by Jen Klein
“You could stand to be a little out of control,” he tells me. “Down.”
A few minutes later, my hair frames my face in already tangled waves. Shaun gives me a double thumbs-up. “This is fun. We should always do this.”
“Or not,” I tell him. But my reflection in the mirror is smiling.
• • •
Since I don’t usually go to these house parties, I’m a little disappointed to discover that people aren’t jumping off the roof into a pool and no one is playing a game of Suck and Blow and there hasn’t been even one fistfight. Looks like Hollywood got it wrong.
What they got right, however, is the loud music and the beer keg and the revealing clothes. When we walk in to see a pack of girls with a lot of skin showing, I have a flash of gratitude for Shaun’s pushiness.
We find Kaylie in the kitchen, in the center of a crowd. She’s leaning against the counter and giggling through a slice of lime between her teeth. As we watch, Bo Reeves shakes salt onto her chest, right above the line of her halter top. He licks it off, then tosses back a shot glass. As the crowd cheers, he slurps the lime wedge out of Kaylie’s mouth and sucks on it for a second before spitting it into the sink. He turns back to Kaylie and presses his mouth down on hers, which she allows for a scant moment before pulling back with a loud “Woohoo!”
The crowd echoes her response and I exchange glances with Shaun. “Romantic.”
Kaylie squeals again, and I realize she’s looking at us. “June! Shaun! Come do body shots!”
Shaun grins at me. “I’m driving.”
“What the hell,” I say, which makes Kaylie squeal again. She sloshes some tequila into the shot glass and hands it to me. “Have you ever done one?”
I glance around at my audience of what I assume are body shot veterans. “Nope.”
“You’re supposed to put it in your cleavage,” Kaylie says in a confidential tone that everyone within twenty feet can hear. “But I didn’t want Bo’s face in my boobs.”
“Generally speaking, I have a face-free boob zone myself.”
“PMGO,” Kaylie says, and I laugh because Darbs’s thing has finally caught on. Kaylie gestures to the crowd. “Who’s it going to be?” I know most of the faces but don’t see anyone I’m particularly dying to lick, so I point at Shaun. Apparently it’s a good choice, because cheering and laughter erupts.
“Make him straight!” says Danny Hollander, and Shaun gives him the finger.
I take the proffered lime wedge from Kaylie and slide it over the back of Shaun’s hand. “I’m pretty sure this won’t make you straight,” I tell him as Kaylie sprinkles salt over the area.
“You’re welcome to try.” Shaun opens his mouth so I can set the wedge between his teeth.
I lick the sour salt from his hand and drink the tequila. It’s way stronger than I imagined, and my face involuntarily squinches up tight, which makes people laugh. I shake my head and lean into Shaun so I can take the lime from his mouth. “Yuck,” I say once the taste is gone from my tongue and people have stopped clapping for my amazing feat.
“Congratulations on losing your body shot virginity,” Shaun says.
“Thanks. Are you straight now?”
“I actually think you might have made me gayer.” Yet another squeal from Kaylie heralds a new group of guests, so with the attention off us, Shaun and I head for the keg. “We can share,” he tells me.
It’s a good call, especially because the tequila is still burning in my throat. As Shaun fills up a plastic cup, the door to the backyard bangs open and a girl totters in backward. It’s obviously Ainsley, because that’s Ainsley’s thick, curly beach-sand hair hanging almost to her waist, and yet it can’t possibly be her, because visible at her waist is a pair of very big, very male hands. They’re groping her quite extensively, and they belong to Theo Nizzola.
I want to think it’s a party game—one I don’t know, like another version of body shots, maybe—but Theo and Ainsley aren’t carrying any alcohol that I can see. Also, they’re so into each other that they can’t even separate their mouths long enough to walk into the house. They’re murmuring between kisses, and as Shaun and I stare, Ainsley takes Theo’s hands away from her waist so she can entwine her fingers with his. She steps into the kitchen, pulling him after her.
Because he’s facing forward—and because Shaun and I are just standing there with our mouths wide open—Theo addresses us first. “What are you looking at?”
