“You don’t have to keep saying that,” I say shyly.

  “Yes, I do.”

  He’s not too shabby either. Tall and broad, showing everyone else how a suit’s supposed to be worn. I can’t stop running my hands down the soft, crisp length of his lapels. It’s oddly hypnotizing.

  “We can leave anytime if you’re uncomfortable,” he whispers into my ear as he rests his hands on my hips, dancing close to me.

  “No, I’m having a great time,” I assure him. “Kind of feels like we time traveled here, you know? Got a do-over.”

  He smiles and pulls me tighter against his chest, his fingertips gently drawing circles against the small of my back. “I know what you mean. I wasn’t sure I’d ever come back to one of these things. Definitely wouldn’t have guessed we’d be here together.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it…” I start.

  “Yeah?” Fenn looks down to meet my eyes.

  “Where we went wrong the first time.”

  “All right…”

  He’s understandably wary. We did make each other a promise that if we were going to do second chances, it meant leaving the past behind. No throwing our mistakes in each other’s faces every time we have an argument. We now operate in a strict guilt-free zone.

  “We have to agree to trust each other with the truth.”

  His shoulders relax on a relieved exhale. “That sounds reasonable.”

  “Like, I’d rather someone be honest with me than try to spare my feelings, you know?”

  “Same.”

  “There’s a kind of manipulation in withholding information. I don’t like feeling controlled. And I’d never want to make you feel that way either.”

  Fenn kisses the top of my head. “I can make that deal. You have my word—I’m never going to let you down again.”

  “You’re allowed to screw up sometimes,” I remind him with a playful yank on his lapels. “Let’s just try not to make the same mistakes twice.”

  His eyes wander over my shoulder. “Off-topic… How long you think before Sloane is off surveillance duty?”

  I follow his gaze when he spins us around to see Sloane and RJ conspicuously monitoring us through the crowd.

  “She isn’t subtle, is she?”

  “As an air-raid siren.”

  I snicker, and we gradually shimmy our way farther from their prying eyes.

  “She’ll get there eventually,” I tell him. “Sloane needs a little time to process the new normal and trust you again.”

  “I think you underestimate the pleasure she takes in despising me.”

  Yeah. Those two are a good distance from becoming friends again. As much as Sloane has preached forgiveness lately, she’s not quite ready to trust Fenn yet, least of all with me. Still, it’s enough that she’s agreed not to give me grief about us getting back together.

  “If it’s any consolation, she’s going away to college next year. Even Sloane can’t have eyes everywhere at once.”

  He gives me a skeptical frown, which is sort of adorable. She puts the fear of death in his soul. I guess that’s what big sisters are for.

  “Speaking of trusting people again…”

  His shoulders stiffen. Fenn knows exactly what I’m going to say before I even get the words out and rolls his eyes on a frustrated sigh.

  “Sulk all you want,” I tease.

  “Let’s not ruin a good night.” His voice goes rough. Tired.

  “I’m sorry, but you can’t forgive me and still hold a grudge against Lawson.”

  “Counterpoint: Yes, I can.”

  “Fenn.”

  “I’m a multitasker.”

  He’s a pain in the ass.

  “What does it matter anymore? We’re together. You’re the one I want. Can’t you let him off the hook?”

  “It’s not about jealousy,” he insists.

  “Then what?”

  Fenn’s voice grows more agitated. “He betrayed our friendship. I’d never have done that to him.”

  “Maybe not premeditatedly…”

  For that, I get a chastising glare. “You didn’t owe me any loyalty, Case. We weren’t together. But Lawson did owe me that. So, no, I can’t forgive him.”

  “It’s not like he pursued me,” I argue, while fighting an inward battle between guilt and frustration. “It just happened.”

  “Sorry, I don’t believe that. Lawson’s a conniving piece of shit. Everything he does is designed to inflict maximum damage. He can go to hell.”

