“I just don’t want you to hurt him,” Mich says, defensive.
“Seems to me I’m not the one you need to worry about,” Bree fires back.
Michele walks forward at the same time Bree does so that they’re toe to toe.
Before anyone can respond, Brody is the one to move. He grabs Sabrina gently and moves her so she’s behind him. Her eyes widen as she tries to fight this movement, but he won’t budge. He wants her behind him for a reason, clearly, and it’d be wise if she wouldn’t fight him. Finally, she gives in after he gives her a meaningful look, and she steps back so that he can get in front of her. He won’t let her move at all. He keeps his hands out to his side so that she can’t get past him if she tries. Relaxing, her arms come up to circle his waist and she presses her face into the space between his shoulder blades.
I watch with my mouth wide open as Michele’s defenses crumble. That stance is the one he always took to protect her. Now, he’s taking it to protect Sabrina from her. I can’t imagine how that must feel.
“You don’t need to protect her from me, Brody,” Michele whispers, her eyes wide.
“I don’t know what I know anymore. Leave her alone.” Brody’s tone is biting, and I’m shocked that he’s taking it with Mich.
“I can take care of myself, Brody,” Sabrina says, still holding him tightly.
Hayden finally moves to wrap his arms around Michele. Still, she doesn’t budge. My heart breaks a little bit for Hayden, because he looks just like he did last summer, when Brody showed up in Big Springs out of nowhere and kissed Michele right in front of him. This situation is far too complicated and dramatic for me to deal with right now.
“Michele. Michele, come on, love.” Hayden’s urgent, and I can tell how badly he wants for her not to care about Brody anymore.
I think we all know that’s not possible.
“I know you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, Sabrina. You proved that to me the night we met. But the point is, you shouldn’t have to. And I’m not going to let you.” His gaze fixes upon Michele now. “You chose him.” He nods his head in Hayden’s direction. “You’re with him now. I’m with Sabrina. Take the target off her back or I swear to fucking God, Michie…” His voice trails off and he sighs. “If you mess with her again, whether we’re on this trip or not, I promise, we’ll never be friends again.”
“Don’t talk to her like that!” Hayden’s voice booms.
Everyone turns to look at him, but Brody, he’s not backing down.
He turns and points at Hayden. “You shut the fuck up! She put herself in this position, sticking her nose where it’s not fucking wanted! I’m not going to let her antagonize my girl. Ever. Make yours mind her own Goddamn business, and everything will be fine.” He turns his head ever so slightly in Bree’s direction and says, “Let’s go to our room.” Bree complies, and on his way out, Brody gives me a look. “Call us when it’s time to cook dinner, and we’ll help.”
I nod, and when my eyes meet Michie’s, she’s withdrawn completely. She’s backed up into Hayden’s chest and her eyes are downcast. She’s basically shrunk and curled into Hayden’s arms.
My best friend has always been short, but this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever seen Michele look so small.
Nineteen.
After dinner, Lizzie takes Skylar home. She was incredibly reluctant to leave, but Hayden put his foot down. He told her that no other children were here, therefore she couldn’t stay.
Once they’re gone, he pulls out various bottles of liquor. I recognize the brands from seeing them in my parents’ liquor cabinets. It’s Michele who suggests we play “Never Have I Ever”, and everyone agrees. Even Colin agrees, even though he insists on being the sober scorekeeper.
We’re all seated in a circle in the living room, and Hayden distributes shot glasses, then hands Colin a bottle of Casadores to fill them up.
Once we’re all situated, Hayden explains the rules of the game. “Okay, so, you just have to say something you’ve never done, basically. Everyone holds up ten fingers. You say ‘Never have I ever’, and then you say what you’ve never done. If someone has done it, they put down a finger and take a shot. The first one to put all their fingers down loses, and the most sober one—besides Colin, of course—at the end wins the game.
Before we start, Naomi raises her hand.
“Yes, Nomi?” Hayden points at her with the fireplace stoker like he’s a teacher or something.
“What do we get if we win?” she asks.
