I shake my head again. This is my birthday. I’m at a party. 

I’m wearing a crop top, tasting alcohol, and Grant Jones just called me babe. 

I shouldn’t be sitting here, wallowing. I shouldn’t be fixated on sad, depressing thoughts that don’t make sense. I should be out there—my eyes swing to Cynthia, laughing and shaking her ass. 

I stand from my seat, stumbling slightly. A few guys nearby snicker but I ignore them as I make my way toward my friend. Before I reach Cynthia’s side, a kid in my class, Alan, reaches out and wraps his hand around the back of my knee as I move past. 

I glance down, noting the spark in his glazed eyes. 

“You need a refill, babe?” he asks. 

I stare back, my teeth scraping over my bottom lip. Why is Alan asking me if I want a drink when he never speaks to me? Why is he looking at me like that?

Before I can respond, a shadow filters over me. I turn my head slowly and my eyes lock with Derek’s. 

“Here.” He passes me a cup, his voice quiet, threaded with an angry heartbeat I don’t understand. 

I take the cup and Alan drops his hold. 

Derek moves to the periphery of the bonfire and silently, I follow. He doesn’t look back to see if I am, but I know he feels my presence by the way he slows his steps, waits for me to catch up. 

I take a sip of the drink. Cool water trickles down my throat and my head throbs in relief. 

“I’m not drunk,” I state loudly. 

I stumble again as I reach Derek’s side and his hand darts out, grasps my hip to keep me upright. Well, that didn’t help my case. 

But Derek doesn’t call me out. 

Instead, he mumbles, “I know.”

My brows thread together, waiting for him to continue. He doesn’t. He also doesn’t remove his hand from my side. “You know?”

He dips his chin, a nod. “You’re disappointed.”

My eyes snap to his, narrow as I try to sort out how—how?—he knows that. Everyone at the party—Cynthia, Levi, even Alan—thinks I’m having a good time. 

“How—” 

“You’re too big for this,” he cuts me off, grabbing a nearby chair and sitting down. 

He stretches out, unfolding his long legs in front of him. He stacks one foot on top of the other, leans back in the chair. He looks cool, at ease, like he hangs out in the middle of a field and has a bonfire regularly even though his outfit—dark joggers, a cream sweater, a denim jacket—don’t blend with the jeans and hoodies everyone else is rocking. 

“You’re going to outgrow this life, Allegra,” Derek states this as fact. “And it’s not a realization anyone wants to learn on their seventeenth birthday.”