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.“Look what they’re doing to the house!”The destruction was amazing.And Erin had barely a moment to take it in before she heard Kenny shout, “I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker!” and saw him slam a guy twice his size down on the glass-top coffee table, smashing it in pieces.“Ohh!” Theresa covered her face with her hands.Erin scanned the room, looking for Nate.She found him, back to back with Todd, taking on more people than it looked like they should be able to handle.He caught her eye.“Call the police!”She nodded quickly, and asked Theresa, “Where’s the phone?”“I—I—don’t—”Erin grabbed her shoulders.“Theresa! Where’s the phone?”“There.” She pointed vaguely toward a bookshelf full of cookbooks.Erin hurried to it, found a portable phone, and dialed 911.“It will be okay,” she said to Theresa while she waited for the operator to answer.“No, it won’t,” Theresa said angrily.“This is all because of Nate and his stupid fucking friends!”Erin’s objection had to wait because the dispatcher came on and asked what the emergency was.She reported that a party had gotten out of hand and gave the address, then hung up and said to Theresa, “This is not Nate’s fault.”“He and his friends are animals,” Theresa said on a sob.“They didn’t need to attack!”“They didn’t attack! Some guy said something to me, and Todd was telling him to shut up when one of those other guys punched him in the face!”“And Nate just pummeled him! There was no need for that!”Erin’s heart filled with inexplicable pride.“I guess he didn’t like seeing his friend attacked.”Theresa shook her head at Erin.Her eyes were smeared with mascara and shadow.“I can’t believe you’re defending this.”She couldn’t either, actually.But she was.And more than that, she was really proud of Nate, Todd, and Kenny, because their opposition, she noticed, had dwindled to just a few, and her guys were still going strong.Go team!“It’s your fault too,” Theresa added sharply.“Mine? How do you figure that?”“Nate was pissed off when he came in here.Obviously you guys were arguing again.Now he’s taking it out on my house! Why don’t you two just break up and get it over with?” She dissolved into tears again and when Erin tried to put an arm around her shoulder, she shook it off.“Just leave me alone!”Was it true? Was this Erin’s fault? She heard a dull thud and saw someone fall to the floor.It wasn’t Nate, but it could have been.Had she put him in danger by making him so frustrated that this was the only way he could take it out?Finally there were sirens, which made a bunch of people panic and leave through the back door, taking with them their pot and whatever other substances they didn’t want to be caught holding.The fighting stopped too, dwindling down to a last few weak punches.The police came to the door and Erin, who fortunately hadn’t had so much as one drink, stopped them there, assuring them that the party had broken up.Clearly glad not to have to deal with too many details of a teenage party gone wrong, the police left, and Erin took a moment to assess the damage.It was bad.The house was a mess; there didn’t appear to be one square inch that didn’t need some sort of cleanup.Nate, Todd, and Kenny were the only ones who remained, a bit worse for wear too, except Nate, for some reason.She guessed it had probably been to his advantage that he was running on emotions ignited before the fight.He was red-faced from the adrenaline high but otherwise unscathed.Todd, on the other hand, had a bloody lip and eyebrow from the sucker punch he’d taken right off the bat.Erin laid her hand to Todd’s cheek and said, “Thanks for defending me.”He gave a sly smile.“Anytime.” And she knew he had accepted her as one of them now.She was Nate’s, so she was all of theirs.And, for the first time, she could see how that wasn’t a really bad thing.As tired as she was of hanging out with all of Nate’s friends, it meant a lot that they looked out for her.At least most of them did.“What happened?” David wandered into the room, looking a little too self-consciously dazed for belief.“What do you mean, what happened?” Todd snapped.“Where the hell were you?”“I’ve been upstairs.It looks like a bomb went off in here.”“It must have sounded like it too,” Nate pointed out knowingly.“You didn’t hear?”“Fuckin’ Hiroshima,” Todd added, swiping blood off his lip with the back of his hand.David’s face colored and everyone knew he’d heard and known exactly what was happening.Erin felt pity for him.He must have been terrified.It would suck to be expected to fight if you weren’t any good at it.“Let’s get this place cleaned up,” she said, going to Theresa, who was just shaking and mute, and hooking her arm through hers.“We’ve got a few days, right?”Theresa nodded numbly.“Nate—” Erin began.“I can fix the drywall,” he said, as if reading her mind.“Just go now,” Theresa said, then turned hard blue eyes on Erin.“Really.”Erin felt her face grow warm.“Okay.Well, how about if we come back tomorrow and start tackling all this?”Theresa nodded.“Fine.”Erin was relieved to have at least some agreement from Theresa.“Your parents will never know anything happened.It will be just like in Risky Business.”Theresa rolled her eyes.“I seriously doubt that.”“You’ll see.”“I’m really sorry about this, Theresa,” Nate added.She leveled a gaze on him.“You’re an asshole.”Erin felt like she’d been slapped.“Theresa!”“Forget it,” Nate said, putting a hand to Erin’s waist.“She’s got every right to be pissed.”“It wasn’t your fault,” Erin said to Nate.But he just shushed her, and led her out with a promise to Theresa that they’d be back in the morning to clean it up.* * *“I’m sorry,” Erin whispered forty-five minutes later, as Nate pulled her jeans down off her hips.“I don’t know what was wrong with me tonight
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