  Fenn’s demeanor takes a drastic dive, and it’s clear we’re not coming to any compromises about this tonight, so I let it go. No sense ruining the whole night over it. Better to let some time pass when cooler heads can prevail and the wound isn’t as fresh.

  We take a break from dancing, and Fenn goes to grab us a couple of drinks while I dart off to use the restroom. As I reach the double doors, Gray Robson intercepts me, flashing an awkward smile. He looks like a movie star with his black suit and handsome clean-shaven face.

  “Casey. Hey.”

  “Hi.” I offer a quick smile.

  “I, ah…” He slides his hands into his trouser pockets. “Have you spoken to Jaz lately?”

  Damn it. Jaz told me this week that Gray’s been pushing her about dating officially and she’s not on board. I sort of regret introducing those two. Especially now, when I can feel Bree’s murderous gaze boring into me and Gray. She’s standing at the punch table with Ainsley, and while she might not be the brightest bulb in the bunch, even Bree knows when her boyfriend’s up to something shady.

  “I talk to her every day at school,” I say before edging toward the exit. “Sorry, can we do this later? I need to hit the ladies’ room.”

  His low, frustrated voice stops me. “Could you just tell her to call me? Please?”

  My response lacks any sympathy. “Go dance with your girlfriend, Gray,” I tell him, then duck out the doors.

  I’m halfway down the hall when I hear footsteps behind me. For fuck’s sake. I spin, expecting to find that Gray had followed me.

  But it’s not Gray.

  I freeze on the spot.

  “Hey,” Lawson says.

  My heartbeat accelerates like a race car as he slowly approaches me. Like Fenn, he can pull off a suit like nobody’s business. And I’m startled to notice he’d cut his hair, the light-brown strands no longer around his shoulders, but curling under his ears.

  We haven’t spoken since the night in the greenhouse. I hadn’t known what to say to him, and clearly he returned that sentiment because he hadn’t reached out either.

  “Hey,” I answer softly. “I…um… how’ve you been?”

  “Been great,” he drawls, then offers a cheeky smile. “Am I ever anything but?”

  I see right through the cavalier response. “You’re a terrible liar, Lawson.”

  A thoughtful gleam enters his gray eyes. “Not usually, no. Only around you, Casey.”

  I don’t know why, but my pulse quickens at that. “I’ve tried talking to Fenn on your behalf,” I start.

  “Of course you have.” He laughs under his breath. “But don’t. He has every right to despise me.” Lawson moves closer, his voice lowering. “I only came out here to check on you. I never even messaged you after that night to see if you were okay. That was wrong.”

  “I was okay,” I promise him. “Still am.”

  A soft, sad smile touches his lips. “All right. Good.” Now he steps away from me. “That’s all I wanted.” Another backward step. “I’m glad everything worked out for you two. Truly.”

  “Thanks,” I murmur.

  “Take care of Bishop. Someone’s gotta look out for him now that I’ve been exiled.”

  Guilt pricks at my chest. “Lawson…”

  “Joking, Tresscott. Just a joke.” He starts to walk away, then stops again, turning to face me. I can’t for the life of me decipher his expression. “Can I ask you something?”

  I swallow. “Sure.”

  “You and me…” His cheeks hollow slightly, as if he’s biting the inside of his mouth. “It was just a…random thing? There were no, uh, feelings in play, right?”

  I hesitate. “No feelings in play,” I confirm.

  Lawson nods. “Yeah. Okay.” Regret flashes across his face. “We could’ve been friends. I’m sorry I fucked that up.”

  Then he disappears through the double doors, which swing shut behind him.

  He’s right. We could have been friends. I forcibly push the sad notion out of my head and finally, blessedly, make use of the ladies’ room.

  When I come out a minute later, I bump into Lucas, who’s exiting the men’s room directly across from the ladies’.

  “Fancy meeting you here.” Those dimples pop out.

  “Fancy,” I agree.

