On the front stoop, Isaiah laughs with two Latino guys, then nods to my Jeep parked on the street behind his Mustang. They stop laughing. I agree. I’m not seeing an ounce of humor in this scenario. “This place is no good.”

“They’re my friends,” Beth says. “Scott ripped me away and I never got a chance to say goodbye. You can stay in the car. Just give me twenty minutes, thirty tops. And then we’ll go out. I swear.”

No way in hell is she going in there alone. I register the threat level of the neighborhood and the guys on the porch. “I can’t protect you here.”

“I’m not asking you to. You said you’d wait—”

I cut her off. “When you said you wanted to stop by and say goodbye to some friends. That guy is wearing gang colors.”

She hits the back of her head against the seat. “Ryan. I’m probably never going to see any of them again. Will you please just let me say goodbye?”

Those words, never going to see again and goodbye, are the only reasons I’m saying this.

“Then I’m going in with you.”

“Fine.” She hops out and I follow. She can live under whatever delusion she wants, but she’s no safer here than I am and I’ll go down swinging before anyone hurts her. We reach the front stoop and I see that Isaiah has disappeared. Is it too much to hope that he’s called it a night? The inside of the house is smaller than I expected, and I expected cramped.

The kitchen and living room are really one room put together and separated by the angle of furniture. Teenagers sit everywhere—on the furniture, on the floor. Others lean against walls. A haze of smoke lingers in the room.

Cigarette smoke. Other types of smoke.

I draw the stares of most everyone, but they continue their conversations. The guys size me up. The girls’ eyes wander to my chest. Some outright gawk lower. Beth entwines her hand with mine, then caresses her soft fingers against my cheek, enticing me to drop my head to hers.

“Stay close to me,” she whispers. “Don’t

talk and don’t stare. Things will be better in the backyard.”

For days, I’ve dreamed of Beth being this close to me again, but right now I can only focus on the multiple sets of eyes watching our every movement. Beth turns, holds tighter to my fingers, and leads me through the living room and out the back door of the kitchen.

Several strings of Christmas lights hang between three trees scattered in the narrow yard. A patch of grass grows in the far corner.

The rest of it is a mix of weeds and dirt. In the middle of a ring of worn lawn chairs, Isaiah talks to Noah, a redheaded girl tucked close to Noah, and one of the Latino guys from the stoop.

Noah breaks from the group when he sees Beth. She releases me and falls into his waiting arms. They whisper to one another. I don’t like how he holds on to her and don’t like how long he’s holding. That doesn’t look like brotherly love to me. I stare at his girl. Why is she so damned happy to see her guy hugging someone else?

When he lets her go, Noah extends his hand to me. “S’up.”

I take his hand and squeeze extra tight.

“Nothing. You?”

The moment I squeeze, Noah grins and squeezes back. “Chill, bro. Beth says you’re good, so that makes us good.”

Beth hugs the Latino guy and laughs as he playfully talks in Spanish. “That’s Rico,” says Noah. “Relax. We’ve got your back.”

“It’s Beth I’m worried about. She shouldn’t be here.”

Noah loses the easygoing front. “No, she shouldn’t.”

Beth glances over her shoulder and flashes me that joyous smile—the one I’ve only seen a handful of times.

“Is she wearing a ribbon?” Noah asks in clear disbelief.

Feeling proud, I answer, “I gave it to her.”

“Fucking wonderful,” Noah mumbles as he eyes Isaiah. “Don’t stay long.”

Noah returns to the group and pulls his girl onto a hammock strung along two posts in the ground. The hammock swings gently back and forth as they lie together. Propped up on an elbow, Noah focuses on her. “Echo, that’s Ryan. Ryan, this is my girl.”

Message received. Screw with his girl and he’ll screw with me. “Nice to meet you.”

Echo sits up, but Noah snakes an arm around her waist and drags her back down.

“Beth brought a guy who has manners,” Echo teases him. “See, it’s not so hard.”

Noah pushes her hair over her shoulder, then runs a finger along her arm. “I’ve got manners, baby.”

“No.” She swats at his hand and laughs.

“You don’t.”

Disgust weaves through me as I register what I’m seeing. Scars cover Echo’s arms. I rub a hand over my face. What the hell happened to her? Noah continues to tease Echo and she continues to laugh, yet his tone as he addresses me is a menacing threat. “Stare any longer, Ryan, and I’ll kick your ass.”

“Noah,” Echo reprimands. “Don’t.”

Beth returns to me. “What did I say about staring?”

“I apologize,” I say directly to Echo.

Echo smiles. “See? Manners.”

“Come on,” says Beth. “Let’s get you a beer before you give them a good reason to kick your ass.”

Beth

I MISS LAUGHING.

Most days I can find something amusing to make my lips flinch up. Sometimes it will be funny enough to make me chuckle. But I miss laughing. Really laughing. Laughing to the point that my insides hurt, my chest aches, my face is exhausted from holding the smile.

