Dedicated to Aurie (affiniteas) because she's kind and awesome and hella rad and her comments always make me go "awwww." Thank you <3

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Chapter 3

When I first got off that couch to go along with my best friend's "quest," I already knew it was going to turn out badly.

I just didn't think it would be this bad.

The look of horror on Lewis's face as realization dawned on him, connecting two and two together to find out who this "bitch" his friend was talking about, would have been hilarious if I hadn't been pissed.

"Dude, uhh." He shot his friend a wide-eyed stare before quickly switching his gaze back to me. "He really didn't mean that."

I raised an eyebrow and fixed my stare on Coke Guy. "Right. Of course he didn't." I gave Tori a pointed look. She didn't seem to notice it, seeing as her eyes have pretty much turned into hearts. "Tori, I'm starting to feel a little light-headed. Maybe we should head back?"

"I didn't know spilling your drink on someone can make a person feel dizzy," Coke Guy interjected.

Having had enough, I turned to him with an aggravated sigh. "I told you, it was an accident." Throwing my hands up in the air, I thought ah, fuck it and gave Tori a we-should-really-go-now-or-else-I-might-kill-someone look.

She looked between Lewis and me, like she couldn't decide between the two of us. My best friend couldn't decide between me and a random guy. I eyed her accusingly.

Biting her lower lip, she looked at Lewis and then at me, before reluctantly grabbing me by the arm. "Maybe we should talk."

"Maybe."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes when she actually bothered to excuse us from Lewis and Coke Guy, wordlessly dragging me to the dining room. I almost stumbled behind her, but I managed to keep up without tripping. Thankfully, the drinking game was off, leaving the table with a lot of disposable cups and spilled beer all over the place. The room was almost empty, save for a few girls taking pictures of themselves in different poses.

"Wasn't Lewis adorable?" Tori giggled as soon as she turned to face me.

My mouth dropped open. "Really, Tor? Really? Didn't you, I don't know, maybe hear Coke Guy calling me a bitch?"

"Coke Guy?"

I gritted my teeth together. "Yes. Coke Guy. The dickhead who accused me of spilling my beer purposely on his shirt."

"What?"

"Earlier. I bumped into him and spilled my drink on—"

She gasped. "You did that?"

"It was an accident."

She was shaking her head. "Why would you do that? I know you hate the guy, Reed, but doing that is really childish and—"

"It was an accident," I repeated, crossing my arms over my chest.

I wasn't quite sure if she believed me, but she shut up and thought deeply about this. I watched her brows furrow the slightest bit in concentration, like she was trying to solve a problem. Suppressing a groan, I balled my palms into fists, making an effort not to just yell at her for us to call the "quest" off so we could finally go home.

"Well?" I prompted.

She sighed. "Lewis was really cute."

I couldn't believe I was hearing this from her. "Tori."

She frowned. "He was! And so is his friend."

I had to physically restrain myself from trying to pull all my hair out in frustration. Maybe Lewis was cute or whatever, but Coke Guy? "He called me a bitch."

She shrugged. "Well, you called him a dick," she casually pointed out.

"Only because he is."

Shifting, she gave me a dull look. "And why do you think did he call you a bitch?"

I could almost feel my eye twitching in irritation, if only because I knew she had a point. "He didn't apologize when he spilled Coke all over my AM shirt."

"He did."

I huffed. "He obviously didn't mean it."

"You're being too difficult," she said, shaking her head with an audible sigh. "I really like Lewis, Reed. Can you please, please, please not be so mean to him and his cousin? Just this once?"

Over the years, she'd said those three words way too many times whenever she asked me for a favor, so I knew it was definitely not "just this once." I also tried not to point out the fact that it was ridiculous for her to believe she'd found her soulmate when she had known the guy for less than half an hour.

"Please?" she said again when I still hadn't said anything. "I just want to talk to him. Just for a few minutes."

"A few minutes," I repeated.

"Yes. Until he asks for my number."

