Fire Starter

Chapter Twenty One

I text Brad the night that he had given me his number, asking for the details of the party. He told me that it was at the Red Pier which started at ten this Saturday.

Then later on I got a mysterious text from an unknown number saying:

--Why'd u leave so early? Hopin' 2 see u this weekend. Xx

Then another.

--Max, btw.

I never understood why they always put an x at the end of a text, but his x's made me uncomfortable. Since I was technically British, should I have started placing x at the end of my texts? Wasn't that a sign for love? Or a kiss?

There could have only been one place where he'd gotten my number.

Why did Brad give him my number anyway? What would I possibly do if Zayn asks to see my phone, only to find his creepy ass friend in my inbox.

Of course there was that possibility of deleting texts, but there was also the possibility of receiving a new text message from Max while Zayn was using my phone.

Maybe there'll never come a time when he'll ask to use it because he's got his own anyway.

"You good, over there?" Mason had asked me, peering at me from the big couch that he was laying on.

It was my knitted eyebrows that gave away my emotions, but I avoided his question and asked my own. "What are you doing on Halloween?"

He eyed me idly, "Going to a party. Why?"

"The one at the Red Pier?" I press, sliding the phone beneath my thigh.

"How do you know about that?" Mason sat up, now astonished. If it was shocking enough to make an extremely lazy person sit up in curiosity, then something here was important. "Did Zayn mention it? Is he actually going?" Maybe, I shouldn't have been so specific and so abrupt. I should have played dumb.

"He might have," I used Zayn in the lie to protect myself. "Why is it even important?"

"Zayn never really goes to our parties anymore. Are you serious that he's going?"

I wondered drastically for a moment why he'd claimed it as ours, as opposed to theirs. But it was just a passing thought.

"He might have been on the phone with some guy named Matt? Or Mark? I forgot, but he said he was thinking about it." This was me playing stupid and lying.

You're going hell, Nicole.

"He was on the phone with Max? Are you completely shitting me?" Mason was excited, and so was I, because this investigation was like taking candy from a baby.

Stupid Mason... but I was learning to love this guy like the annoying brother that I never had nor wanted.

"I'm not sure. But let's not tell Zayn that I was eavesdropping," I fibbed like I was born and raised in hell. This was bad.

Then when I asked, Mason started telling me about his step-cousin Max who had been having parties nearly every weekend in a house that he had bought that was designated as their little gang's home. The hang outs were there during the week and house parties there on the weekend. It was on a dock by the pier that Max owned as part of the property and it surrounded by what seemed to be described as the woods. I imagined it like some sort of lake house. In return of giving me information, Mason wanted me to keep my mouth shut.

The conversation ended up staying between the two of us while Zayn was taking his night class.

This felt so sneaky and wrong, but I wanted to know all the information that I could before I went to the party. I didn't want to be piecing together and processing things in the midst of it all. And though Mason wanted me to make sure Zayn was coming, I was going to make sure he wouldn't. I wasn't his girlfriend, and the last thing I wanted was for us to be seen at the same party, and accused of dating because a little lie that I made.