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  “He thinks you’re awesome, you know,” she says. “He thinks you could really be something, even if he barely knows you.”

  Ha. That’s funny. I close my eyes.

  “Seems like he’s a game-player is all,” I finally say.

  “So?”

  It takes all my strength not to tell her she’ll lose if she plays this way.

  “If that’s what you’re into, fine,” I say instead. “Used to be you were the player though.”

  She pauses, stunned. I am a little too.

  “How do you know I’m still not?”

  My eyes stay closed, so I can’t see her, but I can tell from her voice that she’s got that prissy look on her face again.

  “That stuff you said about him being the future last night, for one thing. But it’s more than that. The way you are around the pool. Showing off.”

  “We do not show off.”

  I finally look at her. “Maybe you’re not. But the whole team knows what you’re doing.” I picture Megan’s jealous face.

  She doesn’t have a response. She knows the scope of what I mean, but all she can say is, “Well.”

  I don’t sigh out loud, but my whole body feels it. “Whatever.” I toss my head. “It only makes practice worse for you, because Van’s obviously pissed about it. But maybe that’s part of your game. Just don’t—”

  It registers to me that we’re almost back at my house.

  “Wait. We’re not hanging at your place?”

  Guilt seizes her face. “Later Gavin and I are—”

  I don’t give her the satisfaction of finishing that sentence.

  “Fine.”

  “But I’ll pick you up later, and we’ll go to that party, right? It should be way more chill. Not so many sorority girls. It’s at some lake. Really, it’ll be cool.”

  “Whatever. I just need to sleep, anyway.”

  “Brynn, it’s not like that. I’m not going to be one of those girls, I swear. We’re still hanging out tonight. You’re coming, right? I think Gavin really wants you to.”

  Ha.

  “Whatever,” I concede. I’m tired. I need to get out of this car. “Text me later about it, I guess.”

  As I climb out and grab my gear, it crosses my mind that not sleeping in a bathtub and not getting up at six a.m. for a two-and-a-half-hour practice must mean you’re fresh and ready for an afternoon fuckfest. I suppose our usual tradition of going to lunch (thanks, Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins’s infinite credit limit) and then crashing awhile before hanging out again isn’t enough of a happening for her anymore. I guess Gavin’s wang is all the dare she needs to swallow to make her feel fulfilled. So, fine. I’ll go back home and crawl into my own bed.

  Later tonight I’ll be the one who’s refreshed.

  17

  MOM AND LOUIS ARE BOTH surprised when Grier pulls into the driveway. They’re outside doing yard work, both of them in work gloves, baggy T-shirts, and shorts—clothing neither of them really should be wearing anywhere, but especially not outside where anyone can see them. I jump out and Grier waves, pulling back out before they make it over to her car.

  “Everything okay?” Mom wants to know.

  “How was practice?” Louis asks.

  I can tell they’re pretending to be cheerful about my unexpected presence on their little Saturday together. Avoiding this time with them is a large part of my usual weekend stay-overs at Grier’s. I’m not interested in perusing junky flea markets or apple-picking or even going to see a movie with them more times than necessary.

  “Grier’s mom’s in town but just for the weekend,” I lie. “They had to do some stuff.”

  “Oh. Well, are you hungry?” Louis asks. “And if you’re up for bagging some of these leaves, we would certainly welcome the help.” The giant magnolia in our backyard is the bane of Louis’s existence. It’s beautiful, but it sheds huge waxy leaves and these grenade-like pods all over the place twice a year.

  “I’m bushed, actually. We were up late. I think I’ll eat and take a nap.”

  “There’s some leftover takeout we got last night if you want,” Mom says, shielding her eyes from the bright sun. I can’t tell if she’s doing it to get a better look at me, or what exactly she’ll see if she does.

  “Thanks. I’ll be fine.” I start to head to the house. I need my bed so bad.

  “Well, Mercy and Dan are coming over later tonight to do some grilling and take us on a spin in their new electric car. We’d certainly love it if you—”

  I lift my hand and keep moving, because there’s no way I’m hanging out with Louis’s geeky friends, even if I didn’t have another party tonight.

