The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(9)

“Big fight?” I ask. I know Grace told me not to mention it, but isn’t that what tonight’s about?

“Big enough that I either have to dump the jerk or somehow forget how pissed I am at him.” Riley crosses the room, grabbing a half-full bottle of wine from behind a rolled-up sleeping bag. She waves it at me. “Guess which I chose.”

“Forgetting by way of wine? I approve,” I say.

“You know we’ve been together for three years?” she says. Riley yanks the cork out of the bottle. With her sexy dress and wild curls, she makes heartache look romantic. “We used to be so in love. Like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Romeo and Juliet died at the end of that play, Ri,” Grace points out. She crouches next to the milk crate and pulls out a bag of caramel corn and a plastic jar of Nutella. “Not a great sign.”

“Whatever.” Riley lifts the wine bottle to her mouth and drinks, deep. “This is just a blip. Josh and I are forever.”

Grace hands me a spoon. “You eat it like this,” she says. She unscrews the jar and dumps the caramel corn inside, then stirs the mixture with a spoon. “It tastes like heaven. Seriously.”

I take a tentative bite. It’s salty and sweet and crunchy at the same time. I dig another spoonful out of the jar. The corner of Riley’s mouth hitches into a grin.

“So what’s going on with you and Charlie?”

“What?” I stick another spoonful of Nutella and caramel corn in my mouth to cover my embarrassment. “There’s no me and Charlie,” I say, swallowing.

“Oh please. I saw the way you undressed his photo with your eyes.” Riley collapses onto a pile of pillows and lifts the wine bottle to her mouth again. “You want him.”

“Does Sofia have a crush already?” Alexis asks.

“It’s not a crush,” I insist, heat creeping up my neck with every word. “I just . . .like his arms.”

Alexis falls back onto the pillows, laughing, and Grace makes kissy noises at me as I hand over the spoon and Nutella.

“My, what fabulous taste you have. Charlie’s a ten.” Riley smoothes her dress down over her thighs. “I could probably make that happen for you. If you wanted.”

“Make that happen?” I say. “We’re not dogs. You can’t throw us in a room and hope we mate.”

“Can’t I?” Riley fixes those pale blue eyes on me, and I immediately realize how wrong I am. Riley clearly gets whatever she wants, no matter how insane it sounds.

“Wait a second,” Grace says. “How come I never got this offer with Tom?”

“Tom doesn’t know what the hell he wants, Gray. You could do so much better. But Charlie . . . Charlie I could work with.”

Riley pushes herself to her knees and leans forward, brushing the back of her hand against my cheek. “And just look at Sofia. Isn’t she completely gorgeous? She was made to have someone fall insanely in love with her.”

My skin tingles where Riley touches it. Her words spark something inside me. I picture Charlie sliding an arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. I feel the heat of his lips against mine, and my body tightens with want. My past boyfriends have always been more of the fumble-around-in-the-dark variety. There was never any talk of love.

I shake my head, suddenly embarrassed. “I’m confused—I thought Charlie was friends with Brooklyn.”

Riley frowns, staring at me over the top of the wine bottle. “Why would you think that?”

“No reason, really. He just said hi to her in the lunch line yesterday.”

Alexis’s lips move as she counts the kernels of popcorn in her hand. “That boy is too nice for his own good,” she mutters.

“We all used to be friends, you know,” Riley says. “Brooklyn, too.”

“I would once again like to point out that this was BG,” Grace says. “Before Grace. Otherwise known as the Dark Ages.”

“It’s also before Brooklyn started dressing like an Urban Outfitters catalog,” Riley adds, fingering the hem of her dress. “She used to be really sweet, but once we started high school, she just . . . changed.”

I think of the way Brooklyn narrowed her eyes at Riley in the cafeteria, aiming an imaginary gun at her head. “Why?”

“No one knows.” Riley spins the wine bottle with her fingertips, leaving a red ring behind on the floor. She picks it up and passes it to Alexis. “Sometimes I wonder if it’s a cry for help. Like maybe God wants us to save her. But we’ve all tried to talk to her, and she won’t listen. I think there’s just too much history between us.”

“She was even horrible to Grace,” Alexis says, passing me the wine bottle. “And she barely knows her.”

“She was okay to me,” I say. I let the wine roll over my tongue, holding it in my mouth.

“Really?” Grace asks.

I shrug. “I mean, we didn’t paint each other’s nails or anything, but she gave me a Band-Aid.”

Alexis snickers. “Can you imagine doing your nails with Brooklyn? I bet every bottle of polish she owns is black.”

Alexis giggles even harder, but Riley suddenly sits up straight.

“Wait a second. Maybe you should,” she says. There’s a manic, excited light in her pale eyes—and she’s aiming them right at me. “Hang out with Brooklyn, I mean. I don’t think she’s seen you with us yet. You can find out why she’s such a bitch now.”