We all chuckle, and then we look to Hayden as we wait for what his answer is going to be to the question. He brings his hand up to his chin and taps for a few seconds, like he’s really pondering this. “A pat on the back and the knowledge that nothing sexual, crazy, or even remotely fun has ever happened to you!”
With a laugh, he takes a bow and then resumes his place at Michie’s side.
Before the rules were explained, it was determined that I would go first, since I put this small trip together for all of us. I hold up ten fingers, then give a smile.
“Never have I ever had a hangover,” I say with a wink.
There’s a collective groan around the room, and Colin nudges me a little bit before he takes a drink of the orange juice he’s served for himself. We’re going clockwise, so Colin’s the next person to play. I wonder what his statement is going to be, and I’m actually pretty excited to play this game. I haven’t drank with my friends in what feels like years, even though I know it hasn’t been that long.
“Never have I ever stolen someone’s car,” Colin says.
The rest of the room laughs, and surprisingly, everyone lowers a finger and takes a drink. I stole my mom’s car a couple times, trying to make it out to the lake house when she confiscated my keys. We all pass our shot glasses to Colin, waiting for him to refill them. He stands up and distributes our glasses, which are color coded so that none of them get mixed up. He takes his seat, and I look to Sabrina who’s next.
She raises both her hands. “Never have I ever had a threesome.”
For a moment, the entire room goes quiet. Then all of a sudden, I see a movement in my peripheral vision and my gaze flashes to Nikkolas’s. He brings his shot glass up to his mouth at the same time as Sarah does, and then I hear a smack on the other side of the room. I jerk my head in the other direction and am surprised to see Trevor rubbing his arm.
“Don’t look at me like that, Trevor James! I don’t care who you had a threesome with before, but we won’t be having one if I decide you can get this gift. I don’t share, baby,” Nomi says.
My jaw drops, and I stare at my younger sister. I never expected that she’d be the first one to let the liquor get to her.
Colin refills our drinks and Brody raises his hands.
“Never have I ever had a pregnancy scare,” he says.
I knew for a fact that Nikky, Sarah, and Hayden would take shots the minute the words left Brody’s mouth. But me, I do it before I even think about it, or what the consequences of my doing so might be. It’s not until I put my glass down that I realize all eyes are on me, and my brother is now struggling against Sarah’s hold and lunging for Colin.
“Colin, what the FUCK?!” Nikkolas roars.
Colin sits beside me, cool as a cucumber. But he looks to me for what I’m going to do or say next. Everyone’s waiting for me to do something, but I don’t know what to do. The last time I shared a secret with them, for some reason, everyone looked at me like I was supposed to tell them what had happened to me. I didn’t have to. I chose to. And I hated that look, because none of them besides Colin were entitled to know my secret.
In this moment, it comes down to two things: tell everyone the truth and see the betrayed look in their eyes once more as I do so, or keep my secret and let my brother pummel Colin into a pulp. As hard as it is to still talk about what happened to me, the last thing that I want to do is let Colin get beat up for something he didn’t even do. So, I nod.
That’s all I can do right now.
Colin exhales a sigh of relief, because my nod was my giving him permission to tell my friends and family that he’s not the one who put me in that situation.
“Dude. It wasn’t me,” Colin says in the lowest voice imaginable.
My brother’s eyes meet mine and our gazes lock. Unblinkingly, his face contort into an expression I’ve never seen before. With a gasp, Sarah’s arms drop from around him. He collapses back into his seat and then jackknifes forward, clutching his heart. Sarah’s hand rests on his shoulder and she gazes at me sympathetically.
“Oh, God,” Nikky groans, and I feel sick at how upset I’ve made him. “Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus.”
The rest of the room is silent. Colin’s hands comes down and he twines his fingers with mine. He passes me a full shot glass in anticipation of what’s inevitably coming next.
“What happened, Nickayla?” Michie asks, because even she doesn’t know that story.
No one but Colin and Hanna does.
“Negative,” I reply, raising my shot glass and downing that shit like depends on it. “Next?”
