"He was different than anyone else, more rough and less polite in the best aspects. Being with him was like my own personal punishment, and my best gift all at once."
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"Wow, I can hear every single fucking cricket, I swear to god," My lips managed to move to speak, although I felt like someone had pulled the string to my energy and charged me up.
"Oh my gosh, me too." Aurora said, looking at me briefly before turning back to look down from the roof and watch everyone playing in the pool. "Dude, Rafe is the best, $20 off is a steal."
I scoffed, earning a look from Aurora who seemed to be guilty of her friendliness with him.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you jealous—"
"Aurora, I hate the dude more than that creep that lurks around at the Wreck."
"True... but you won't tell me who mystery man is," and I snorted at the new coin term for JJ, "so, i'll just keep teasing you about Rafe."
I took a moment to soak in her words, burdened by the memory of JJ who had yet to even shoot me a text after what happened at the boneyard.
What was going on?
"How are the pogues?" Aurora asked, crunching a beer bottle and throwing it off to the side carelessly. A clatter followed soon after, before she drew a sharp breath in and looked back at me.
How were they?
"Oh, uh, I dunno."
"You don't know? Khali, you've been attached by the hip with them for years. What do you mean?" She scrunched her face up, leaning back to rest on both of her hands laid behind her.
"They haven't been talking to me and well... I haven't either."
"Oh man... now you're really going Kook, huh?" she joked and I laughed dryly, bringing in my knees to my chest and letting my arms lock around them.
"Never that."
—
I woke up on a couch that wasn't familiar, hearing the crunch of cans as I brought myself to a strained stand.
"What the hell?" I muttered, searching my pockets for my phone before finding it and pulling it out.
Twenty text messages... in one night?
Most of them were Aurora, telling me she had left the party and then a flurry of random pictures of what looked like deep parts of figure 8.
One caught my eye though, causing me to do a quick double take and I tapped it to read more.
JJ Pope and I are about to head out to deliver groceries in figure 8, coming?
It'd been almost two weeks since I had heard a word from anyone and he randomly texts me to offer a delivery road trip?
A voice arguing in the distance grabbed my attention and I warily followed it, leaning against the wall near the glass door that led out to Topper's backyard.
