The Party
Juliet
"Why so serious?" Lily teases me, bumping her shoulder into mine. "It's your going away party, not a wake."
I can't answer her. My throat's choked up and my eyes sting as I look at the photos she's strung up all over her backyard.
Lily and me at 5 years old in the swimming pool for our first swim lesson, at 7 years in the hospital when her brother was born, at 11 with braces, at 14 with self-cut, hideous bangs, at 18 when we crashed her parents' car...into their garage wall, at 20 when we tasted our first beer and spit it out...it's a lifetime of everything beautiful and warm.
And now my entire life is packed up next door in two suitcases. Ready to be upturned, forcing me away from the person who's been my ride or die through all bad decisions and good times.
"I don't wanna go." I croak out without looking at her.
"I will literally murder you if you cry, Jules." She mutters, her own voice breaking a little as she goes on, "Because if you cry, then I'm gonna cry. And I do not want to look like a goth raccoon in all the photos from today. Someday after you're a celebrity event planner, they're going to show these pictures when you go on talk shows. And I have to look fabulous. So get it together, okay?"
I chuckle and sniff at once, turning to face her. "Name one event planner that you've seen on any talk show."
"You'll be the first." She quips with a beam, taking a sip of her champagne. From a straw.
I cringe at the straw. "That's blasphemy."
A chorus of laughter and loud chatter cuts across the yard before she can answer. And one particular voice puts my body on red alert.
I swear, I'll throttle him if he pulls any crap today. I’m already on edge, leaving everything I've ever known and moving to another city all by myself. And not just any city. New York. All the way on the other coast from Seattle. Stupid dream job.
"You invited them?" I hiss at Lily.
She grimaces. "I didn't. And I explicitly told him to stay away, and keep his cronies and groupies away." Then she turns to look at the cacophony of sounds that's getting closer, and grits out, "But when does the brat ever listen?"
"Well, well." An all too familiar voice rasps in my ear. "If it isn't the guest of honor, Ms Juliet Overachiever-Pro-Max Hart herself."
I have to summon all my patience before I step away and whirl to face the bane of my existence.
He's wearing a simple black T-shirt, blue jeans. But the shirt is snug over his chest that seems to be getting more defined with every passing day, and his shoulders that are starting to fill out at an unsettling rate. His dense black hair is messy, falling over his forehead. A trademark cocky smirk on his lips that promises trouble. And that damn dimple only on one cheek, only visible up close, only when his smile really reaches his eyes.
When the hell did my best friend's annoying pest of a little brother start to look like an almost adult? He's only 19, for crying out loud. I'm no slob, but there's good looking and then there's head-turning.
This used to be so much easier when he was a lanky shrimp I could dismiss without getting bothered.
But Liam Winchester is utterly maddening now.
He's not a person, he's a presence now.
Tall, with noticeable growing muscle, and a magazine-cover face that's impossible to ignore.
I flutter my eyelashes at him and pout in the fakest way I can, then whisper so only he and Lily can hear me, "Aww, is little bumblebee acting out again because nobody's paying him any attention?"
Only he knows how he manages to keep the smirk while his jaw clenches.
Thing is, knowing which buttons to push goes both ways with us. I have 7 years on him, I've seen everything from how scared he was when he saw a clown for the first time, to how he was bedwetting till he was 9, to his long hair phase at 13.
So I also know the nickname his family gave him when he was born, all tubby and energetic.
Bumblebee. The baby who’s always busy, always buzzing.
And he hates it if anyone calls him that now.
He just hides it better. Like he's doing right now, more so around his friends. Or all the lackeys that treat him like their king. His only close friend is Jared. And he's also the only one who knows the nickname.
Jared snickers beside him right on cue.
Liam throws him a quick, tight glare before flicking his gaze back to me. "So. Big day for you." He drawls. "This fancy new job in New York is what—roughly number 9 on your laminated life plan?"
I freeze. It is exactly number 9 on my very much laminated life plan. Work for the best event planning firm in the country. Either he just threw out a number and it landed, or...
My pulse spikes up. I've only shown my plan to Lily, and even she doesn't remember what comes at what number. So Liam got his absurdly big hands on it somehow.
Ughhh, why does he keep taking my stuff??? My clothes, my shoes, my books, he even took my blowdryer one time. He still hasn't returned it, and I didn't bother to get another. So air-drying it is.
I give him a sickly-sweet smile. "Crashing a party where no one wants you, stealing things that don't belong to you, spending your days in your parents' basement playing video games, like slacking off is your chosen career—seems to me you've got your own life plan, bumblebee." I don't bother whispering that word this time. "Too bad I won't be around to see you reach your full potential."
