Ever gets home and sees that Riley is waiting outside for her.  Ever is mad, obviously so, but doesn’t want to talk about it.  However, Riley obviously also has something to say, and since I already know that Ever’s deal is just that she’s an idiot, I don’t care.  I want to know what’s going on with Riley that makes her look so out of sorts.  Ever, being the wonderful big sister that she is, continues focusing on her own problems instead. 

After we’ve exhausted all the ways in which Ever’s life is full of teen drama, Riley mentions that she’s been spending time with Ava still, and Ava has been convincing her that, being as she’s dead and all, maybe it’s time for her to move on.

There’s no way I can lose her, not now; not ever. She’s all I have left.

Well, it would be nice to actually see that, since every time she’s shown up, Ever’s done nothing but whine and complain about what a nuisance she is. 

But no time for that, Damen and Haven show up to bring the news that Evangeline has been found, but she’s dead.  Haven’s upset and wants to go to her real friend – Drina – for comforting, but just stopped by to share the news.  Haven is apparently still operating under the delusion that Ever has real feelings and might actually care about a missing person.

Because even though Haven’s friendship with Drina seems like a fluke, I’m sure that it isn’t. I can’t shake the feeling it’s somehow connected.

You know, you might as well hang a sign that says “the author forgot to give the bad guy any bad traits, but we’ve got to tell you she’s bad somehow, right?”  

Damen sees her tattoo and gets all up in arms about it.  Haven gets mad at them for focusing on stupid stuff instead of, you know, the fact that her friend is dead and she’s upset about it.

She’s so moody, so distant, and I realize she’s been lost to me for a while now ever since she met Drina, I feel like I hardly even know her.

Moody?  You really want to go there, book?  She just found out her friend died, and you’re going to call her moody? 

Not everybody can be a super special sociopath like you, Ever.

 After Haven leaves, Damen points out that he was surfing and didn’t abandon her.  She’s still suspicious, claiming that she looked “everywhere,” but we all know that’s a lie.  She looked for about two seconds and then decided to get mad and leave.  She still lets him in, but demands to know what he knows about Haven, Drina, and the oh-so-mysterious tattoo.  Damen starts to tell her what’s going on, but then backtracks and stays “nope, it’s all unrelated, don’t worry about it.”

Knowing I should be more concerned with Haven’s wrist and Evangeline’s death, but unable to focus on anything other than the planes of his face, his smooth dark skin, his deep narrowed eyes, and the way my heart surges, my blood rushes, and my lips swell in anticipation of his.

…yeah, that’s pretty much this whole book in a nutshell.

They invite over Miles and his buddy, Eric, and they all have a movie night and that’s it for that little lack of drama. 

Damen comes over the next day so they can continue to not worry about Haven or dead ladies and lounge by the pool instead.  Then Damen offers to make her dinner. 

This is it, people.  This is all we have to work with for a plot.  We know that there’s stuff happening, stuff with Riley and haven and Drina, but we don’t get to see that stuff, because the book thinks that dating Damen is more interesting. 

They small talk.  It’s interminable.  No part of this conversation is actually relevant, except to highlight that Damen has done a lot of stuff in his supposedly short lifetime. 

Oh, they also point out that he keeps drinking from a bottle of red liquid, which he calls medicine.  Subtle.

My stomach sinks as I gape at him, imagining a whole host of incurable diseases, horrible afflictions, grave ailments, I knew he was too good to be true.

Because if a person is sick, suddenly they’re no good anymore?  Man, the massages in this book just keep getting better and better.  

So they hang out more and make out more and then go to non-sex sleep together and I just really don’t care.  Why on earth are we spending time with this bull shit?  She even wakes up in the middle of the night without him but then he’s still in the room and I guess we’re supposed to actually care about that for some reason. 

The next morning he mentions that he needs to go home and do chores.  Ever is upset and doesn’t want to separate from him.  Really she just wants to see his house.  He turns her down, and apparently this is supposed to be dramatic or something.  Like it’s supposed to be a sign of something ominous.  She gets down right angsty over it.  Jeesh, Ever, give the boy some space.  Maybe he just doesn’t want this girl he just started dating, who has already shown a habit of flip-flopping her mood at a moment’s notice, to know where he lives.  I wouldn’t want Ever to know where I live, either.  

After he leaves, she angsts for a while more about how she doesn’t know something about Damen.  Even though, really, she knows as much as anyone else would after this long.  It’s only been a few weeks, just a few days if you only count the time they’ve spent hanging out.  The only reason she thinks she should know everything about him is the psychic thing. 

So Ever calls Riley in and asks her to spy on Damen, because if you can’t read the guy’s mind, you should spy on him! 

Riley says she already spied on him because he freaked her out.  She’s been to his house and it’s completely empty, no furniture, except for a room that’s magically blocking her so she can’t get in.  And she decided this wasn’t worth bringing up when she found out about it, no, she just politely waited until Ever asked about it. 

Ever wants to see for herself but Riley is creeped out by the guy so she won’t go along.  She gives ever a map instead.