Knowing Tori, she wouldn't take no for an answer, especially if she believed that it could get in the way of her and her possible soulmate. If I wasn't so worried about her, I would have just ditched her and let her have her way, but I could still feel the guilt from the incident clawing at me up until now.

Grudgingly, I hissed out an agreement. "Fine. Whatever."

Letting out a girlish squeal, she threw her arms around me. "I love you. I absolutely love you."

"I was pretty sure you would have ditched me earlier for that Louie guy."

"Lewis," she corrected. "And yeah, it was a pretty hard decision to make."

I playfully shoved her off of me. "A few minutes, Tor."

"A few minutes," she echoed, nodding with a hilariously serious face. "Also, can I borrow your lip gloss? I kind of left my bag in the car."

"How does one even leave her bag?" I handed her my purse, too lazy to dig through my stuff to find the lip gloss.

She ignored my question, taking my purse from me. "Also, one more thing."

"What?"

Turning to me, she looked almost unsure. "Can you, like, try not to strangle Lewis's cousin?"

"Well"—I wiped my hands on my jeans out of habit—"I'm not making any promises."

She fixed me with a serious stare. "Reed."

"Fine."

Seemingly satisfied, she smiled and unzipped my purse, rummaging through all the random stuff I'd put there earlier. "By the way," she said, sending me a fleeting glance, "how did things go with Tyler?"

Even hearing his name was enough to make me feel like a heavy blanket had just been placed over me. I could still see the image of him standing in front of me with a look that was bordering on hesitant and hopeful. I could still hear the way he rambled on earlier and I still felt bad about the whole thing.

"Uh-oh. You have that look on your face."

"What look?" I asked her.

"That look."

I snorted. "Well, that's very informative."

She chose to ignore my sarcastic jab as she stared me down. "What happened?"

I wasn't quite sure how to tell her, knowing she'd probably freak out and find a way to force me into agreeing to have dinner with Tyler once she knew what he'd asked me. I wasn't sure what she could come up with, but she was Tori, so there was pretty much no doubt she'd be able to think of something.

"Reed." She looked on without blinking. "What happened?"

 "Nothing," I replied. "We just talked."

"And what, pray tell, did you two talk about?" She managed to fish out my lip gloss from all the stuff in my purse, which she slung on her wrist while slathering her lips with Cherry Shimmer. She used the surface of the fridge as a mirror.

I might have squirmed a little, trying to decide whether or not I should tell her. I've always prided myself in being a good liar, except when it came to Tori. I could lie to my mom about this English project I was working on but Tori could easily see through anything.

She replaced the cap and examined her slightly distorted reflection. "He asked you to dinner, didn't he?"

My heart sank to my stomach. "Can we not talk about it, please?"

With a look of concern on her face, she turned to me. "Please tell me you said yes."

"Tori," I begged.

"Please tell me you didn't reject the guy."

"Please, can we not? Just this once." By the way her eyes narrowed into slits, I could tell she didn't like the fact that I pretty much stole her line. I thought of the only thing that could get her mind off Tyler, and I hoped I faked enough enthusiasm when I said, "Lewis is waiting for you, you know."

The heart eyes were back, thoughts of my love life (or lack thereof) quickly evaporating as a bright smile appeared on her face. "Do I look okay?"

I rolled my eyes and started to leave the dining room as a reply.

She immediately caught up with me and started babbling about why she thinks Lewis was "the One," whatever that meant when she'd barely even talked to the guy.

Personally, I just couldn't wait until she sees something unattractive about Lewis and realizes how pointless this whole night was.

"It's just—can't you see? We bumped into each other twice within an hour," she gushed on, oblivious to the fact that I was mentally stabbing my eyes out. "Wait, actually, the literal bumping into each other part is you and Coke Guy. Oh my god, do you know what this means?"

"Do not even go there."

"But—"

"Just no. Please."

"Can't you see? You guys have—"

"Just a second ago, you were rooting for Tyler."

I could tell she was just about to rant about this, but was cut off (thankfully) by the sight of Lewis talking Coke Guy. Before she could run off to his precious One, I grabbed her by the arm. She turned back, giving me a quizzical, albeit dazed, expression.

