I rolled over and looked at him. I’d never actually seen Declan in a mood. But this was one.

“Is everything okay?”

“I’m just thinking about how I’m going to have to clean up this hole tomorrow,” he said. “You know Kane will sleep until dinnertime.”

“It’s not a big deal. I can help.”

When he set down his Rolling Stone, I knew that that wasn’t all of it. “Also. I’ve been thinking. About the future.”

I should’ve known. Declan was always thinking heavy thoughts. I wished he could relax and not think about heavy things for just one night. Have fun. Hell, especially on New Year’s Eve. “You have to think about that stuff tonight?”

“It’s a new year, Hail. You ever wonder where you’ll be next year at this time? What you’ll have accomplished? Whether you’ll be better off, or worse?”

I smiled, and those thoughts I’d had earlier in the winter vacation flooded me again. “You’ll have graduated high school. And you’ll be at Penn. And we’ll be together, Declan. Right?”

He nodded.

Set in stone, I’d thought. We’re forever. “So what’s there to worry about?”

He put up a finger. “I never said I was worrying. Just thinking.”

I sighed. “Anyone ever tell you that you think too much?”

“Yes. You.”

I checked the clock on his nightstand. It was still an hour until midnight. “Don’t you want to kiss me at midnight?”

His face broke out in a grin. “Why wait ’til midnight? Come here.”

I tilted my chin toward him, and he leaned down and gave me a very chaste kiss, then started to put his arm around me. I knew where we were headed. Hours and hours of fooling around. Declan was still frustrating me, since I always knew where we would stop. I wriggled out of his arms and stood up.

“You know what? I think I’ll go down for a little longer. But I’ll be back up for midnight. Or…you can come down?”

He frowned and shook his head slowly.

“Fine,” I grumbled, giving him the finger. He grabbed my extended middle finger with his own and we had a little sword fight with them. I laughed, but that was more the beer than anything else. Deep down, I was disappointed. And maybe he was disappointed with me too.

Downstairs, I breathed in the chaos excitedly. Kane was now at the center island, doling out orange Jell-O shots. He had on an Abraham Lincoln hat, no clue where that’d come from, and again I wished my phone was working, or I had more than one stinking shot left in my camera. I took a Jell-O shot and let the orange glob tumble down my throat, squeezing the paper cup to get the whole thing out. “Where’s Luisa?” I asked him.