He gives me a cocky grin and moves around the table, setting up his next shot, which he makes. This happens two more times and each time he looks cockier. When he finally does miss a shot, it barely fazes him.

“Go ahead and give it a try,” he says, gesturing at the table.

I almost smile because this feels so normal, like how things used to be, only he’s high and I’m sober. I step up to the table and try my best to hit one of the striped balls, but fail epically. I frown as not a single ball except the white one moves.

He laughs at me and it’s the first real emotion I think I’ve seen, real happiness fleetingly slipping through the drugs taking over his system.

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” I say, and I mean it. It’s good to see him laugh.

“Oh, I do.” His laughter dies down and he studies me from across the table with his blue eyes that used to be so much brighter. He cocks his head to the side as if he’s deliberating his next move and then he sets down his cue and strolls around the table, coming over to the side I’m standing on. “Here, let me help you.”

He reaches for me and I instinctively step back. “But it’s your turn.”

“I know,” he says. “But this can be more of a lesson than a game.”

I pout. “Am I that bad?”

He suppresses a laugh. “Just let me help you.”

I let out a loud breath. “Okay.”

He grins and then steps up to my side. “Face the table,” he says and I do, turning around. He puts an arm on each side of me and his chest presses against my back as I lean down and he moves with me, showing me how to hold the cue correctly by putting his hands over mine and guiding them into the right position.

His closeness makes me nervous, especially when his warm breath caresses my cheek as he dips his head forward. I think he’s going to say something, maybe kiss my cheek. I wonder if I’d let him—how far I’d go to get what I need in order to help Quinton. I’m not liking my thoughts very much right now, but thankfully, I get to escape them when all Tristan does is help me aim the cue and then shoot it forward. This time a lot of balls scatter and one even makes it in.

“See, not so hard, right?” he asks, his hands leaving mine.

I shake off my jitteriness and turn around. “No, but now that you’ve showed me how, you’ve made it harder for you to win.”

He chuckles as he rubs his scruffy jaw. “For some reason I doubt it.”

“Yeah, me, too,” I agree, stepping around the pool table to make my next shot, which I miss. He laughs amusedly.

We play for a little bit longer and of course he kicks my ass, which he comments on a few times as we find a seat at a table so he can order another drink. After the waitress leaves to go get Tristan his Jäger bomb and me my Coke, he grabs the saltshaker and starts rotating it between his hands.

“So are you going to tell me what you wanted to talk about?” he asks, setting the saltshaker aside and leaning back in his chair. He places his hands behind his head, elbows bent outward. “Because I’m guessing it wasn’t about pool.”

I shake my head, picking at the cracks in the table. “I wanted to ask you something about Quinton.”

He pretends to be nonchalant, but I can tell he gets tense because he starts grinding his teeth. “What about him?”

I fidget with the band on my wrist, trying to figure out where to begin. “Well, I was sort of wondering about his dad?”

His eyes fasten on mine, shadowed with irritation. “What about him?”

God, how do I say this? I mean, I don’t want to bring up his sister at all, but how do I avoid it and still get what I want? “Does he ever talk to him?”

Tristan lowers his arms onto the table. “Nope, at least not that I know of.” He reclines in the chair as the waitress arrives and puts our drinks on the table, and he waits for her to leave before he speaks again. “They don’t get along at all.” He drops the shot of Jäger into the taller glass then picks it up. “In fact, it’s pretty much why he ended up in Maple Grove—because his dad kicked him out of the house.”

I want to ask him if Quinton’s dad knows about his drug use, but since Tristan’s high I’m not sure how well that’d go over. “Yeah, but if he knew where he was living, do you think he’d want to talk to him?” I take a sip of the soda. “Help him?”

“Help him with what exactly?” There’s a challenge in his eyes, daring me to say “drug use” aloud.

I stir my straw around in my drink. “I don’t know…I was just curious…if they talked or if someone’s told him anything about the situation.”

He takes another large swallow of his drink, staring at me over the brim of the glass. “And what situation is that?”

I’m obviously pushing the wrong buttons and I don’t know any way around it, so I decide to be blunt. “Look, I know I’m making you mad right now, but I really want to help Quinton and I just think that maybe if I could get ahold of his dad and tell him what’s going on, it could maybe help him get better. But I need you to give me his name and number in order to do that.”

“Who said I was getting mad at you?” he asks calmly and then finishes off the rest of his drink.

He’s being an ass but I know for a fact it’s not really him, but this ghost, drug-addict version of himself. He doesn’t say anything else to me and gets up from the chair to take the empty glass to the bar. I wait for him to come back, but instead he starts hitting on our waitress, a leggy woman whose top is see-through when the light hits her at the right angle.

Tristan seems to be going out of his way to make it obvious that he’s hitting on her, even going as far as groping her breast. The woman giggles in response and starts coiling a strand of her hair around her finger. The longer the scene goes on the more awkward I feel and finally I get up from the table, deciding this was a bad idea and that I need to come up with a better plan. I throw a five on the table to cover my drink and then leave the musty bar. When I step into the sunlight, I breathe freely, but the feeling that I failed crushes my chest.

By the time I make it to my car, I’m panting and struggling not to count the poles in the parking garage. I grab the door handle, my hand trembling.

Inhale…exhale…inhale…exhale…

“Nova.” Tristan’s voice floats over my shoulder. “Are you…” His feet scuff against the pavement as he steps toward me. “Are you okay?”

I’m on the verge of crying and the last thing I want to do is turn around and let him see that fact. “Yeah, I’m good.” I lift my hand to discreetly dab my eyes with my fingers and pull myself together before I turn around to face him. “I’m just not feeling very good all of a sudden.”

There’s speculation in his eyes as he looks me over. “Maybe we should get going, then.”

