Rayston Point Road || Editing

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was nine o'clock Friday night when Andie finally texted me, a short, five-word text with a location, a time and the instructions to wear black. I had almost forgotten about her instructions to keep myself free today, as they had been given to me four days ago when I last saw her, and when I texted her back for more information, she didn't respond, but the small indicator under my message told me that she had read it. I resigned myself to following her instructions, changing into a pair of black jeans, a dark hoodie, and sneakers. When I went downstairs, Leighton was sitting in the office off the base of the stairs, and she turned when she heard me descending them.

"Hey," she called softly, the bright light of her laptop behind her shadowing her face as she turned around in the office chair to look at me. "Where are you going so late?" I wanted to roll my eyes at her idea of just past nine being late, but resisted the urge to, knowing it wouldn't help my case, especially since I didn't have an honest answer for her that would placate her. With the information from Andie's text, she would only suspect the worst.

"I'm just going to Andie's," I answered, leaning against the door frame of the office. "She's just having a small bonfire, wanted to wait until the sun actually went down."

"Are you coming home?"

"Yeah, but probably not till late. Don't wait up, okay?" Leighton nodded as if she agreed, the slight sag of her shoulders and the growing circles under her eyes indicating that she was too tired and too preoccupied with work to argue, but I knew she still wouldn't sleep until she heard me come home. "If anything changes, I'll text you."

"Have fun, baby. Be safe." Leighton smiled softly at me before turning back around in her chair as I took a step back, watching her curiously as she gave in to my plans without much of an argument for what felt like the first time, before I turned and reached for the door, slipping outside into the ever-warm Georgia air.

It took me only a few minutes to reach the location Andie had texted me, the baseball field just down the road, and when I pulled into the dirt parking lot, there were three other cars already parked there, headlights off. As my own lights shined across the space, it illuminated the crowd piled in and around the bed of Mac's truck, including Andie, who started waving at me excitedly. I pulled up next to her car, two over from Mac's truck, and tucked my keys into the back pocket of my jeans as I joined Andie. She bounced energetically on her feet as I neared her, throwing her arms around me in a hug.

"What the hell is going on?" I asked, backing away from her and taking in the rest of the group. Diego, Lee, and Alex were all seated on the back of Mac's truck, their legs dangling off the edge. Mac was sitting on the side behind them, his back to me, long dark hair brushing against the skin of his arm he had wrapped around a girl that I didn't need to see the face of to know. Sasha was standing between Diego's legs, his arms draped over her shoulder and his chin resting on her shoulder, Mariana between Lee's with Vi standing in front of her, both of them casting me an unimpressed, sideways glance as I approached. Connor was leaning up against the side of the truck, and smiled at me as Andie pulled me closer to the group and then let go of my hand, leaning back into Connor's chest as he wrapped his arms around her waist.

"You'll see. We're just waiting on Verano," Connor grinned at me, resting his chin on Andie's neck. I didn't need to look around again to confirm that Isaac wasn't here. I had realized almost immediately, my eyes scanning the crowd of faces for the only one that I had seen consistently this week, for a lunch two days ago that turned into an all-afternoon excursion into the parts of Rayston I still didn't know, take-out breakfast from the diner at AJ's while Isaac attempted to fix the air conditioning in my car.

"Don't worry, he's almost here" Andie winked at me. "And this'll be fun. You'll love it." I narrowed my eyes at her skeptically before they flashed over to Diego, who had turned his head towards me.