“Wouldn’t that be nice,” Michael murmured.

Adam laughed under his breath.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Please?”

“Fine,” Michael said as he picked me up and whirled me around in his arms. “But at the first sign of trouble, we’re out of there. We’re too close to blowing out of here to get involved in any other drama. Deal?”

“Deal,” I said as I leaned down in his arms to kiss him.

That night we all hung out on the couch together and watched a movie. It was one of my favorite things to do when all three guys were cozied up around me, and everything seemed right in the world. Just before I fell asleep on the couch, with my head in Adam’s lap as he stroked my hair.

My waist sat in Michael’s lap as he held his arm around me, and my hand dangled off the couch, holding onto Julian’s shoulder as he sat on the floor in front of us, leaning up against the sofa.

I thought about how perfect it would be if it could just stay all four of us together.

And I knew then and there I had my answer to the question Michael asked me before.

33

I should have known that dinner was too easy. I should have listened to my gut when I got all the strange feelings and signals that something wasn’t right with him.

The night before the dinner was wonderful. I was lying in bed with Adam and had fallen asleep in the most perfect way with my hand on his chest and my head nestled right in the nook of his shoulder. He had told me that he loved me again before he fell asleep, and that time I almost said it back to him.

And then I had one more dream.

That dream was different than the ones I had been having in the weeks before. The past several days had been full of trivial dreams of happy things that seemed to suddenly infiltrate my subconscious. They were things like picking out our new apartment when we got to wherever it is that we were going, and then watching all the guys sitting around the table pouring whiskey into glasses. They were dreams about what I wanted to happen. But in that dream, I was with my mother again. And instead of the happy smile that she always tried to wear even if she didn’t really feel it, she had the most terrifying expression on her face.

She didn’t look afraid, or angry, or in pain; she looked blank. Blank like the kind of look that David had the night he had been there at the apartment with us. I’d never seen my mother like that before. She was always thinking about something and always had something creative going on behind her eyes.

But in my dream, she looked like a drone. A mindless and emotionless robot. She got up and walked away to another room, and I followed her. Sometimes in my dreams, the setting could change without me even realizing it. One minute I'm out in a garden. and the next thing I know I'm inside a room somewhere.

That’s what happened in my dreams.

Suddenly, though, I was standing with my mother in the storage room at the halfway house again. She was looking down at something on the floor. And when I looked there as well, I saw that it was her body on the night she died. I was scared but I also wanted to know if she was trying to show me something.

I looked back up at her, but when I did, it wasn’t her anymore.

It was David.

I immediately woke up at the sight of his face and sat straight up in bed with a fit of tremors as if I had a fever, which I didn’t. Adam sat up with me when he felt me jolt up and wrapped his arms around me.

“What happened?” he asked. “Was it another dream? Are you okay?”

I nodded my head and told him I was fine and that I just needed a glass of water, which he went to go get for me.

I should have told him about that dream.

I should have told him that I didn’t think we should go to the dinner.

When we got to Lineage that night, David was already waiting by the tree for us, just like he said he would be. The guys all said hello, and I smiled at David even though it felt like it was forced. Adam stayed close to my side. I think he could tell after last night that something wasn’t sitting right with me. He kept glancing over at me to make sure I was okay, and he seemed hyper vigilant about watching what was around us all night.

“Where are we going?” I asked when I saw that it looked like we were heading back toward the Main Hall. I had figured that we would be having dinner in David’s apartment or dorm (I wasn’t sure which he had), since it was just going to be the five of us.

“Just say the word, Lisette,” Adam whispered in my ear as we followed David into campus. “And we’re out of here.”

I nodded my head. I knew that all three guys would be happy to leave if anything started to seem out of place.

We walked into the Main Hall and sat down to eat at the same table we ate at the night that my father announced David’s existence. I thought it was a strange choice or a strange coincidence. Either way, I should have listened to my instincts again.

“So, David,” Julian asked, once we were all seated, and the food was placed. “What are your plans for after college?”

“I was thinking about going into business,” he answered.

“Cool,” Julian nodded as he took a piece of steak off his plate.

“What kind of business?”

I should have known, I thought, as the foreboding feeling came over me again.

“The family business,” my father said as he walked into the room to join us.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” Michael said.

All three of the guys stood up.

“Sit down, sit down,” my father laughed. “No one is here to do anything stupid tonight.”

The guys didn’t sit down. They stayed in positions poised to grab me and run out of the room, or to fight if need be.

Jack held out his arms. “I knew that if I had invited you to dinner that you wouldn’t have come.”

“You think?” Michael snarled. “Why did you invite us here again?”

Jack’s eyes met mine. “It might be the last time I get to see my daughter if I’m correct in assuming that all of you might leave after graduation, and I wanted to make amends.”

“Amends?” I huffed from my seat. “There is nothing that you could ever do to make amends with me.”

“Well, at least give me the opportunity to try. Please.”

He looked at the guys and put both palms up in a gesture of surrender. After a couple of minutes, they sat back down at the table. Michael squeezed my hand and told me the same thing that Adam had said; that we could leave at any moment I wanted to.

But then, my father started talking.

“We have all done things that we wished we would not have,” he said. “I admit some of us have done more than others. I am getting older now, and I have been able to learn and understand a few things that I didn’t understand before. And it’s all thanks to David.”