  “Thanks, but Grier and I’ve got a sleepover. It’ll be fine. I just need a quick nap.”

  “Okay, honey,” Mom says.

  “We’ll be out here if you need us,” Louis adds.

  I don’t turn around, and I don’t say anything back. I just make a beeline for my bed, and pull the blanket up and around me without even taking off my suit.

  • • •

  Mom’s hand on my back wakes me up. My room is much darker than it was when I got home.

  “Brynn?”

  “What time is it?” I roll over and try to find my clock. But apparently when I plopped down, my head was facing the bottom of my bed, so now I’m all twisted around.

  “It’s almost eight.”

  “Shit. Really?”

  “You’ve been sleeping for hours. You feel okay?”

  I sit up. “Fine. Van’s just upping my drills in prep for State. And there’s a shave meet coming up.”

  She sighs. “I just don’t think you’re getting enough rest, honey. Maybe you shouldn’t—”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Just a later night than usual.”

  “Well, I don’t know if you should go out again tonight then.”

  It’s in me to tell her she wouldn’t even know about my plans tonight if Grier hadn’t ditched me this afternoon, but it’s not worth it. She made it clear a long time ago that she’s only interested in playing mom, not actually being one.

  “It’s cool, Mom. Tonight’s just some girl’s birthday. A little sleepover. Nothing wild.”

  “You always came home so exhausted after sleepovers. Remember that one of Kelsey’s? That meltdown you had? I always had to brace myself for a tantrum when you got home from kindergarten, because they never gave you enough of a nap.”

  “Well, I just had a huge one, so I should be fine.” I smile even though all I want is for her to get out of here.

  She puts her hand on my forehead. I force myself to not jerk away.

  “Well, you’re a little warm, but I think it’s from sleeping. The Flytes are downstairs. Come on down and say hello.”

  “I’ve gotta text Grier, see what time she’s coming over.” I start untangling myself from the bedding.

  “All right then.” Mom sighs. “Remember, there’s extra chicken if you need it.”

  “Thanks, Mom.” At the sound of the word chicken, my stomach makes a demanding noise. I realize I came straight home and went to bed, without eating a thing. “I’ll come down in a minute. Just let me wash my face.”

  “Okay, if you’re sure you’re all right.”

  “I am.”

  She leaves but doesn’t close the door, so I have to get up and do it for her. I’m still groggy from such a long sleep and am absolutely ravenous now, but first I have to find my phone. When I do, I’ve got three texts from Grier. The last one says she’s already on her way.

  18

  THOUGH THIS PARTY’S MUCH GRUNGIER than last night’s, it certainly isn’t mellow. High school kids from all over ramble through the house, while stoner college girls and their greasy-haired boyfriends lounge by a giant bonfire in the back. Grier and I have heard about these parties—run by the two college dudes who live out here, and attended by anybody who hears about them and wants to go—but we’ve never come out. It’s a long drive, mainly, from her house. And we’ve never real
ly wanted to before.

  Gavin, however, must’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to run into so many of his old friends now that he’s back in town. He high-fives and chest hugs nearly twenty different people as soon as we walk in, including a couple of leggy girls who look like they want to practice some things they just read about in Cosmo on him. While he says hello, Grier holds on to his arm and tries to glare toughly, though it only ends up making her look like one of them: jealous and possessive boy-crazy girls who always make parties like these extra-uninteresting. Already I want to leave. I poke Gavin hard in the middle of his bicep to get his attention.

  “Where can we get some drinks?”

  “Keg’s in the kitchen. Come on.” He holds one arm over all of us, pointing, and pulls Grier closer to him with the other. Squashed up beside him, she gives me a grateful smile. The girls in short shorts melt into the crowd, and I glare at the back of Grier’s head. Gavin hasn’t said, or done, anything to indicate he even remembers last night in the hall, so I don’t know whether to be wary or irritated or relieved or what.