I nod and am about to climb into the car when I spot a tall guy, with sturdy arms and broad shoulders, wearing black pants and a nice button-down shirt, strolling toward us, with his eyes on us. He has this strange look on his face, like he’s found something he’s been dying to get his hands on and finds it amusing.

“Well, well, well, look who I finally ran into.” Tristan tenses just at the sound of his voice, then gradually turns around. “Trace, what’s up?” There’s a nervous laugh under his stressed tone.

Trace stops just short of us with his arms folded. He’s probably in his mid-twenties, tall, with a very sturdy body and intimidating gaze. He also has brass knuckles on his hand and a scar on his cheek, just a light graze, but it screams drug lord to me. As soon as I think it, I shake my head at myself at the absurdity. There’s no way that could be going on—no such thing.

“You know, you’re a hard person to track down,” Trace says broodingly. “I show up in the parking lot and you let your friend take the blow. Then I go over to your shitty-ass house and Dylan takes the blow for you that time, although if you were there he probably would have ratted you out.” A small smile touches his lips, as if he’s entertained by Tristan’s nervous manner. “Things would have been a hell of a lot easier if you would have just stepped up instead of being a f**king coward.”

Tristan deliberately inches to the side, placing himself between Trace and me. “Yeah, sorry about that. But you know how things are…you’re high and shit and you just do stupid stuff.”

“High on my drugs,” Trace says, ambling forward and cracking his knuckles. I’m not sure what to do—stay put? Get in the car? But I can feel the tension in the air, so thick it’s smothering. “Drugs you owe me money for.” He stops in front of Tristan, towering over him, and Tristan isn’t that short, which means the guy is tall. “I’m going to make this real easy on you. Give me the money you owe me, plus interest, and I’ll let you walk.”

“I don’t have the money right now,” Tristan mutters with his head tipped down. “But I’ll get it to you. I just need some time.”

“Time, huh?” That’s when the Trace guy looks at me for the first time, but it feels like he noticed me long before. “And who’s this lovely thing right here?”

I’m not sure if it’s a rhetorical question or not, but I opt to keep quiet, cowering behind Tristan. My pulse is racing so fast I feel light-headed and woozy, like I might pass out.

Tristan stands up straighter, sweeping his hand through his hair. “That’s none of your business, so leave her alone.”

“None of my business.” His low laugh reverberates around us. Then suddenly his hand shoots out and he grabs the bottom of Tristan’s shirt. “Right now, everything you do is my business until you pay me back.” He pats Tristan’s cheek roughly with his free hand. “Got that?”

“Yeah, I got that,” Tristan says though gritted teeth, afraid to budge.

Trace lets him go and Tristan stumbles back toward me, bumping into the front of my car. “Good.” Trace seems to have calmed down and I start to relax as he turns away to leave, but then he unexpectedly spins around and rams his fist with the brass knuckles into Tristan’s gut. I hear the wind get knocked out of him as Tristan collapses to his knees, gasping for air, and I start to rush for him, but Trace’s eyes land on me and the dark warning stops me in my tracks. He looks back down at Tristan crumpled on his knees and then raises his fist again. This time his knuckles collide with Tristan’s cheek. I hear a pop as Trace pulls back again, preparing to hit him again. I cry out for him to stop, but he slams his fist forward again and I watch in horror as he punches Tristan in the stomach again. Tristan’s legs shake, wanting to collapse as he hunches over struggling to breathe.

Finally, Trace lowers his hand, the brass knuckles and his hand splattered with Tristan’s blood. “You have one week to pay me back or you won’t be walking away. Got it?”

Tristan nods, not saying a word, and the Trace guy turns and heads back out of the parking garage, taking his cell phone out of his pocket.

I rush for Tristan and help him get to his feet. “Oh my God, are you okay?” I ask as he wiggles away from me.

He wraps his arm around his stomach as he stands up straight and his face is twisted in pain, blood dripping out of his nose, and the entire side of his face is red and swollen. “Just peachy.”

I eye him over with concern. “Maybe I should take you to the hospital.” I reach out to touch him, but he leans back.

“No hospitals,” he says sharply. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“Well, I am.”

I shake my head, irritated by his stubbornness. “What was that about?” I cast an anxious glance in the direction of the exit Trace wandered off through.

“Just an old debt,” Tristan says, supporting his weight against the car, working to breathe properly.

“For drugs?”

He shrugs as he wipes some of the blood off his nose with his hand, then winces from the pain. “Sometimes I do stupid shit.”

I remember how last year I saw Dylan, Quinton, and Delilah dealing drugs to those guys. “You guys deal drugs now?”

He looks like he wants to roll his eyes at me, but resists the urge. “You seem surprised.”

“I am a little,” I admit. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see the truth. “Is Quinton in trouble, too?”

He shakes his head. “Nope, just me and my own stupidity.” His voice lowers when a couple of people walk by us, heading to their car.

“Are you going to be able to pay that guy back?” I ask.

“Of course.” Tristan brushes me off. “In fact, I need to get back to the house and get a few things done that will get me extra cash.”

I want to ask him what those few things are, but fear the answer. “How much do you owe him?”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, then, keeping his hand on the hood, he starts around the car to the passenger side.

“Are you sure…because I could maybe help you. Loan you some money or something.”

“I said I’m fine, Nova.” He opens the door with his arm still across his stomach.

I grab the handle of the door. “Well, if you ever need any help with anything…I’m here.”

We climb into the car and Tristan gives me a cold look. “What? Are you going to save me, too, Nova? Pay off my debt and drag me out of this hellhole along with Quinton?” He rolls his eyes. “Because things don’t work that way, especially when people don’t want to leave that hellhole they live in.”