"Do me a favor and lower your expectations about this guy, okay?" I didn't dare look away from her brown eyes to make sure she knew how serious I was.

She smirked. "Is this your way of saying 'be careful with your heart, Tori'?" Unamused, I gave her a blank stare. She snorted. "Yes, Mom. I'm not exactly easy to get. It's just... I have a feeling with this one, y'know?"

I didn't.

Lewis noticed us approaching and beamed when he spotted Tori. Beside him, I could have sworn that Coke Guy was internally gagging. However, I refused to acknowledge the possibility that we might actually have something in common.

"What did we miss?" Tori said as soon as she was within earshot.

"Apparently, the fight ended," Lewis replied, "and twenty people just jumped into the pool."

Tyler wouldn't have appreciated that, but at least it kept him busy from trying to find me. I knew I wasn't solving anything by running away from the problem, but I just couldn't make myself face it. At least not for now.

It was similar when Dad started to come home later than usual ten years ago, almost always never arriving in time for dinner, and that one time when I saw a different woman's picture on one of his wallets. I couldn't make myself ask him about it. Even on the rare times that we happened to spend time together, I noticed the distance between him and Mom, and I knew something was wrong, but I didn't say anything.

If it was Tori, she would have charged into the line of fire without even flinching once.

"This is my cousin." Lewis gestured vaguely at Coke Guy. "Austin, this is Tori and Reed."

He nodded at Tori but chose to ignore me completely. I took in a deep breath and forced myself to look away without saying anything. I came to the conclusion that ending up in a verbal battle with him would eventually lead to my patience running out and a decapitated body on the floor.

There was an awkward pause, where I suppose Tori and Lewis were waiting for Austin and I to acknowledge each other, before realizing that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Tori cleared her throat and Lewis shifted uncomfortably.

"So," Tori said, "I don't think I've seen you guys around before. You don't go to Rivermount High?"

Lewis shook his head. "Oh, no. Actually, this may be my hometown, but I'm only home for the summer. Austin's kind of a tourist. He's staying with us for now and I just happened to be showing him around. He just arrived this morning, actually."

"Really?" Her eyes flickered to Austin. "Where are you from?"

He didn't seem to like the fact that he was being addressed and dragged into this conversation, but for some reason, he wasn't rude enough to ignore her completely. "Michigan."

Tori, unfazed by his curt reply, plowed on. "You're going to be here for the rest of the summer?"

"Pretty much."

He was grating on my nerves with his I-really-don't-care attitude. There was an almost bored look on his face, but I couldn't figure out if it was just because he was uninterested in having to talk to a half-Japanese girl or if it had been permanently painted on his face.

Tori must have gotten the message and basically just said, "Great! I hope you have fun here!" before turning to Lewis and asking him about where he went to high school. I tuned their conversation out and looked around instead, wondering if Tyler was still busy with the commotion going on in the pool.

Austin didn't seem to have a problem with ignoring everything going around, looking like he wanted to leave more than anything else. He might have been a tad good-looking, with his height and annoyingly perfect nose and deep-set eyes—and, okay, maybe his dark hair particularly suited him well—but his personality literally made him look like Yoda's long-lost grandchild instead.

Without warning, he looked over and caught me studying him. I immediately dropped my gaze, but not before I caught his lips twitch to a small smirk.

My blood boiled at the sight of it. I could only guess what was going on in his head at that moment and I had to fight the urge to blurt out "I wasn't checking you out!"

Instead, I tapped Tori on the shoulder and asked for her phone. She handed it to me without missing a beat from whatever she was telling Lewis. When I looked at Lewis, he seemed genuinely intrigued to listen to her too.

I tried to erase the image of Austin's smirk off of my memory and focused instead on beating Tori's score on a bunch of the games on her iPhone. We always had this joke about how I could never be as good as her because she was Asian, so I particularly enjoyed playing on her phone to beat her scores. Also, I didn't bother charging my phone earlier, so the battery on mine was running low and I figured I should just conserve it.

