All of the Lights (38 page)

"Aw shit!" Bennett practically leaps off the couch. "There goes Carlisle's head!"

Some pale-ass vampires bare their fangs that, honestly, don't look like they pack much of a punch. Then these cartoonish wolves snarl, claw, and pounce on the vampires. Then some more vampires attack—I'm pretty sure these are the 'bad' ones, judging by the flashy costumes, even more horrific white pancake, and cheesy red eyes.

"This is probably the worst fight I've ever seen in a movie," I comment drily and shake my head at the screen. "It's like they're trying too hard to make it look wicked cool and epic. I've seen better fights in
The Phantom Menace
and everyone knows how weak that shit was."

"Oh, don't even get me started on this nonsense," Bennett waves a hand at the screen before taking a healthy sip from his wine glass. "This isn't even in the book."

"What?"

"Yeah," Rae chimes in. "Just you wait. It's terrible."

I don't really want to wait, but it looks like there's not much I can do about that right now. Somewhere, a little voice is whispering that I don't really have to sit here and watch this crap. I could just call myself a cab and leave. I just don't really want to.

So I sit out the rest of this overly-long and decidedly unepic battle between the good vampires, the bad vampires, and the wolves.

"What the hell is a little kid doing there? Why is she riding that wolf?"

"That's Bella and Edward's kid," Rae informs me flippantly with a sly grin. "And that's not a wolf. That's a
were
wolf."

"What the hell."

"Yep."

I grimace up at the screen. "I thought they were vampires. How do they have a kid?"

"Yes," Rae jabs a pointed finger as the battle sort of rages on. "How is that possible? How? I want answers, Stephenie Meyer. Tell me how a vampire, who's supposedly
dead
, knocks up a human. If he's dead, how does he have bodily fluids?
How
?"

I need to stop myself here. In no way, shape or form, do I want to engage in further discussion of this movie.

"Ugh," Bennett grumbles. "Don't talk about bodily fluids, Clamato. Ever."

"It's a fair question."

"Fair my ass. Let's not talk about the imprinting fiasco either—oh! Oh! Here it comes and...it was all a dream."

That grabs my attention and whether I like it or not, my eyes fly back to the screen to see that the battle didn't actually happen. Like Bennett said, it was literally all a dream. Or some other cop-out like that.

"This makes me mad every single time," Rae shakes her head. "This story was finally interesting again. There were people dying! Consequences for actions! Real struggle and drama! They'd actually fixed what sucked so horribly about that last book when absolutely nothing happened. It was all just a big build-up to a fight that they backed away from at the last second. But no, what do they do? They wave it in our faces like a dirty tease, rip it away, and then go,
Ha! Fooled ya, suckers."

While I understand her frustration—I'm right there with her—there's still a piece of this I don't understand.

"So if you two hate this movie—"

"Movies," Bennett corrects me.

"Sorry," my hands shoot up in the air. "
Movies
. If you hate these movies so much, why are we watching this right now? Seems like a waste of time."

"Haven't you ever hate-watched anything before?" Bennett muses, regarding me carefully like he would an animal in a zoo. "There's nothing more enjoyable than making fun of something you hate."

"Wow."

"I don't know why I ever really liked them in the first place," Rae stretches back against her pillow and hits pause on the movie. "Remember when we waited in line for, like, an hour just to see the first one? What were we thinking?"

Bennett just lifts an eyebrow. "We were both in love with Edward Cullen. That's what we were thinking."

"Ew," she crinkles her nose up. "He kinda looks like an owl now, doesn't he? Ah, well. You live and you learn."

And somewhere along the way, I can't believe it's come to this: I'm sitting here in Raena Moretti's living room, hanging out with her and her best friend like I've done it for years. The most bizarre part of all? I kind of don't mind it. Minus having to sit through the last half of CGI-infested awfulness.

My patience even withstands Bennett turning on some music—definitely a boy band—before he sings along and trots around the living room like he owns the place. He's shaking his hips a little as he refills his wine glass and waves the bottle in Rae's face, but she just bats him away. I glance down at the beer bottle in my hand and some awareness prickles down my arms. She isn't drinking—Bennett had to run to a gas station to grab some beer for me after we got here and even though he's poured himself a couple glasses already, she hasn't touched it.

"I don't drink hard alcohol,"
she'd told me once. God, it seems like we'd stood in that dark alley together a lifetime ago. I'd had no idea what I was about to get myself into, but in that moment, all I could see was her.

Now all I can see is that she's nothing like I thought she was. That image I'd had of her all this time—the spoiled rich girl who bounced from rehab to rehab—doesn't exist. I knew it the moment I sat behind her at St. Anthony's and listened to her confess all her sins and her regrets. And, against my better judgment, I set out looking for that confirmation.

"Hey, Benn," I call out to him and he cocks an eyebrow my way in response. "What's with the nickname anyway?"

When his forehead crinkles up into a frown, I point the neck of my beer bottle at Rae. It takes a moment, but when recognition dawns, it spreads all over Bennett's face like wicked wildfire.

"Oh...
that
," he grins and waggles his eyebrows at Rae, who's gone pale and motionless on the couch. "You know how some people—
crazy
people—like Bloody Marys?"

"Sure, I've made plenty of Bloodys at the bar," I shrug and then my eyes gravitate back to Rae. "That's your favorite, isn't it?"

"What?" she frowns.

"Your favorite drink. I told yah I could guess people's favorite and my guess is that's yours."

Bennett crosses his arms across his chest, wine glass and all, and his lips twitch with amusement. "And what makes you say that about our little Clamato here?"

