Tempted Hearts (bxb)

Chapter 12 - Party Crashers

"What are we gonna do?" I sighed, slumping in my seat. In reality, I knew that Lilly wouldn't let go of this. She'd always been the sort of person to seek justice and vengeance. She was someone who was good at confrontations. This is something I'd never been good at until the incident with Charlie. Maybe Lilly was starting to rub off on me a little more.

"I know what I'm going to do. I'm gonna storm back in there and confront her. I still can't believe that she could be so two-faced," Lilly said, holding her newly-printed grades certificate in her hands. "Well, I mean I can, but..."

I nodded. I could see the hurt in her eyes. The two had clearly been getting on better recently, and it was nice to see her bonding with her brother, too. Obviously, their relationship didn't mean much to Emily. It was her loss.

"You can never be too sure,' I remarked, looking out the car window into the darkness of the empty school parking lot.

Lilly then sat upright in her seat, a spark of malintent almost visible in her eyes as she buckled her belt. "C'mon," she said, "we've got a party to crash."

It wasn't long before the booming bass of modern dance music could be heard and butterflies began to emerge from their cocoons within my stomach just thinking about what could happen with Emily and Lilly. Maybe the music could drown out Lilly's anger and she could just shake it off and confront Emily tomorrow. But going on the fixed furrow in her brow alone, I could tell that shit was gonna go down.

We exited her car and headed straight inside, entering the house as a girl I didn't recognise threw up in the hallway, all over Liam's cream walls. We managed to side-step around her and make our way back into the thick of it.

For some reason, the first thing I noticed was  Cameron dancing with a girl. Strangely enough, this sight didn't make me feel as satisfied as I thought it would. We continued on out into the back garden where the second thing I noticed was Jake downing another drink, standing on a table on the patio while a group of people I recognised from school cheered him on.

Lilly shook her head, probably thinking about how difficult it'd be to get him into bed that night. Then, to the right, we could see Emily and her friends laughing and singing along to the music, practically all over each other. Lilly stormed over to the group and I wasn't far behind, acting as her backup, which to be fair, was in essence worse than nothing.

"Lilly!" A voice then sounded. Alex ran up to Lilly and gave her a hug from behind. "I was so worried, where did you go?" she asked, looking her in the eyes and practically draping over her.

"Not right now--"

"Wow, your eyes are such a nice colour! I'm tired," she giggled. Lilly signalled to me that she was going to try and put her to bed somewhere with a flick of her head in the direction of the house.

I nodded, turning around to see Cameron behind me. "Woah, hey, Cameron... What's--What's up?" I greeted him, my throat constricting a little.

He looked hurt and I felt just terrible for wanting to reject him. "Max, why didn't you just tell me that you weren't into me, man?" he contested, his slurred, drunken tone making me feel a little better.

"Look, I'm really sorry. I feel awful about it, but I'm just..." I struggled to get the words out.

He chuckled at my struggle which was completely unexpected, considering the tone of the conversation beforehand. "You've got your eyes on someone else, don't you?"

I didn't answer him. "Bad news for you is he's straight," he said before pointing towards Jake, which brought my attention to a silver ring on his index finger. I swallowed hard. If only he knew.