A few minutes later, I was so busy trying to solve a puzzle that I jumped in surprise when I heard Austin actually acknowledge me. "Did you hear that?"

I looked up at him with a cautious stare. "Hear what?"

"Listen," he replied through gritted teeth.

I opened my mouth to say something about his blatant rudeness, but stopped short when I heard what he was talking about. I felt my heart skip a beat as I recognized the sound. "Holy shit, are those sirens?"

"Fuck." He turned to Lewis, who sort of had a dreamy look on his face. Austin grabbed his arm rather forcefully. "Dude, we have to go."

Lewis blinked, slightly dazed. "Huh?"

Tori looked at me, her expression almost a mirror of Lewis's. "What? Why? What's wrong?"

That was when somebody shouted—something about cops—and all of a sudden the buzz from the party shifted as people snapped into action and all hell broke loose.

People started screaming around and panicking, running into things all over the place and not showing the slightest care in the world when a vase toppled over and broke. It was like seeing ants run around everywhere and bumping into everyone and everything.

I cursed under my breath and grabbed Tori's hand, sprinting for the kitchen to get to the back door. I could feel the panic welling up inside me, but I tried to calm myself so I wouldn't have to scramble around irrationally.

It was hard to make our way through the crowd, if only because people kept pushing and slamming against one another. Instinctively, I thrust Tori forward, uncomfortable with having to run ahead of her. I'd been so used to looking after her that it was now a second nature of sorts.

"Head to the backyard!"  I yelled at her, gripping her hand tightly as we sprinted along with all the other people trying to get away.

Since people were selfish idiots, each doorway was somehow partially blocked by people trying to go through them all at once. I rolled my eyes, huffing at the pitiful display of idiocy, wondering how they didn't realize that if they just stopped fighting and let the other go first, it wouldn't take this long.

And it wouldn't have caused me to let go of Tori, who managed to squeeze through the doorway, leaving me half-squished between other people.

"Reed!" I heard her say but she disappeared immediately in the current.

I cursed and tried to wedge myself sideways, shoulder first, to catch up with her. Someone managed to clock me in the head with something hard—an elbow, maybe—but I barely registered the pain as I finally got through the door and out into the backyard.

There were still some people heaving themselves out of the pool and a bunch of guys trying to bring the keg with them. I looked around for signs of Tori, but I couldn't find her. I suppressed a groan and forced myself to continue running, my feet fueled by nothing but adrenaline, but I tripped over something and shrieked.

I held my hands out and braced myself for the impact, wincing when I felt something sharp on my right palm. I forced myself up, cursing profoundly when I found out that I twisted my right ankle, until I realized that a cop was shining a flashlight on me.

I straightened up and ran for it, ignoring his shouts for me to stop. It wasn't easy to run with a limp. The cop was chasing after me, hot on my trail, as I rounded on the corner of the yard. I was slowing down and he was gaining distance on me.

I was going to fucking kill Tori.

Suddenly, I felt something grab me from my left. I let out a yelp that was quickly muffled by a hand moving quickly to cover my mouth. My back was pressed against whoever had grabbed me. At first I wondered why it felt like something cold and wet was seeping through the back of my shirt, but then a thought clicked into place.

I almost cursed.

The heavy footsteps of the cop on my trail just went past the tree we used as our cover. He lowered his hand and I let out a sigh of relief, stumbling forward to look extract myself from his grip.

When I turned to look and confirm my suspicion, I found myself staring into a pair of (unfortunately) familiar brown eyes and an ever-present scowl.

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A/N:

Hi guys! So I finally got around to editing this chapter. I'm kind of still hungover ending THH, but I guess there's nothing I can really do about that hahaha. Sooooo I'm so psyched that there are already so many people reading this. All of you motivate me to continue writing everyday, and for that, thank you. <3

If there are any mistakes, feel free to point them out. It's 12:40 am and I'm kind of sleepy so I'm pretty sure I missed a lot of typos haha. 

Sam xoxo