We’re saved from answering by Ainsley’s gasp of surprise. “June! You’re here!”
“You invited me.” I hear the chill in my voice. Suddenly, I understand what might have made Oliver punch Itch in the face.
“You said you weren’t coming.” She waves her hands in front of her body, distressed, and her eyes are bigger and greener than usual.
“Shaun convinced me otherwise.” I eye Theo. “I guess I should have alerted you that I changed my mind.”
“No.” Ainsley shakes her head. “Of course you didn’t have to tell me. I’m sorry. I’m surprised, that’s all.”
“I see that.” I turn to Shaun. “Let’s go anywhere else.”
“Wait,” says Ainsley. “Can I talk to you?”
I don’t especially want to listen to Ainsley explain why it’s okay to make out with Oliver’s best friend, so I look at Shaun. I’m hoping he’ll save me, but he only nods and pushes the cup of beer into my hands. “Go ahead.”
I follow Ainsley through the kitchen and the crowded living room and out onto the front porch. It’s not as big as ours, but there’s a porch swing in the corner. I sit on one end and Ainsley plops onto the other. “Theo was going to tell him tonight,” she says. “That was the plan, but then Oliver decided not to come.”
I gesture to the house. “Do you really think everyone here is going to keep it a secret? You’re all over each other.” I don’t add what’s really going through my mind: grossgrossgross.
“We didn’t think it through,” says Ainsley. “We were just going to come to the party like friends, but then we were holding hands and suddenly it seemed silly to keep trying to hide it, you know?”
“I actually don’t know. You could have any boy you want, and you choose the one who’s besticles with Oliver?”
“That’s not why I’m with Theo. I just like him.”
I don’t say anything, because although I cannot remotely understand liking Theo Nizzola, what I do understand is not getting to choose how emotions work.
“I know it’s breaking the bro code. Theo knows it, too. That’s why he’s going to talk to him.” Ainsley leans forward, training her eyes on my face. “Please don’t be mad, June.”
I turn it over in my mind. I don’t know why Ainsley cares if I’m mad at her, which I’m not. Not exactly. It’s more that I don’t want anyone to get hurt and this seems like it has big potential for hurting everyone involved, Ainsley included.
“I have to tell you something,” I finally say, and watch Ainsley’s smile vanish. “In the name of sisterhood, I think you need to know.”
“Go on.” This time her voice is sharp. Cold.
“When you and Oliver started dating, Theo made a stupid bet with him about how fast Oliver could”—I pause and Ainsley waits, tapping her foot against the porch floor—“have sex with you.” It sounds so awful when I say it out loud, and suddenly I hate myself for being the one to inflict this knowledge on her. “Theo bet Oliver he couldn’t do it by the Fourth of July. That’s why Oliver took that family sciences class, because he lost the bet.” Ainsley stays quiet and I can’t tell if she’s furious or if she’s going to burst into tears or what, so I keep talking to get it over with, the words coming out faster and faster. “Yeah, it was crappy of Oliver to take the bet, but maybe it was worse of Theo to make it in the first place. He brought it up in the locker room or something, so everyone was listening and all the athletes know about it. I’m so sorry, Ainsley….What?”
Ainsley has burst all right, but not into tea
rs. She’s laughing, the sound of it ringing hard and clear through the night air. It’s not joyful. It’s scornful. “God, June. You’re just so earnest. It’s kind of adorable.”
I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m pretty sure she’s not giving me a compliment.
“I already know about their stupid bet,” she tells me. “I’ve known forever. It’s not a big deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Indignation rises in me and spills out. “Are you kidding? A whole locker room of asshole boys speculating about how fast you’ll put out? It’s awful! It’s gross! It’s—”
“It’s a lie,” Ainsley says.
“The bet? The bet was a lie?”
“No. Oliver taking the bet was a lie. When Theo brought it up in front of everyone, it was a done deal. Oliver and I had already had sex, but Oliver didn’t want all those guys to know it. He thought it would make me look bad.”
I shove back the part of me that cares about Oliver having sex.