Nikkolas looks up and then he storms over to Colin. For a moment, I think maybe he’s going to kick Colin’s ass anyway, regardless of the recent revelations. However, he just snatches the bottle of Casadores off the table beside us and returns back to his seat beside his girlfriend.
“Nikky, that’s for the game,” Sarah says.
“They can shoot the Cuervo,” my brother replies flatly.
I look over at Sabrina, and she seems all kinds of confused. I understand why. She, Hayden, and Trevor are new to the party, hence the reason they’re currently out of the loop.
“Shit, Nic, I’m sorry,” Brody says, making a move to stand up.
I put up a hand to stop him. I don’t want him to be sorry. There’s no way he ever could have known that his question was a loaded one. No one could have known that. There’s no reason for him to apologize.
“It’s fine, B. Don’t worry about it. No harm, no foul,” I reassure him. “Next?”
The room remains silent, and I groan. I don’t want them to focus on any of this for longer than necessary. I hate having the attention on me. But even worse, I hate it when the attention I’m getting is because of something negative. And the worst of all is when I get that look. The look that tells me they pity me. That they feel sorry for me. I can’t stand that look. Because I don’t want anyone’s pity.
“Next!” My voice comes out louder than I expect it to. The room remains silent. Sarah was supposed to be the one to go next, but she doesn’t look like she’s ready to play. I scan the room and my eyes land on Nomi. “Nomi. Next.”
She gives me a wicked smirk, and then she places her hands up. “Never have I ever kissed my best friend,” she says with a laugh.
Well shit.
I raise my glass at the same time as Michie and Brody do. We all take our shots at the same time, and Colin’s head snaps in my direction. He looks curious as to why I just took a drink.
Everyone knows that we were all best friends since we were kids. And Brody and Michele have a romantic history, so of course they’ve kissed. So them drinking makes sense. But mine doesn’t, and everyone knows it. Even Hayden’s eyebrows raise when he sees me drink, but he doesn’t say anything.
“Kyle?” Colin asks, his mouth settling into a frown.
I shake my head. I knew that would be the first guess, but he couldn’t be more wrong. Both Hayden’s and Colin’s eyebrows raise. But instead of Colin, it’s Hayden who speaks. “Brody?”
I shake my head even harder. They’re hilarious. “Try Michie.”
Everyone’s heads snap in Michele’s direction at the same exact time that she turns bright red. She pushes a strand of her hair behind her ear, then shrugs. Hayden stares at her like she’s a complete stranger, but then his lips quirk up in a smile. I’m a bit surprised by that, actually.
“You kissed Michie?” Colin asks. “When the Hell was this?”
He doesn’t sound mad, just intrigued. This is yet another story that very few people know, and I’m not sure if I should kill or thank Nomi for bringing it up.
“When we were thirteen. Pre-boyfriends. We were here, actually. Our parents were knocked out, and Brody was the first of us kids to fall asleep, and it was just us girls sitting up: me, Nomi, and Mich. We start talking about the things we want to do and the things we wish we could do when all of a sudden Nomi here tells us that she recently had her first kiss. Of course, Michie and me, jealous bitches that we are, decide that we need to have our first kiss as soon as possible. And then, before I know it, I’m grabbing Michele’s face and pulling her toward me and…we kissed.”
The best part about admitting to my boyfriend that I once had some hot girl-on-girl action going on with my best friend is the look on his face when he hears the entire story. The second best part is looking at Hayden, and seeing that his expression totally matches Colin’s. Their mouths are hanging wide open, chins in their hands as they lean forward to get closer to us even though they’re sitting right beside us, eyebrows raised, faces flushed, and a hint of a glimmer in their eyes like they’re looking at Sofia Vergara instead of two normal teenage girls.
“What?” Mich asks. “Don’t act like you don’t think it’s completely hot, baby.”
Hayden turns to face her and then grabs a throw pillow and places it over his lap. That just makes Michele laugh at the top of her lungs, squealing at how uncomfortable we’ve made our men. She bends forward, tears streaming from her eyes from how hard she’s laughing.
