He Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 1)

The Party: Tyler

I can see why Matt chose to sit this one out. Trevor’s plan here seems a bit dangerous, but I help him stack his bed on top of his dressers to make a weird sort of loft anyway. I just hope it’s a sturdier setup than it looks. And don’t even get me started on what he made me do to his desk.

I head off to take a quick shower, realizing time is ticking away and it's almost time to go. It doesn’t help that the door to my bathroom is closed, meaning I’m going to have to wait.

“It’s just Aly in there,” Matt tells me as he creeps up behind me. “We were talking and then she got upset suddenly, and I can’t figure out exactly why. So, I don’t know, but maybe you should go in there and talk to her. She’s been in there a while.”

I take a breath and decide that’s what I’m going to do. I open the door and look in to find that Aly is just sitting in my bathtub. She looks like she has been crying. I step in and close the door, and she just watches me silently.

“What’s going on?” I ask her softly.

“Nothing. I’m just being dumb,” she says.

I hate that she always calls herself dumb when she’s feeling emotional. Emotions aren’t dumb. They’re just part of being human.

“I’ve never witnessed you being dumb,” I tell her. “I don’t think it’s possible. But seriously, talk to me.”

“It really is nothing,” she persists. “I just had a moment where I realized he was the wrong person to be talking to about … stuff. I got self-conscious and I don’t know. Decided to hide, I guess.”

I step into the tub and crouch down in front of her frog-style, looking into her face and searching for, I don’t even know. A way to get her to let me in, I guess. Not finding any, and knowing we are already low on time, I decide to switch tactics to my default flirty mode.

“Alright, well, if you want to talk to me about anything, I’m always here for you, but right now, I need to get naked. Want to join?”

She laughs and shakes her head. “I’ll pass this time. I already have my hair and makeup done for the party. I’ll be waiting for you out there, though,” she tells me as she points to the door.

At least I got her to smile.

I take her hand and help her out of the tub, and then watch her make her way to the door and leave me to it. I take a record-breaking shower, dress quickly in dark jeans and a black t-shirt, and then make my way to the living room.

It looks like Meredith is here now, and she and Aly are laughing about something when I come out. Matt and Trevor are sitting together on the couch, and I can’t help noticing how Matt is staring at Aly. Well, maybe not staring, but he is definitely watching her more than anything else. I wonder what they were talking about that upset her so much and has him so worried about her.

“Alright, I’m ready,” I declare to the room.

Trevor gives a whoop and gets up, grabbing Meredith as he makes his way to the door. I grab Aly, and Matt brings up the rear. It strikes me as odd that he is the solo one for once. Usually, it’s me without a date.

The party we’re going to is only about a seven-minute walk from our place on foot. We can hear the music thumping about a block away, and Trevor starts getting riled up. His whoops seem contagious because before long we hear someone across the street answering him with some cheers of their own. I will never understand why he gets so excited about parties. He’s a bit of a lightweight, and in the morning, he is going to be miserable.

Aly reaches out and clutches my hand and I can feel the nerves radiating from her.

“I bet this is your first college party,” I say.

She nods. “Yeah, honestly it’s my first party that isn’t being thrown by my dad. His parties are probably nothing like this. They certainly sound nothing like this.”

We all chuckle at that. Meredith drops Trevor’s hand and steps back to keep pace with Aly, putting her arm around her.

“We got you,” she reassures her.

I kind of love Meredith in that moment. Aly has been having a nerve-wracking day, full of so many new people and experiences, so I’m glad my friends and I are here to take care of her.

“You’re going to love this,” Meredith continues. “There will be plenty of booze to help with those nerves, and we can dance it all away. Sometimes, there’s games. Twister is a whole other experience when you’ve been drinking.”

Aly giggles, and I can feel her relax a little.

“That does sound fun,” she agrees.

We make our way up onto the porch, already having to push through the crowd a bit. I keep a tight grip on Aly’s hand so she doesn’t get lost in the shuffle. Once we get through all the wallflowers just standing around, it’s not so bad. Like Meredith said, there’s space to dance and hangout.

Meredith grabs her away from me and leads her over to dance with some other girls. I decide to head to the kitchen to see what there is to drink and grab something for Aly too. I’ve already lost track of Trevor and Matt, but I know they’ll be fine on their own. I also trust that Meredith won’t leave Aly alone after how good she was with her just a bit ago.

I run into some of my buddies from school and stop to talk to them for a couple minutes. I’m on my way to get in line for the keg when I hear my name.

“Hey, Jenkins!” one of my workout buddies, Theo, yells at me.  

“Theresa is out back,” he tells me. “Have you seen her yet?”

Oh man. I completely forgot about Theresa. She is this girl I was trying to get with last year. I didn’t succeed, and I feel like he knows that, so I have to wonder what he’s on about right now.

“Uh, no, but that’s okay. I’m here with someone,” I tell him.

“Oh, for real? That’s cool,” he says. “So, uh, you mind if I go talk to her, then?”

Oh, that’s what he wants. I couldn’t care less about Theresa right now. It’s cool that he asked first, though.

“Yeah, sure. I’m over her,” I say. “I’m going to grab a couple beers and head back to my girl.”

He smirks and turns back the other way, probably to where Theresa apparently is. I head over and get in line at the keg. Once I finally have two drinks in hand, I make my way back to where I last saw Aly and look around for her. No sign of her or Meredith.

I wander around for a couple minutes, elbowing my way through the crowd here and there while juggling the drinks that are probably getting warm and gross by now. Eventually, I decide to look downstairs where I can hear a lot of hooting and hollering. I see when I get down there that this is where the Twister game Meredith was talking about is going on. I also notice that she is playing, but Aly is still nowhere to be found.

Now I’m starting to get a little nervous. Aly is an adult, and a pretty bad-ass one at that, but I still don’t like the idea of her wandering around here alone. At this point, I don’t even care about the drinks anymore and end up handing them off to a couple guys who seem appreciative of my generosity. I make my way back upstairs and decide to check outside.

At first, I don’t see any sign of her out there, either, but then I hear her giggle. It sounds like she is around the side of the house. My stomach kind of drops a little at that realization. That’s a place people might go to get a little privacy. I’m starting to wonder if the other guy she likes goes to this school and that is the real reason she came here. Maybe she ran into him at the party, and now they’re over there making out or something.

I pick up my pace and head over there, dreading what I might see when I turn the corner. It looks like I got all worked up over nothing, though. It’s just her and Matt standing there together. They are a bit cozy, but Matt is with Jessica and would never do something to jeopardize that. Granted, Jess wouldn’t like seeing this, but I’m sure it’s innocent. He and Aly did have some weird fight or whatever it was earlier, so they’re probably just talking now.

I holler out to them, and they both turn and seem glad to see me. If there were anything to be worried about, they wouldn’t be so happy to see me, so I let it go.