“He told everyone he lost the bet to save…like your honor or something?”
“I know.” Ainsley shakes her head. “Stupid, isn’t it?”
It’s not stupid to me. It’s revelatory. Oliver let me think he was an asshole jock so he could protect Ainsley’s privacy. Oliver might be the best person I’ve ever known. Oliver is a prince.
Ainsley hops up. “I need another drink. We’re cool?”
“Sure.” Because what else would I say?
She beams at me. “Awesome. See you in there.” She traipses back into the house. I look down at the plastic cup I’m holding and reflexively take a gulp. It’s not very good. I don’t love the taste of beer and this particular cup is already getting warm, so I stand and dump the contents over the porch railing. I have an urge to throw my cup into the darkness beyond, but that would be littering, so I don’t.
I stay there for a while, wondering how to approach Oliver on Monday. Sure, I’m not thrilled about the way he’s been behaving, but I was supposed to be his friend and I accused him of something he didn’t do. I accused him of the exact opposite of what he did. I started off the school year by believing the worst of him, and then I believed it again after he’d already proven me wrong.
Maybe I’m the jock-hole.
I wait for clarity that never comes. Finally, I’m tired of being alone and tired of slapping at mosquitoes, so I decide to see if Shaun is ready to leave. I’m starting toward the front door when I hear the sound of an engine and see headlights approaching fast as a car rumbles up the long driveway from the road. There’s a spray of gravel as the behemoth grinds to a stop, nestling in a grove of trees beyond the other cars, at the edge of the darkness.
I stand on the porch, frozen, as the door slams and Oliver appears, stalking toward me, winding his way through the other cars. I don’t need to see his face to know he’s pissed. I can tell by the way his body is moving, by the fact that he slammed the behemoth’s door. Someone must have texted, or called, or posted a photo of the party online.
Oliver knows about Ainsley and Theo.
I rush to the top of the porch stairs just as Oliver storms up them. He stops when he reaches me. “Hey,” he says, but there’s no true greeting in his voice. I’m a blip on the radar, a fork in the road. An obstacle to get through.
“I thought you weren’t coming.” It’s an attempt to stall him, an accidental echo of what Ainsley said when I arrived.
“Yeah, I thought so, too.” Oliver’s whole body is vibrating, angry, tense. “But I got some information that made me think I should be social after all.”
He shoulders past me into the house and it’s a full thirty seconds before the commands make their way from my brain to my feet so I can chase after him. More people have come in from the backyard, and now the living room is full and loud. Someone cranked up the music and it’s finally starting to look more like a house party in a movie: dancing and drinking and groping. I don’t see Oliver, but Shaun is by one of the coffee tables, bopping around with a guy from the theater department. I grab him mid-bounce. “Quick, where’s Ainsley?”
Shaun shrugs. “You had her last.”
I shake him—“Oliver’s here!”—and see the Oh, shit blossom across Shaun’s face. He knows what I know: if something starts between Oliver and Theo, it’s not going to end well for Oliver. Sure, he’s strong and muscly, but he doesn’t know how to fight. We all saw Itch’s face after Oliver hit him and—let’s be honest—there wasn’t much damage done.
“They might be upstairs,” Shaun tells me. “I’ll check.”
“I’ll look outside. Meet me back here.” I race down the hallway, careening between pockets of acquaintances who are kissing or smoking or doing something that I think is supposed to be dancing. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, depending on what path Oliver took), none of them are Ainsley and Theo. I round the corner into the kitchen and see that the body shot thing is still happening and that Oliver is here, waiting his turn to take one. As I arrive, Mark Silver leans over to take a shot glass out of Jeana Katz’s cleavage with his teeth. He kicks it back and goes for the lime in her mouth. Major tongue action ensues, leading me to believe that we’ve passed the sobriety point of the evening.
I rush up to Oliver and grab him by the arm. I ask, “What are you doing?” which is the first thing that comes to my mind.
“Getting a drink.”
“Here?”
He gives me a funny look, which I actually take as a good thing, because at least it’s cutting through all the anger and tension he’s currently sending out. “Yeah, this is the kitchen.”