  At the kitchen door, you can see the wear and tear these weekly shindigs have taken on the house. Even if the two yahoos who live here bothered to clean up between party weekends, it would still be one of those dinge-colored homes built over thirty years ago that needs much more than a coat of paint. The kind Mom and Dad and I used to live in, before. Tucked into the elbow space between the sink and lower cabinets is the keg, and we move in the direction of the people grouped around it. Behind us the rest of the counter juts out to divide the main part of the kitchen from the breakfast nook, where there’s a rowdy game of Beer Pong.

  “Oh, yay!” Grier bounces on her toes and claps her hands. “I want in.”

  “You suck at this game,” I remind her.

  She scowls. “Not once I get warmed up.”

  Gavin laughs. “Maybe you should just watch for a minute. These guys are pros.”

  “What, you don’t believe in me?” She pokes him in the ribs. He pretends it hurts then does that lip-bite smiling thing that she must think is sexy.

  “You need beer before you can Pong,” I say, rolling my eyes. Standing around, watching people bounce a ball into a cup is even less of my idea of fun, but I push deeper into the crowd around the keg and grab three cups from the towering stack on the counter. I waggle one at Gavin, making a question with my eyes. He nods an emphatic and grateful yes. Grier smiles at me. I smile at her. We both smile at Gavin.

  It’s going to be a long night.

  • • •

  About a half hour later, it’s clear that no amount of warming up is going to help Grier with Beer Pong. Gavin and I stand together by the wall, watching her fail and then fail again, both of us laughing and then trying not to laugh when she looks to us for encouragement.

  “You can do it, baby!” Gavin shouts, hands cupped around his mouth. When he drops them back down, one clearly rests on top of mine. He doesn’t move it, and I don’t move either, not because I want to be touching him necessarily, but because he so clearly wants to be touching me. Immediately I know he remembers everything about grabbing me last night, whispering huskily in my ear. The center of my fly heats up, sending prickles out through the rest of me. I’m not sure whether I should move or hold still.

  The decision gets made for me when Gavin starts clapping, after the guy playing Grier gets bored by her continual, giggly missing, and has begged his friend into the game instead. Grier pouts and crosses her arms, but she must realize how drunk she’s getting because she does relent. She looks ridiculous and stupid, and she thinks she’s having a good time. Meanwhile I’ve sipped down only about a third of the way through this first beer, even though it’s Saturday and I don’t have practice tomorrow. I don’t intend on sleeping in another bathtub again. Or on that fleabag couch, either.

  “Come on, let’s get some air,” Gavin says, hooking Grier under his arm again like she’s some adorable package.

  I stride ahead, imagining what I’d do if he reached out and touched me right now. Even though we’re several feet apart, it’s almost like I can feel his hand on my back as we go through the screened-in back porch, where a bunch of kids are staring into their own or one another’s phones. We move out into the wide expanse of lawn closer to the edge of the lake, where the bonfire’s happening. We sit down together in the grass, just beyond the circle of people up close to the fire. I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or just the way things work that Gavin ends up between me and Grier.

  The fire is leaping and golden, and the kids in front of us are only tall, dark shadows against it. We’re close enough to be warm, but not hot. It’s dumb, I know, but I can’t help checking to see if there’s a fire ring. Things could get out of control very quickly with a bunch of drunk kids around, so it makes me feel better when I see cinderblocks half-buried in a circle around it.

  I’m about to ask Gavin if he came here a lot when he was in high school, both to be lewdly funny and because it’s awkward for none of us to be talking, when Grier goes, “You two are the best,” from nowhere.

  We look at her. Her face is amber from the glow of the fire, and she’s propped on her elbows in the grass like a little kid. She sits up and reaches across Gavin to squeeze my arm.

  “Gavin’s only been here a week and I feel like we’ve been together forever,” she coos. “I could stay here into infinity. This fire. So nice. You two.” But then she jerks her head up from Gavin’s shoulder. “You need to be nicer to each other, though.”

  She’s in the let-me-tell-you-how-I-really-feel mode she gets in that means “superdrunk.” We haven’t even been here for an hour, I don’t think.

  She pats Gavin’s face with sloppy little slaps. “Why aren’t you nicer to my friend?”

