Liam, Tate’s roommate, was a hardcore-personality type with a Mohawk who reminded me of Mohawk Guy. Except Liam wasn’t your average systems engineer who made the ladies “swoon,” as they call it. No, Liam Foster was another kind of animal who enjoyed making the ladies come. Worse than Caleb Roth ever thought to be, Liam was the reigning king of womanizing.

He was screwing some chick on the couch when the seven of us walked into their apartment in Miami.

The light-haired girl looked up at us in horror and tried to worm her way out from underneath him, but Liam wasn’t having it and pushed her back down.

“Fucking be still, girl,” he said, thrusting in and out of her.

“Liam, there’s people in the fucking room!” she said through her teeth.

“So what?” he said. “They’ll get over it. I’m almost done.”

“Fuck, Liam!” she shouted.

“That’s what I’m trying to do!” he said in return.

“Ugh! You know what I mean!”

Liam stopped midthrust. He looked over at us.

“Is this bothering any of you?” he asked.

“Fucking yes it bothers me!” Jen spat. She pushed her way through us and went into the kitchen.

The rest of us pretty much shook our heads and averted our eyes. Tate waved it off and headed into the kitchen after Jen. Bray and I started to follow, while Caleb sat down in the recliner and brought Grace down in his lap. Johanna just stood there.

Liam looked down into the girl’s aghast face. “Are you satisfied?”

“Hardly,” she said with a sexually sarcastic undertone.

“Well, you will be soon, but you’ve got to let me finish.”

As if that was enough reason for her, she said “Fine” and dug her fingernails into Liam’s back.

We entered the kitchen before he returned to business.

“Sorry, I know it’s really not my place to ask, but doesn’t he have a room?” Bray spoke up.

“Dammit, Tate,” Jen snapped, “that’s fucking nasty. Why do you let him do that shit?”

Tate opened the fridge and leaned over inside. “I’m sorry, babe. I’ll talk to him.” He looked at me then. “Yeah, he does have a room. But Liam is… well, he’s hard to explain.” He came out with a bottle of mustard and a package of sandwich meat and set it on the counter.

“Liam’s a sick man-whore. Simple to explain, really,” Jen retorted, got a bottle of water from the fridge, and left the kitchen.

“He’s moving back to Phoenix in a few months,” Tate said. He reached inside the bread bag that had been pushed up against the toaster and pulled out two slices. “I love Liam and all, but I look forward to having this place to myself.”

“Does Jen live here?” Bray asked, probably trying to imagine how that would work with Liam’s broadcasted activities.

“Want a sandwich?” Tate cut in real quick.

Bray shook her head and I did, too, when he glanced at me.

“No, Jen has her own apartment not far from here. We can’t live together. Tried it once. Didn’t work out. She can’t stand my shit bein’ all over the place, and my biggest fear is getting so used to each other that she thinks it’s OK to take a shit with me in the bathroom. Not. Fucking. Sexy.” He pointed the mustard bottle at us to emphasize each word.

“So, we’re going to a party tonight,” he added. “A great underground band is playing. Liam’s brother is the bass player. You up for it?”

Another party. I had a feeling we’d be doing a lot of that from here on out.

“Yeah, definitely,” I said and Bray agreed.

Miami ended up being more a drop-off place. After watching Liam’s brother’s band play we spent only one night there, most of us laid out on beanbags and furniture in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. The next day, Tate drove Caleb to some guy’s house, and the rest of us sat outside in the Jeep while Caleb went inside and did business with the drugs he brought back with him from Norfolk.

I liked our new friends, but something about Caleb kept me on edge. Part of it was the drug dealing, but there was something else, too. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I got really bad vibes from him. He never talked much. Mostly he gave his attention to Johanna or Grace, or both at the same time, and at times he spoke to Tate. But he wasn’t the kind of guy to warm up so easily to someone new. Maybe never. But he left us alone, and that was good enough for me.

It seemed that my and Bray’s problems—the small ones, anyway—had been solved now that we were with Tate. Jen and Grace both shared clothes with Bray. And Tate, realizing that I was just as needy in the clean clothing department, offered me some of his extra stuff. We had a ride and always a place to go, whether we were crashing at some random beach house with friends of Tate’s, or in a hotel room somewhere on Tate’s dime, or just on the beach in places Tate knew we wouldn’t get caught. Bray and I were finally able to breathe since Jana’s death. Life became more relaxed. Our safe zone had started to cocoon us. And we had only been with them for a little over a week.

Things were going smoothly—so smoothly, in fact, that the changes I started seeing in Bray didn’t concern me as much as they would have if I had been in a more alert frame of mind.

It took one night in a waterfront beach house to know that I didn’t know my girlfriend, the love of my life, as much as I thought I did.

And it broke my fucking heart.

Chapter Fifteen Elias

The beach house was one of the most immaculate I had seen, overlooking the ocean. It had a massive boat dock just steps away from the backyard, which itself looked like something you’d see in a landscaping magazine. Every room in the house was like walk-in luxury, with expensive ceramic tile floors and intricate paintings and designer furniture that I was afraid to touch and leave fingerprints on. I thought that a place like this, so rich and clean, couldn’t possibly belong to any of Tate’s friends. The last few houses we had visited looked more like my apartment did back in Georgia: a bachelor pad.

Turned out, this was Jen’s parents’ house, and they were in the Bahamas on vacation. So, naturally, we turned it into a party spot.

The music bumped through the speakers in the living room ceiling. Bray and I were sitting together, kicked back on the couch with a mixed drink in our hands while Tate and Jen and a few others danced to “Pony” by Ginuwine in the center of the room. There were people sitting on every piece of furniture, and as I got up and went into the kitchen to trade my mixed drink for a beer, I saw that even the countertops were occupied.

Caleb was one of the occupants. He sat near the sink with a half pint of Jack Daniels between his legs. Johanna was on his left, leaning her head against his shoulder. She had a dazed look in her eyes, but with her that wasn’t unusual—she always appeared dazed even when she was sober.

“I have a question for you,” Caleb said.

I was surprised by his voice. He had never made much of an effort to have a conversation with me before. Now that he had, I was leery of it.

I shut the fridge and leaned against the counter beside it, twisting the top off my beer.

“Yeah, what’s that?” I asked before taking a swig.

Caleb moved the whiskey from between his legs to one side. He took his time. “Why didn’t you call the cops when your car was stolen?”

“What makes you think I didn’t?”

“I heard you talking about it with your girlfriend the other night.”

So Caleb was the quiet, observant type. I didn’t give him enough credit. Up until this point I didn’t take him for the type to give any kind of shit about what other people had to say.