I spot a full bottle of tequila on the counter and I snag it. “Gotcha covered,” I tell him in an extra-cheery voice, holding the bottle in front of his eyes. I grab him by the wrist. “Come on, let’s go.”
I tug him into the hallway and Oliver goes along with it for a dozen steps before pulling me to a stop. “Wait, what are we doing?”
“You said you wanted a drink. I am in possession of a drink. Thus, we’re going to go have a drink.” I wave the tequila. “This drink, to be specific.”
Oliver frowns. “I told you I came here to be social.” But then he looks down at my fingers, clasped around his arm, and his expression softens. “What’s going on, June? Are you okay?”
“No.” It’s not entirely a lie. “Look, can we go hang out somewhere private?” My whisking Oliver away will give Shaun enough time to warn Ainsley and Theo to knock off the PDA. I don’t know what I’ll say to him once we’re alone, but I’m sure I can come up with something about school or our playlist or anything besides “Your ex is hooking up with your besticle.”
There’s a pause, during which Oliver scans my face and I suddenly realize we’re standing very close together in a place of heat and humidity and hormones. What had been urgency morphs into…awareness. All I can see are Oliver’s eyes and all I can hear is my heartbeat in my ears. Oliver’s pupils dilate and something swells in my chest. I open my mouth to talk but words don’t come out, because he’s taking my hand—the one on his wrist—in his own. “June,” he says, but I’ll never know what the rest of that sentence would have been, because Theo’s voice drowns it out.
“Got your sloppy seconds right out in public?” And there’s Theo, hulking from a door that I think leads to the basement.
“Shut up,” I tell Theo, because for God’s sake, that’s not even what “sloppy seconds” means, but then two manicured hands are sliding around his waist from behind, and Ainsley’s face emerges from the darkness below. When she sees us, she gasps and jerks away from Theo, but it’s too late. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on. What’s been going on.
“Oliver!” she says, coming all the way up into the hallway and closing the door behind her. “Theo and I had to get some beer from the—”
“You weren’t getting beer,” says Oliver.
“Are you calling her a liar?” asks Theo.
Oliver turns to face him, and since I’m so cl
ose, I can see his jaw tightening. I grab his arm but he shakes me off. “You said it,” he informs Theo. “And by the way, what are you doing with my ex-girlfriend?”
“Same thing you’re doing with her, I guess.” Theo makes a suggestive gesture in my direction and Oliver grabs him by the shirt and slams him into the wall. It’s fast, it’s violent, and it makes someone scream. A second later, I realize it was me.
In the living room, the music stops and, from the kitchen, we hear Kaylie’s voice. “No fighting! No fighting in the house!”
“Stop!” No one listens to Ainsley’s command.
Oliver and Theo are glaring full fury at each other, their faces an inch apart. People pour into the hallway, and since apparently everyone is drunk, no one does a damn thing to stop them, so I grab Oliver’s arm while Ainsley grabs Theo’s.
“Oliver, don’t!” My tone is pleading. “Please stop.”
There’s a beat, during which they keep staring at each other, and then Oliver’s muscles relax under my fingers. He takes a step backward and slowly lowers his fist. Theo does the same.
“Thank you,” I whisper as Ainsley tugs Theo toward the kitchen. She and I make eye contact, and a flash of something—understanding, clarity, grace—goes between us, and then they’re gone and I’m pulling Oliver out of the party and into the night air on the porch. “Come on.” I lead him down the steps as music blares back to life behind us.
“Where?” Oliver asks, and I don’t know how to answer. I only know I need to get him away from this house, away from Theo, away from everything dangerous. It’s only when we’ve arrived that I realize I’ve taken him to the behemoth. Oliver realizes it at the same time as me and digs in his heels. “I’m not leaving.”
“We don’t have to leave. We’ll just…be here.”
There’s a long pause and then Oliver sighs. “I’m only saying yes because you’re the reason I didn’t hit Theo.”
“Thanks for that.” I reach for the passenger door handle, but Oliver blocks me.
“We’ve spent too much time inside this car already.”