  Laughing, we converge in the center of the hall. Technically, Lucas came to the dance with us, driving to Ballard with Fenn and RJ, while I drove over with Sloane, but I’ve barely seen him since we got here.

  “How was your mission?” I tease. “Did you make your drop?”

  Lucas snorts. “Stop making it sound so…illegal.”

  I tip my head in challenge. “Isn’t it, though?”

  “All the information I gathered for these dudes was readily available on the internet.” He blinks innocently. “No hacking involved whatsoever.”

  “Uh-huh. Suuuure.” I reach out and tug his lapel in accusation. “I can’t believe I’m friends with a criminal.”

  “Casey, sweetie, you’re friends with many criminals,” Lucas answers with a laugh.

  I can’t help but join in. He has a point. All the guys at Sandover have committed one infraction or another.

  “I guess if I had to pick favorites of all the criminals I know, you’d be in the top three,” I say generously. I reach out to fix his boutonniere, which is a bit crooked.

  “Thanks,” he says.

  “This is cute,” I tell him, touching the boutonniere. My fingertips sweep over the soft petals of the rose, a shade of hot pink that—

  “I can give you a ride.”

  My fingers freeze. I stare at the pink rose, my throat going arid as a rush of déjà vu washes over me.

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Of course not. I’m ready to go anyway. I’m starting to get a headache, I don’t know why. I’ve been staying hydrated.”

  “Okay, cool. I’ll be quick,” Lucas promises. “I just need to drop this off for Gabe and then we can head home.”

  Horror slices into me, rendering me speechless for a moment.

  “Casey?” Lucas says in concern. “You okay?”

  I edge away from him. Breathing hard, I press my back against the cool metal lockers that practically sizzle on contact with my suddenly flushed skin.

  “It was you,” I say.

  More memories surface, playing through my jumbled mind.

  “Casey, wake up! What the hell did you take!”

  His dark eyes flicker uneasily. “What are you talking about?”

  “It was you,” I repeat. “You’re the one who drove us into the lake.”

  Chapter 49

  Casey

  Even if I didn’t have a clear mental image of Lucas sliding behind the wheel of the car, of me buckling my seat belt in the passenger seat, the panic that fills his eyes is enough of a confirmation.

  “It was you,” I say for the third time.

  Those three words dominate my vocabulary now, as my brain struggles to make sense of why Lucas would do this.

  It was him, though. He was wearing this exact suit, with that same rose pinned to his lapel. Well, not the same rose. The one from prom night died months ago. But the color. I remember the hot pink color. And I remember reaching out to straighten the boutonniere because it was crooked, same way I’d done now.

  I remember feeling like my temples were going to explode, and so when Lucas said he had to run an errand for his brother, I offered to give him a ride.

  I remember walking to the parking lot and unlocking the car, feeling my head get foggier and heavier.

  “I told you my head hurt,” I mumble, my breaths coming out shallow. “It hurt too much to drive.”

  Beads of sweat dot Lucas’s forehead. He doesn’t speak. He stares at me as if he’d seen a ghost. Still as a statue.

  “You took the keys from me. You said we’d quickly go to the boathouse and then you’d drive us home.” My temples begin to throb, just as they had that night. “I don’t know why you lost control of the car. I…” I struggle to piece it together. “The drug you gave me had kicked in by then—”

  “I didn’t drug you,” Lucas blurts out, his face paling. “Jesus, Casey! You think I drugged you?”

  “You drugged me,” I say absently, barely registering his denial. “That’s why you offered to drive—”

  “No, I drove because you weren’t feeling up to it,” he protests.

  “—and then somehow you lost control and we wound up in the lake. And you left me in the car and ran away.”

  “No,” Lucas moans. “That’s not how it happened.”

  My ears ring. I suddenly feel a burst of pain blooming in my forehead, the result of my head smacking against the dashboard. Phantom pain flares across my chest, from the diagonal bruise left by the seat belt that kept me trapped as the water rose around my legs and my dress turned to liquid.

