“God, I hope so.” Sebastian eyed the pool. “Nothing’s more hilarious than his father coming out here and challenging everyone to a horseshoe tournament.”

I dropped my purse by several others and said, “I can’t believe his parents are cool with these parties. I mean, my mom is pretty chill, but I’m also not throwing parties every weekend.”

“Guess Keith and Jimmy lucked out in the parental department.” He angled his body toward mine. The cap hid the upper half of his face. “Before we were interrupted by the disturbing sight of Keith, I—”

“Yo! Seb.” Over his shoulder, I saw Phillip pop up from one of the loungers, his dark skin glistening in the sunlight. “When did you get here?”

“Just a few seconds ago,” Sebastian answered as he turned.

Phillip swaggered over to where we were standing. He clapped a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder as he nodded in my direction. I wiggled my fingers at him.

The two started talking about the scrimmage game and their first game of the season next Friday while I stood there singing “It’s a Small World” in my head. Eventually Keith returned to deposit a red plastic cup in my hand and another in Sebastian’s.

“Only one,” he said, sipping at the foam. “Got to drive back tonight.”

Keith snorted. “Pansy ass.”

“Whatever.” Unbothered, Sebastian grabbed some plates and we got down to eating cheeseburgers. “You see the quarterback for the Wood team? He can throw...”

I zoned back out of the conversation, sipping my beer until I saw Chris coming around the corner of the house. Slipping away from the guys, I met Megan and Abbi at the gate.

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“Thank God you two are here,” I said. “They’re talking about football. Nothing else but football. That’s it. Only football.”

“No bathing suit?” was the first thing out of Megan’s mouth. She was wearing cutoffs and a bikini top. Half her face was covered by black oversize sunglasses. “You and Abbi have no concept of how to dress when you come to a party that involves a pool.”

Abbi’s curls were sectioned into two pigtails. “Heads up, she’s been bitching the whole ride out, about everything and everyone.”

“It’s been a long day.” She snatched my cup out of my hand and lifted it to her mouth, downing at least half of it in one impressive gulp. “First off, that jerk over there,” she said, extending her finger—middle finger—in Phillip’s direction, “didn’t text me back last night, and I know he was here and so was Meg, and you know how Meg has been obsessed with him for, like, two years.”

I pursed my lips. I didn’t think Meg Carr had been obsessed with anyone, but I wisely remained silent. Abbi didn’t.

“Do I need to remind you that you guys are actually broken up? I mean, you said you were talking, but that doesn’t mean anything.” Abbi leaned into me, resting her arm on my shoulder. “So what’s the point?”

“There’s a point. I’m getting to it.” Another deep gulp of my drink. “He says he wants to get back with me, and I’m entertaining the idea. But if he wants to get back with me, he should at least be responding to my texts.”

Abbi looked at me.

I kept quiet.

“Then my dumbass cousin over there—” her middle finger went toward Chris, who was with Sebastian and the guys “—who, mind you, I love deeply, was texting Mandi like crazy on the way over here. And I’m pretty sure he’s already half-lit. I thought we were all going to die a horrible death.”

My stomach dropped slightly. Mandi was friends with Skylar. If Mandi was seeing Chris, which was a new development, then she’d be here tonight. So would Skylar, because those girls traveled in packs.

So did I, but whatever.

“That last part is true,” Abbi confirmed. “I thought we were going to die, too.”

“Finally, Mom wanted me to go out to dinner with her new boyfriend tonight. Who, by the way, is maybe only ten years older than me, and that’s gross.”

I glanced over at Abbi. She was grinning slightly, despite what she suspected her family was going through.

“So I had to explain to her that this was my last weekend before my senior year and the last thing I wanted to do was spend it with her and the guy who’d be replaced by a newer, shinier version next month.”

“Uh-oh,” I murmured.

She lifted my cup again. “That went over well, but I’m here, so I win.” She raised the cup in a toast and then offered it back to me.

“You can have it.” I waved it off. “Seems like you need it more than I do.”

“Thank you.” Megan popped forward, kissing my cheek. “You’re my very best friend.”

Abbi cocked her head to the side. “What about me?”

“You just said I was being bitchy. You’ve been downgraded to second place,” Megan replied over the rim of the cup.

I laughed. “So Dary is in third place?”

“When is Dary getting back?” Megan asked, looking around.

“Tomorrow,” Abbi reminded her.

Her face fell. “I miss her. We should take a ton of selfies and continuously bombard her with them.”

I laughed. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that.”

“But first, how are things with Sebastian?” Abbi asked, nodding in his direction.

“Fine,” I replied quickly. “We’ll chat later about it. Okay?”

Abbi looked like she wanted to protest, but she let it go. I wanted to enjoy myself for a little bit before I started stressing over what Sebastian wanted to talk about.

We spent way too long taking random selfies with everyone at the pool and all around the property, sending them to Dary from all our phones. Her initial amused responses had died, and knowing her, she was probably getting super annoyed by the twentieth selfie, which kind of made it all the more entertaining.

Later, Keith did a grab-and-twirl with Abbi, who appeared horrified by his outfit, but I could tell she was also reluctantly amused by it. She wiggled free, groaning about how much of an idiot he was while smiling. Megan eventually roamed off, joining Phillip and another guy on the other end of the pool.

“Is she really thinking about getting back with him?” I asked Abbi.

“Who knows?” She sighed. “God, I hope not. They’re like the Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber of Clearbrook.”

“Except no one wants them to get back together?”

A loud laugh burst out of Abbi. “So true.”

Looking around the backyard, telling myself I wasn’t looking for Sebastian, I spotted Cody by the grill, cup in hand and surrounded by the rest of the guys. “When did he get here?”

“Who—Oh. No idea.” Abbi straightened her hot-pink sunglasses. “A lot of people have just randomly shown up. It’s crazy.”

We walked over to the cooler. Abbi grabbed a soda as I fished a water bottle out of the ice. “So Sebastian says he wants to talk to me later.”

“About?” She popped the lid on her can.

“I have no idea. Usually he’s not so evasive. But I’m thinking it’s about the obvious, you know?”

Abbi was quiet for a moment and then she said, “You saw Skylar’s Instagram post from last night, right?”

Knots filled my stomach. “Yeah.”

“Maybe he’s planning to get back with Skylar,” she said, and I sighed. “He might want to tell you they’re getting back together. I hate to say that, but after the whole kissing thing, he probably thinks he should say something to you about it,” she said, pushing her sunglasses up as a cloud covered the sun.

“Well, he and Skylar do make the perfect couple.” I glanced at the guys. Keith was thrusting his hips and smacking the air with one hand.

“You and Sebastian would make a perfect couple.”

I suddenly wanted to throw myself under the bushes. “I don’t want to think about this anymore. It’s annoying—I’m annoying myself. For real.” I turned to Abbi. “I’m literally driving myself crazy.”




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