Hunter shoved his phone in his pocket and hopped to his feet to clap Luke on the back. I hadn’t even noticed Luke approach, what with the lack of light and the swarm of bodies. There must have been at least thirty people in the room. “Hey, Finn’s in the yard,” Luke said. I couldn’t hear Hunter’s reply, as they turned to walk off together, leaving me alone on the couch.

He hadn’t even said bye to me. And there I’d thought we were couch buddies.

I also wondered if he happened to be the guy who’d called his girlfriend a psycho once. If so, I hoped Finn and Brougham didn’t let that shit slide if he said it out loud. But, on a positive note, if it was him, at least he had the ability to learn. His message couldn’t have been more suited to soothe an activated attachment system if I’d written it myself. The thought injected a little warmth into my otherwise sour mood.

Even still, I was out of emotional energy to do anything but sit alone and observe.

Which I did. I observed Brooke and Ray get into some sort of chugging competition with Jaz acting as referee.

I observed Alexei working the room, dropping in on various conversations and making sure the living room stayed reasonably clean and tidy, which made sense given their parents were just upstairs. While they were obviously in the running to win the “most chilled-out parents” award, I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate a trashed house, and it wasn’t like Alexei could do a quick cleanup to hide the evidence if things got out of hand.

I observed Finn glide into the living room from the direction of the backyard, look around slowly, then sort of drift unsteadily down the hall. He might have been going to the bathroom, but he looked … odd. I wasn’t otherwise engaged, so I followed him, half out of concern, half out of curiosity. He wandered down the hall ahead of me in no great rush, taking in the family photos hanging on the wall, and the ceiling, and his own feet. He paused at the bathroom, looked in, then kept walking. He found a door, pushed it open and slid inside, leaving it open behind him.

I peeked around it. I half-expected to find someone else in there, but it was just Finn, spinning around slowly in the center of the room on top of a cream shag rug. The room was a sort of second living room/study combination, with a heavy chestnut desk, a ceiling-high bookshelf running along half a wall, and a maroon sofa and armchair set up by an expensive-looking coffee table.

I knocked to announce myself and walked in. “Hey, dude. I’m not sure we’re meant to be in this end of the house.”