  He smiles down at her. “You’re goofy. Brynn and I like each other fine.”

  I remember his hand on my hip, his mouth so close to mine. Not even twenty-four hours ago.

  “No, you don’t.” Her blurry eyes roll in my direction. “Why aren’t you nicer to Gavin? This is the first guy I’ve really liked.” She leans to pat me, too, but swoops in a little too far and almost falls into Gavin’s lap. I have a feeling Gavin and I are about to have to be plenty nice to each other as we hold Grier over the lake while she pukes her guts out, but I just smile at them both in a way that I hope hides the anxiety rising in my chest.

  “See?” She points a finger in my face. “You don’t deny it, do you?”

  I don’t know where she’s going with this. She doesn’t know where she’s going.

  “I just don’t know him as well as you do, so—”

  Gavin’s elbow bumps mine.

  “I just want us all to be friends,” she slurs. “I want everybody to get along.”

  “We do get along, bratty.” Gavin grins at her. “Look at us, here, hanging out. It’s all good.”

  She sits up straighter, pulling her eyes into focus. “No, you need to hug each other.”

  Gavin looks at me.

  “I mean it. Hug like friends.”

  She crawls over Gavin and into my lap, draping her arms around my shoulders and pressing her face into my chest.

  “See? Friends. Brynn and I have been friends since I was fourteen years old. Isn’t that amazing? All my other friends are bitches.” She giggles. “All they care about are their phones and shopping. But not Brynn.” She gazes into my face for a moment before her eyes drift closed. “Brynn doesn’t care about anything.” Giggling again. Then she sits up and crawls to the other side of me, opposite Gavin. “I mean it. I want to see you hug.”

  Now I’m the one biting my lip, but when Gavin looks at me, I just shrug.

  “Okaaaay,” he says, reaching around me to half-assedly cup my shoulders in the crook of his elbow. It’s such a lame, wet-noodle move, I figure he doesn’t remember hitting on me last night. These stupid gestures I’ve been reading tonight are all accidents. Because if he does remember it, clearly he feels it wa
s a terrible mistake, since he’s in love with Grier now or whatever. After four days. God. They’re both idiots, but so am I.

  Grier smiles. “Now kiss and make up.”

  Gavin and I talk at the same time.

  Me: “What? No.”

  Gavin: “You’re drunk. Come on. Let’s go walk it off.”

  She scoots away from us. “You kiss and make up, and I mean it. I don’t want you two fighting.”

  “Grier, we’re not fighting. We don’t have anything to fight about,” I tell her. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Then how hard is it?” Before I know it, she’s back over to me, grabbing me by the shoulders and planting her mouth on mine. It isn’t a quick little peck, either. She stays there ten, maybe a dozen seconds. “See?” Then she looks at Gavin proudly. “See?” she reasserts. “It’s nice.” Her hand is still on my shoulder. The other reaches out to him. “Come over here. It’s nice.” She kisses me again. This time the barest tip of her tongue brushes the underside of my top lip before she pulls away. She’s smiling. Her hand gently kneads my shoulder. I have no idea what’s happening.

  “Well, it does look pretty nice,” Gavin says, turning more in my direction.

  That full mouth of his. That wry, wry smile. Before I can find a way to tell Grier she’s just drunk and she needs to sleep it off—before I can decide if that’s not true and I really want to kiss Gavin—he’s got his hands on my ribs, mouth on mine. It’s soft and sweet, at first, like Grier’s mouth, and I think the whole thing’s about to be over when things get hotter, making me realize with clarity that Charlie is only a mediocre kisser. In contrast, Gavin’s tongue knows exactly how and where to go, and mine is answering back. If I were standing up, I think my knees really would buckle. I pull back only when I realize I’m gripping the back of his head with my hand, digging my fingers into his hair.

  I expect Grier to either applaud or else fly into some kind of territorial rage at both of us, but neither of those things happen because Grier hasn’t even seen. Instead she’s crawled away a few feet and is hunched on her hands and knees, tossing up her Beer Pong dinner onto the grass.