For effect, Rico stands in the middle of the circle of lawn chairs and in slow motion reenacts how Isaiah and I kept him from being busted for underage drinking this summer by distracting a pair of cops with a very bad mime routine.

“I’m hiding in the bushes and if the police step back, they’d be on top of me. Beth’s just standing there,” Rico chokes out between laughs. “Her arm stiff at the shoulder and her forearm dangling back and forth like a pendulum. The cop asked if she needed medical help. He thought she was having a seizure.”

Everyone, including me, bursts into laugher.

Rico composes himself to spit out the rest.

“And she breaks her self-imposed silence and says, ‘I’m a mime, you moron. Why do you think I’ve been doing all these retarded moves?’”

Everyone laughs harder and as our group gasps for air Rico glances at Ryan. “Incluso el nino blanco se esta riendo.”

I’m not fluent in Spanish, but I know enough to pick out the words white boy and laughter.

My heart shivers when I catch Ryan at the tail end of a chuckle. He’s always cute, but he’s breathtaking when he laughs.

Rico lifts his beer to his lips, then tosses it across the yard. “I’m out.”

Isaiah tips the cooler. “We’re all out, man.”

“Isaiah, help me snag some of Antonio’s stash, then we’ll hit the mota.”

Mota. Weed. The layer between my skin and muscles itches. I want a hit. More like I crave a hit—the smell surrounding me, the smoke burning my lungs, the feeling of freedom and floating. Oh God, I want more than anything to float.

Isaiah stands and Rico kicks my foot as he passes. “You’re in, right, Beth?”

It kills me to shake my head. “Curfew.”

I peek at Ryan. Does he know what mota is?

The smile falls from my lips as I flip through the stories we’ve told. Oh crap, I feel sick. The drinking. The drugs. The parties. He heard it all. My stomach sways. He knows what I am.

“Beth,” says Isaiah. He waits until I look at him. “The stuff is mild. You’ll be sober by curfew.”

“Isaiah,” Noah warns.

Isaiah would never steer me wrong. If he says I’ll be sober in an hour, then I will be. He knows how much I long for weightlessness. A loud crashing noise comes from the house. I know these people. Ryan doesn’t. I can’t leave him defenseless. “No, I’m good.”

“Suit yourself.” Rico heads into the house.

Isaiah stares at me and I don’t understand the gleam in his eye. Abruptly, he follows Rico.

In the hammock, Noah begins to kiss Echo.

The two of them will be lost in their own world for the rest of the night and Isaiah will easily  be gone ten minutes. The night has been fun, but it’s also made me the rope in a strange invisible tug-of-war. Ryan sat on one side of me. Isaiah the other. It felt weird to be next to both my best friend and the guy I really like.

Why can’t Isaiah see that we’re just friends?

Friends only. I need to talk to him before I leave. I need to straighten this whole mess out.

Honestly, I just need to hear him say that he didn’t mean it and that he’s still my best friend.

Ryan stands, stretches, and walks over to the tree on the opposite side of the yard. I glance over my shoulder at the house. I’ve been careful not to rub Ryan in Isaiah’s face, but I need to make sure Ryan’s okay too. Yeah, Isaiah will be gone for a while. Rico’s a slow tripper.

I follow after Ryan. “You don’t have to move for Noah and Echo’s sake.”

Hundreds of Christmas lights hang from the tree. His sun-kissed skin is beautiful under their glow. “I didn’t move because of them.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Then why did you?”

Ryan inclines his head and his eyes roam my body as if savoring the sight. “You’re beautiful when you laugh.”

Warmth blazes on my cheeks and I break eye contact. Ryan reaches out and touches me.

His fingers linger on my neckline and the whisper of his caress on my skin heats my blood.

“You should laugh more,” he says.

I swallow. “Life hasn’t given me much to laugh about.”

“I could change that.” Ryan invades my personal space and every part of him connects with a part of me.

I inhale and smell the delicious scent of earth after the rain. “You smell good,” I say.

His hand glides along the curve of my spine and into my hair. Chills energize my body. “So do you. You always smell like roses.”

I giggle at the thought of me smelling sweet and bite my lip to stop the girlish reaction. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”

Ryan’s lips form that glorious smile with dimples and my blood tingles straight to my toes. This smile is for me and me alone.

“There are lots of things I want to say to you, Beth, and I want to be the first to say them to you.”

Intense hunger glazes his eyes. I’ve seen the same look on other guys, but on Ryan it’s different. That stare has more depth—more meaning—as if he’s seeing inside me.

“I want to kiss you,” he murmurs. “Do you want to kiss me?”

My heart beats faster. Oh, Ryan can kiss.

I’ve stayed awake at night and replayed his lips against mine. His kisses are strong like him, possessive and demanding. Ryan said beautiful things to me in the barn and he touched me in ways I only dreamed someone could touch me.

My fingers burrow into his thick hair. “Yes.”