Colin’s hand comes down and rests atop my knee, and his gaze locks on mine. He’s got a million questions swimming in his eyes, and finally, he gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he does so. “So wait. Was it like…was it a pop kiss? Or was it full out Frenching?”
Mich turns on him and narrows her eyes. “Oh, there was lots of tongue, Westwick.”
I laugh.
Hayden clears his throat. “How was it?”
“Oh, it was the best first kiss ever. Even Charlie Hunnam couldn’t top Michie’s kisses. Colin doesn’t come close,” I say, winking at Michele.
Michele winks back at me. “You know it was the best, baby,” she tells Hayden. “You of all people should know that I never do anything half-assed.”
I burst out laughing, and the rest of the room follows suit. But it’s Trevor who raises his hands, holding up ten fingers. I stop laughing immediately and look at him, my eyes wide. He’s been mostly silent the entire time, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s going to say.
“Never have I ever wanted to see two hot girls kiss each other so badly in my life,” he says, dropping a finger.
Beside him, Nomi is actually grinning, because she knows precisely what she’s done by bringing this story up. She’s distracted the men in my life from dwelling too much on what happened last year, and she’s done it well, too. There’s no way they’ll be thinking about Kyle or what he did to me by the time this night is over.
I laugh, thinking that he’s joking, but when I look away from him, I see that all the boys in the room except for my brother are raising their shot glasses to their lips. Stunned, I turn to Michele who proceeds to shrug and leap to her feet. She extends a hand to me, and I take it. The minute that I do, I yank her arm forward so that she collapses into my lap. She straddles my thighs and is completely pressed up against me. I place my hand on the small of her back, and place the other at the nape of her neck. Her arms come up to cradle the sides of my face and one of her hands pushes a few strands of my hair back. She leans forward and before I know it, she’s kissing my neck, and I throw my head back, giving the boys a run for their money as I purposely moan a little bit.
“Smooth,” I say, giving her a grin as she pulls away gazes into my eyes.
“Hey, if we’re going to do this, we might as well give ‘em a show, right?”
I nod, watching in anticipation as Michie inches c
loser to me and presses her lips to mine. I close my eyes and imagine I’m kissing Colin, and as soon as our lips touch, I open my mouth and her tongue darts in, and then back out. She pulls away, letting the tip of her tongue tease my lower lip before she finally pulls away completely.
She grins as she leans back, trying to suppress her giggles. She finally climbs off of my lap, taking a bow in the middle of our group of friends as the guys proceed to cheer, laugh, and cat-call at the performance we’ve just put on. I turn to Colin, and he’s gazing at me with the brightest smile I’ve seen on him in a long time.
Things have been strained between us, since his dad passed, Mads’ arrival, my freak out in the bedroom, him calling me crazy…it’s all been rough. But this trip has only just started and I’m beginning to feel the reconnect. I can feel everything being healed, every scar fading. And none of what’s been causing us to distance ourselves from each other matters right now, because he’s looking at me how he used to, like I’m the only girl in the world, like he could never have eyes for anyone but me.
“You’re so sexy, Nickayla,” Colin whispers for only me to hear. He’s still smiling, that perfect crooked smile that I used to have etched in my memory because I wasn’t sure when I would see it again, and I feel my heart begin to speed up. “You’re so sexy and I love you and I can’t wait to get you alone in our room tonight.”
I know for a fact my face is red right now. I tilt my head downward so that my hair provides a curtain for the both of us as I lean forward and give my boyfriend a kiss. He holds me close and when he pulls away, he rests his forehead against mine.
“Never have I ever loved anyone as much as I love you,” he whispers.
I silently swoon, unable to deny how quickly my heart is racing or how loved I feel in this very moment. Right now, everyone else in the room has faded away, and Colin and I are alone. I stare into his brilliant emerald eyes and give him a faint smile. “Never will I ever just love anyone more than I just love you,” I whisper back.
Almost Everything (Nickayla Quinn Trilogy Book 2) Page 17