Chapter 8: Going Public

By ten the apartment was full of witches, a dozen pirates, and one man dressed as a traffic cone.

Colin stood in the middle of it in a pirate coat with a plastic cup in his hand.

He had been drinking since eight, and he was in a great mood.

Taylor stood beside me in a bumblebee costume with her phone up, filming the room.

"Everybody!" Colin shouted, and climbed onto the arm of the couch.

The room turned around.

"I want you all to meet somebody. This is Hannah. My girlfriend."

He held out his hand to me.

I walked across the floor in the yellow cardigan with every eye on it.

Somebody in the back actually gasped.

"That's number nine," a girl whispered.

I took Colin's hand, and he pulled me up beside him and kissed my cheek.

His breath smelled like beer and cinnamon.

Everybody cheered.

Then the cheering shifted toward the door, and I knew who it was before I looked.

Delaney stood in the doorway in a red dress, cut lower and tighter than mine, with her hair pinned up.

She was wearing Grandma's bracelet.

The room parted for her.

"Well," she said, and the whole apartment listened. "Colin. A girlfriend. I had no idea."

"Neither did I until last Thursday," Colin said, and everyone laughed.

Delaney walked up and looked at me from head to toe.

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