Then, Colin pulls back and presses his lips against my cheek. It’s so odd that I’m frozen in place. But as I pull away, I see the eyes watching me from across the room.

My heart thuds in my chest.

Colin rests his arm over my shoulder as he turns to face Tia and Ryder, smiling like we were in the middle of a fun conversation. He’s making it look like I’m comfortable with him, when I am anything but. It’s obvious to me, but it’s not obvious to the seething eyes that look like they could stare daggers into the both of us.

He’s standing with his friends, with an empty-looking bottle in his hand. I shift away from Colin, but I still feel a pang of guilt as he watches me. I didn’t do a damn thing wrong.

Ryder leans forward and pulls me away from Colin.

I can tell he’s been drinking because his eyes are rimmed red, and they keep landing on Tia who hasn’t left my side all night. He’s been emotional all week. I know the news about Murph hit him harder than he expected it to. Almost daily, I’d find him sitting silently in his room, pouring over pictures on his phone, probably trying to reconcile this news with the childhood he remembers.

“We should say something...to the crowd,” Ryder whispers to me, his voice slurred in my ear.

“Where’s Ruby?” I ask, looking around for the woman who I last saw serving people drinks to others when they should have been doing that for her.

“I can go find her,” he says. “We should get up there together. All of us.”

I swallow down my emotions as I squeeze his arm. “I’ll get him,” I whisper. “Go find Ruby.”

He smiles and disappears into the crowd.

Taking a deep breath, I cross the room and approach Murph standing against the bar, staring miserably out into the darkness through the window. His friends are still standing by his side though he looks to be terrible company.

“We should say something,” I mumble. He turns and looks at me, his eyes freezing on my face for a long moment. I think for a moment that he might kiss me, but he doesn’t. His blinks are slow. He’s had way too much to drink. This is a bad idea.

I almost explain that Colin ambushed me. That I was being polite and would never crawl into bed with someone he hated so much, but I decide not to. I don’t owe him that explanation, and after our last conversation, he doesn’t deserve it.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, but an announcement would be nice. Just a thank you for coming or an invitation to share something about her.”