45
She kept her voice calm. ‘I’m fine,’ she said as they inched beyond the traffic light. ‘Just nervous about the party.’
The traffic crawled forward. Ava craned her neck to see what was going on but couldn’t make anything out. They were approaching the bottleneck, but not quickly enough. She kept very still. Her mouth was dry.
Mat pulled a mint out of the center console and popped it in his mouth, then offered her one.
‘No thank you,’ Ava said, staring straight ahead. All the blood in her body had traveled to her face.
‘Wanna just go home? I’m sure they’d get over it. We could stream a movie, make it a date night. We could watch 7,000 again, for old time’s sake! Though I don’t know how we’re gonna get through this traffic.’ He opened his window and popped his head out.
‘No,’ Ava sai