Rae shoots him a vicious glare and despite her best efforts, just can't manage to get off grab him before he makes a beeline for the kitchen. "Benn, I swear to God, if you tell him—"

"You'll what? Hit me? Bring it on 'cause you'll never catch me!"

As Bennett swings the refrigerator door open and starts rummaging through it, Rae launches off the couch, hobbling onto the carpet before hurling her bag of frozen vegetables at Bennett's back. She's already halfway into the kitchen, but my voice stops her.

"I figured that was your favorite because you don't seem like someone who would drink something sweet."

Rae stares at me like a deer caught in headlights as Bennett jerks his head up from behind the refrigerator door with both eyebrows lifted high into his hairline.

I just lift a shoulder and roll with it. Might as well be honest. "I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I just mean...a Bloody Mary is an acquired taste, you know? You seem like someone who'd rather have something savory instead of something empty like a margarita or a martini. Someone who'd rather put the work in to have something that will energize you and wake you up instead of make you crash."

And somewhere in between the lines, I realize the implication of what I've just said.
She's
an acquired taste.
She
's something savory.
She
's worth putting the work in.
She
energizes and wakes me—you—up. Shit. I hadn't meant to say any of that...it just sort of slipped out.

Bennett gapes at me for a moment before his gaze slides to Rae, who's staring at me with an unfathomable expression, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. When Bennett snaps his head back to me, that devilish glint is back in full form. He lifts up a half-empty bottle of Clamato and waggles his eyebrows.

"You're right about all of that, my friend," he shakes the bottle with both hands and his eyes flash with mischief. "Only
now
, her favorite drink is just good ol' Clamato with just a pinch of celery salt and a dash of Tabasco, sans vodka. Trust me, it's as disgusting as it sounds. Hence the name, Clamato."

That takes a moment to digest as Rae's cheeks flush pink with embarrassment. When she finally unearths her face from her hands, she looks like she's about to pounce on Bennett like one of those vampires from that shitty movie.

"I am going to kill you," she growls.

"Hey!" he throws his hands up in the air, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of actually drinking Clamato straight. As a
drink.
"I know I kid, but I'm really proud of you. Especially now that you found out your mom's a Becky with the good hair."

"Shut up, Benn."

"I'm serious," he grins at her and I can actually see it, too—I can see how proud he really is of her. I think I'm right there with him. "You could've sucked down ten bottles of vodka by now, but you haven't. And I know you're not going to either."

Her chest is heaving even when she dares a glance at me. "I told you I don't drink hard alcohol."

My lips curl up into a real, supportive grin. "I know."

"It's my kryptonite."

"That's okay. Everybody's got something—at least you know what it is and you know how to avoid it."

Having worked behind the bar at Na Soilse since I turned 18, I've learned alcohol affects everybody in different ways. For some people, it's a stress reliever needed to unwind after a tough day. For others, it helps them forget. Some people like the way it gives them permission to be uninhibited. And for others still, and I'm guessing, for Rae, it's self-medication. Not everybody, her mom included, gets to live to talk about it.

So now that it's out there, yeah. I was right. And completely wrong about her.

Bennett takes that opportunity to put the Clamato back in the refrigerator where it belongs and flits around her as he punches something in on his phone. The music changes and I have half a mind to cover my ears.

"God," I mutter under my breath. "My ears are bleeding."

Bennett just waggles his eyebrows as he moves around the room, singing along and swinging his shoulders to the beat, and he whips around to point a finger at Rae in a half-crouch.

"
If I didn't have you there would be nothing left,"
he sings along and it's almost too much for my ears to handle. "
A shell of a man who could never be his best..."

My eyes land on Rae, who's shaking her head with her arms wrapped around herself, but he's chipped the ice away, that little secret-revealing session forgotten between them. I suddenly feel too...I don't know what I feel. Out of place, maybe. Unnecessary sounds a little bit better. With a lack of anything better to do, I slip out of the living room and step onto her little patio under the guise of taking a few pulls on my vape pen. At least that's what I'm telling myself. It doesn't take long, though, before Bennett pushes Rae toward the patio door. My vice grip on my beer bottle tightens as she tip-toes next to me and leans her elbows on the wooden railing.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "He can be a little much even for me sometimes."

"Nah, it's not that," I purposefully turn my head to exhale the vapor away from her, but also so I don't really have to look at her just yet. "Just needed some air. How's the knee?"

Her eyes drop to her knee, which has a faint red tint from where the ice sat on her bare skin, and she shrugs. "It's sore, but what's new? There's gonna be a nasty bruise in the morning, but it'll be fine."

I don't want to think about how long she's dealt with this injury. I don't want to think about her limping around, gritting her teeth and bearing the pain. Because if I do, I'll start to think about how she got that injury. That someone snuck up behind her on her way back to her dorm from a night class and assaulted her. That someone actually
attacked
her with a tire iron. And if I think about that, I'll think about how much pain she had to have been in, the shock, the disbelief and numbness, the surgeries she'd endured and the physical therapy she'd suffered through all so she could stand here and shrug about it like she's already accepted this is just something she has to live with.

All I can do is nod. Grin and bear it, just like her.

And keep my damn mouth shut.

"I wish you would've let us come with you yesterday," Rae's voice wraps around me like a warm blanket, but I still shiver a little under the weight of it. "It's not fair that you went to that fight without us."

She could've stomped her feet, thrown anything she wanted at me, sworn at me, threatened to castrate me, and there was still no way she was getting anywhere near that fight.

"It wasn't safe," I tell her simply. That's all the explanation she needs.

"
None
of this is safe," she crosses her arms over her chest in defiance. "But we're still doing it."

"And I don't see the point in arguing over something that already happened."