The taunting, roguish look on his face falters, something odd and sharp flickering savagely in place of it.
My breath hitches.
Liam and I have been doing this dance for a couple of years now.
He's always been a prankster. Plastic spiders in my popcorn when we were watching movies. Releasing an actual rooster in our front yard as an early morning alarm on the first day of summer vacation. Even though we're neighbors, and the rooster ended up waking half the neighborhood. Connecting to our outdoor speaker and blasting death metal when I was meditating. It was non-stop, like it was his calling in life to bait and torment me.
The pranks stopped when he turned 18. Then it was mocking me for being too serious, too boring, too studious, too organized, the list went on. The jibes are never direct, he won't actually call me any of it, but I can understand subtext just fine.
I'm no pushover, so I give back in kind, and he keeps going. That's the way it's always worked.
But this...whatever's on with his features, I've never seen the look before.
Like something in my barb hit some secret soft spot.
I should consider that a win for me. He's usually so unruffled, I can't ever get a rise out of him. But he can rage bait me within seconds. So this is rare.
I should be thrilled. Is that what the weird knot in my stomach and sudden tightening in my chest means? That I'm thrilled? Must be.
But for future reference, what did I say that—
"Your margarita, babe." Caleb's arm slides around my waist and he pulls me closer, handing me the drink.
"Thanks." I return, smiling, before pivoting to Liam again.
"Hey, little brother." Caleb greets Liam.
If his expression was rattled earlier, now it's a raging wildfire. Disgust, contempt, open hostility. All directed at my boyfriend.
I groan inwardly. This again. My choice of boyfriends is another thing Liam endlessly jeers at, ever since I had my first serious one at 23. Liam was 16, and he did everything he could to drive Mark away. This was after he kept sabotaging every date I went on with anyone else.
But something about Caleb in particular sets him off. And Caleb always referring to him pointedly as little brother doesn't help.
Liam’s gaze drops to Caleb's hand on me, and his mouth purses in a flat line. Only for a moment. Then he pins Caleb with a flat stare. "Good to see you again, Wiener."
The group behind Liam, 3 guys, 2 girls, titters. Seriously, can Liam get a girlfriend already so he has something else to focus on? What 19-year old looks like him and doesn't date? Lily and I have had a front row seat to girls—even guys—throwing themselves at him, but he's been stubbornly single.
Caleb stiffens, reddens, then grinds at Liam, "It's Wieder." Then mutters under his breath so nobody else but me hears it, "Fucking uninvited loser."
I bristle, so hard, that I have a physical urge to shove Caleb away from me. I can call Liam whatever I want, Caleb has no right.
"Cut it out." I find myself seething in a low voice at Caleb. He's the freaking adult, Liam's a teenager. And this is also Liam's house. Whether or not he's invited to the party Lily threw for me, is irrelevant. He can come and go wherever, whenever he wants.
Caleb scowls, that face he makes when he's going to start a verbal fight. Damn it.
I turn to Liam before Caleb can say anything more offending out loud, exhaling, exasperated. "Can you please, leave me alone, and let me have some peace for just this one damn night? You're getting rid of me starting tomorrow anyway."
There's that bizarre look again. Like I've actually...almost...hurt him.
A weight drops in my stomach.
What the hell? Is he for real? This terrorist has harassed me for years with pranks and words, and now he can't—
"There's our star of tonight!"
Mrs Winchester's voice trickles from the backyard door, as she steps out holding a massive cake in her hands, a delighted grin on her face. She's flanked by Mr Winchester, and mom and dad, all wearing the same grin.
Oh man no no. I look at Lily, and she gives me a cheeky smile, clearly aware of what her mom was going to do.
"You promised simple and quiet!" I snap at her in a whisper, but put a smile on for our folks.
She snorts, unapologetic. "You have met my family before, yes?"
Then jostles me forward to the table where her mom sets the obnoxious cake down.
Then it's a blur of congratulations, getting pulled into hugs whether I want them or not, cake pieces being force-fed to me, and generally everyone acting like I'm the first woman since Eve to get a job she really wanted.
So silly.
And I'm gonna miss it. All of this. Mom and dad bickering over what to watch on TV, the Winchesters having barbecues in the middle of winter, rain spoiling our plans because it's Seattle, living next door to my favorite person, even her aggravating brother who—
"I will gut you, dipshit!!" Liam's screaming, angry voice from the edge of the backyard pierces through all the festivities.
And abruptly, everything is quiet and still, except for the noisy racket of Liam and my boyfriend in a brawl.