  I can barely feel my lips when I speak. “Then how did it happen?”

  “I thought you were dead.”

  His confession, laced with misery and bone-deep shame, echoes in the hallway. It triggers a rush of fury, white-hot and raw, vibrating in my fingertips.

  “What happened in that car, Lucas?”

  “It started even before the car,” he says with a strangled groan. He starts to pace, to move erratically. Eyes darting as if he might run away or charge me at any moment. “Gabe was dealing at the dance, but Mila was all over him and he wanted to go home with her. Hook up, whatever. He was supposed to meet Fenn, but his phone died, so he told me to tell Fenn his plans changed. He gave me his stash and asked me to take it to the boathouse. He used to hide his shit under a broken floorboard out there whenever he came to Ballard.”

  Lucas stops pacing, pausing right in front of me. Every instinct tells me to get away from him while I can, but I want to know what else he can tell me about prom. And I’m terrified at what might happen if I leave and he chases me.

  “I borrowed his jacket, was all ready to go. I couldn’t find Fenn, so I was typing out a message telling him not to meet Gabe, but I never sent it because you interrupted me and then I forgot. You asked where I was going and said it was too far to walk to the boathouse and offered me a ride. You said you wanted to leave anyway because your head hurt.”

  “Because you drugged me,” I spit out.

  “I didn’t.” His face crinkles with anguish. Fists balled. “Swear to God, I didn’t, Casey. Whatever you took, or were given, it happened before you and I ever got in that car together. By the time we started driving, you were already fucked up. Barely walking. Couldn’t keep your eyes open. I honestly thought you had a migraine at first. You kept covering your eyes like the light was hurting them. I put you in the front seat just to keep you from collapsing in the parking lot, and the whole way to the boathouse, I was trying to keep you awake.”

  He slams both fists into his forehead, visibly anxious. “I suddenly had a bad feeling you were suffering from more than a migraine. I even wondered if maybe you’d gotten a concussion at the dance somehow. I kept reaching over to tap your cheek, telling you not to go to sleep. It was too dark outside. I lost the path and the car skidded, and suddenly there was water coming up over the windshield.”

  Lucas sinks to the floor, huddled against the lockers.

  “There was blood coming down your forehead. Water was pouring in the car. You weren’t moving. I tried to feel for a pulse, but there was nothing,” he says, holding his knees to his chest. “Not even a flutter, Case. I thought you were dead.”

  I inch away from him in shock.

  “And I panicked hard. My dad would literally murder me if I got arrested for crashing a car with a drugged-out dead girl at prom. And they’d say I roofied you or something. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to do?” He makes a choking noise. “The water was coming so fast. And you were already gone. I thought you were, anyway. I checked for a pulse over and over, I swear. I never would’ve left you if I knew you were alive.”

  He spares a desperate glance at me, tinged with sorrow. I stand plastered against the opposite wall of lockers, chest tight, breathing shallow. I’m glued in place now. Unable to move if I wanted to, thanks to the phantom sensation of the water climbing up my legs.

  “My jacket got caught on the seat belt and wouldn’t budge, so I just took it off. I grabbed Gabe’s bag and got the hell out of there. Ran as fast as I could all the way to the main road and grabbed an Uber outside the Ballard gates. When I got back to the dorm at Sandover, the housefather caught me coming out of the stairwell. I was soaking wet and looking guilty as shit. He made me open the bag—and what can I say at that point? I told him the drugs belonged to Gabe.”

  Lucas bites hard on his bottom lip. He looks like he’s about to cry.

  “I wasn’t going down for that shit. No fucking way. But I knew Gabe would be furious with me, so I begged Dad not to tell him I was the one who ratted him out. I don’t know what he told him. Gabe was gone, and I was here. And you… I thought you were dead.”

  “The red lights,” I whisper.

  He looks up. “Huh?”

  “Do you ever see the red lights?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I see them. Every night. Because you left me there.”