Chaos

“Oh my Goddd,” Joel groans as he chews on his first bite of my mom’s turkey. “This is the best turkey I’ve ever had.”

She beams, and I catch Mason grinning approvingly. But then he catches me catching him, and he ditches the smile. “So, Adam, I kind of remember you from high school,” he says, and the fact that he’s talking at all means he’s up to no good.

“Oh yeah?” Adam asks. He’s seated between Joel and Ryan, reaching across the table to grab a dinner roll.

“Actually, I don’t think I remember you. I just heard a lot about you.”

Adam smirks like he knows what’s coming. “People like to talk.”

Undeterred, Mason continues prodding. “Yeah, they said a lot of things.”

My mom takes the bait, her brow furrowed as she washes down a bite of stuffing. “What kind of things?”

“Adam hooked up with practically every chick in school,” Bryce offers with unbridled admiration. I’d reach across the table and punch him in the head if I thought I could even make a dent in his caveman-thick skull.

“Oh . . . ” my mom says. She glances at me, and I sigh.

“Adam has a girlfriend now. So does Joel.”

“Does Van Erickson have a girlfriend?” Mason goads.

“Who’s Van Erickson?” my mom asks, but Joel is already chuckling and giving Mason an answer.

“He has tons of them.”

My mom starts asking who he is again, but Mason interrupts her. “Was one of them my sister?”

This time, Mike is the one to set his fork on his plate and stare at my brother like he’s an idiot. “Do you really think your sister would be Van Erickson’s groupie?”

“Thank you!” I say with my hands thrown dramatically in the air.

Ryan grins and finally answers my mom. “Van Erickson is some big rock star. Kit’s band opened for them a few days ago.”

“One of the biggest rock stars there is,” Kale adds to throw glitter on my parade. When I look at him, wondering how the hell the guys know about us opening for Van in the first place, Kale shrugs and swings his finger at all four of them. “They looked you up online. There is this thing called the Internet, you know.”

“She gave him a wet willy,” Shawn volunteers from beside me, and the entire table explodes with laughter.

I’m staring at Shawn, wondering why he’s acting like he’s proud of me or something, when Bryce shouts, “She did not!”

Shawn gives a half smile and nods. “Five seconds after meeting him.”

Even Mason laughs so hard he has to set his drumstick down. My dad joins in from the end of the table.

“Kit,” my mom manages through giggles, “did you really?”

I shrug. “He deserved it.”

Shawn grins at me, but the gaze I return to him is hard. This doesn’t make us friends. This doesn’t make us even. And it sure as hell doesn’t make us okay.

I thought I could pretend not to hate him, but I can’t. Not with him smiling at me like it’s okay to smile at me. The light fades from his eyes, his lips, his face, and we’re just staring at each other with a million unspoken things in the air.

Don’t come, I texted him. And now all I’m thinking is, Get up, go home, don’t call me. Ever.

“That’s so badass.” Bryce praises my wet willy incident and then turns to my mom. “Mom, you should’ve seen her onstage last night. She was such a fu—” He coughs to stop himself from getting whacked in the head for cursing. “Freaking rock star. She took her shirt off and threw it out into the crowd and—”

“She took her shirt off?” my mother practically shrieks, stealing my attention from Shawn. But then his hand finds mine under the table, and when he tries to hold it, I jerk it out of his grasp.

My fists start to shake. My arms, my legs. What the fuck does he think he’s doing?

I don’t look at him. I can’t. I’m two seconds from standing up and running from the table in an angry fit of tears. Either that, or stabbing a fork in his eye.

He tried to hold my hand. Why the fuck did he try to hold my hand?

“Her flannel,” Kale corrects Bryce, but Mason cuts in before my mom can be relieved.

“She was practically getting naked.”

I break my thoughts from Shawn to glare at Mason from across the table. He challenges me with his stare, and I’m silently promising to murder him, when a pea hits me right in the cheek. Ryan laughs down at his plate, and I make a mental note to get revenge for the pea after dinner, because if I do anything about it now, every single person at this table will end up covered in mashed potatoes—and Shawn will probably end up with a chair smashed over his head.

“No more taking clothes off,” my dad proclaims with his eyes on the stuffing he’s soaking in gravy, and everyone at the table snickers. Everyone but me and Shawn.

“So, Mike,” my mom says when the madness has died down, “what about you? Have a girlfriend?”

He shakes his head as he finishes chewing his food. “Not for a while.”

My mom shoots me a quick smile, and I roll my eyes.

“Oh,” she says. “Why not? A handsome guy like you, I figured you’d be beating them away with one of your drumsticks.”

“Nah,” Mike says with a bashful smile and his cheeks turning pink, “I leave that to Adam and Shawn.”

My mom turns her mischievous grin on the boy who broke my heart. “No girlfriend for you either?”