by Dahlia Adler
I smile into the mirror, poking dimples into my cheeks. I learned a long time ago that it was entirely his loss, and my mom is enough awesome for three parents. “Why yes, I suppose I am.”
“I could never.”
“Please. She who laughs in the face of divorce.” I turn to face Jasmine, who’s pulled the wig from her head and is slumped against the wall, letting the lavender strands dangle. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” A slight, forced smile drifts across her face as quickly as the ocean breeze. “But are you? For real? Because yeah, maybe I was cool with them getting divorced, but not so much with my dad moving to New York and dropping me to only Christmases and summers.”
The shop is empty except for us, and the older woman behind the counter is sitting with her feet up and a small TV turned on to soap operas, so I imagine she won’t mind if we make ourselves comfortable. I drop onto the floor across from Jasmine and take the wig from her hands before she can twist off all the artificial hair with her anxious fingers.
“I am,” I say, and I mean it. “My mom has had to be double the parent, but she’s amazing, and I couldn’t ask for better. Is that why you never talk about home and your school friends? I’d never even heard of Laila before today.”
She shrugs and slides down the wall onto the linoleum. “I guess. It just feels like two different worlds—there and here. It’s like it isn’t even part of the same life.”
For a second, my mind flashes to when we were feeling each other up under the watchful eyes of Constance Wu and Gemma Chan, and I know exactly what she means.
“What are Laila and your other friends doing this summer? I’m surprised you don’t have any other school friends here.”
“Asheville’s pretty kick-ass during the summer, so most people stay home and go hiking and to festivals and whatever. Laila and our friend Kendall work at a day camp together. I get to come back at the end of every summer and listen to two months of private jokes before everything gets back to normal.”
I pull off my blond curls and toss the wig to her. “You can’t win, huh?”
She spins the wig on her finger and exhales into a self-deprecating laugh. “God, I sound like such a brat. Boo-fucking-hoo that I spend the summers in a gorgeous, expensive beach house with a pool and hot tub.”
“You get to boo-fucking-hoo that you’re lonely, Jas,” I say softly, because I realize that’s exactly what she is. Her friends at home feel conditional, her friends here feel like surface-level entertainment, she isn’t with the parent she knows wants to spend time with her, and she is with the one she feels doesn’t give a shit.
She is lonely and hurting and has been for a long time.
A tear forms in one of her eyes and is wiped away so quickly I almost think I’ve imagined it. “Hashtag onlychildproblems. And hey,” she says, tossing the wig back, “I’m not lonely this summer, right?”
I smile. “Sure as hell not.”
“So, are you doing it?” She nods toward the hair. “It looked damn good.”
Jasmine thinking it looks damn good shouldn’t have any effect on me, but the heat crawling up my skin would suggest it does. Still, I force myself to shake it and think about what I want.
And I thought it looked pretty damn good too.
I never do this. I’m the opposite of lonely; pretty much every decision in my life involves a consultation with my mom, or Shannon, or both. This would be me, and only me, making a choice, alongside someone who isn’t gonna be there on the first day of school when people see it for the first time.
Me.
“Yeah,” I say, getting to my feet and holding out a hand to Jasmine. “I’m doing it.”
She takes my hand and grins as I pull her up. “Good. Because I already made the appointment, and it’s in fifteen minutes.”
“Jasmine!”
“It takes time to get an opening there!” she says, holding up her hands in the universal gesture of innocence. “I wasn’t gonna make you go if you didn’t want to.”
“Hmph.” I turn back to the mirror and put the wig on one last time, just to make sure.
I look really freaking good.
“Fine,” I say, taking it off and putting it back on the mannequin while Jasmine puts back the wigs she’d been sporting. “Let’s go change my life or whatever.”
Chapter Fourteen
NOW
It takes forever to get through the swarm of congratulatory partiers once we arrive at Ferris’s. Everyone wants a piece of Chase—a picture, an autograph, a hug, a kiss on the cheek.… I can’t imagine what else they’d be looking for if he were single, but he made very clear at the game that he isn’t, and I walk through the crowd feeling like I’m wearing a full-body halo.
“Sorry it’s such a circus,” he murmurs to me when yet another guy comes over and claps a meaty hand on his shoulder. It seems like every athlete at Stratford has come out for this, whether they’re into football or not. News travels fast. I had to set my phone to Do Not Disturb because it was lighting up with notifications from every single social media app. People aren’t just cheering on the team’s win or Chase’s record; they’re sharing videos of him asking me to the dance, of me responding, of their heart-eye emojis and dreams of finding a guy like that.
It’s not like I’m unused to getting some attention, but this is seriously next-level. Even Shannon’s completely out-of-control sweet sixteen didn’t storm social media like this, and she had performers from Cirque du Soleil.
I can’t see Shannon, but I can hear her across the room, laughing and flirting and, from the sound of it, getting deep into Ferris’s extensive liquor stash. I wonder if she’s with Gia and Tommy, or with Lucas, or with someone else entirely. I’m just glad she’s here. It means she’s not sulking over not being the star of the night, like she did last year when Tommy’s promposal to Gia way overshadowed hers, or when dating-my-lab-partner-Jamie Taylor dyed their hair to match the nonbinary flag the same day Shannon got her first lowlights.
“Well, if it isn’t the king and queen of the evening!” Linus Doyle swoops forward with an exaggerated bow, Hunter Ferris himself at his heels.
“We have reservedeth a room for the royal couple,” Ferris says in a regal voice, “but do not breaketh any shit, for it is my parents’ room. Eth.”
“Dude, why would you let us use your parents’ room?” Chase asks, and I like him even more for it.
Ferris shrugs. “They’re out of town for the week, and the maid’s coming tomorrow anyway,” he answers in his regular voice. “Just don’t be gross and don’t try on any of my dad’s cravats.”
“Why would—”
“I know, you wouldn’t think people would have to be told that,” Ferris says, cutting me off and glaring at Linus, “and yet.”
Chase twines his fingers in mine and gives my hand a little tug. “You wanna?”
I think back to watching him dominate the field, to the smiles and winks he threw my way, the proud thanks at the end. I think of all the times I’ve admired his body in uniform or at pool parties or just walking down the hall wearing jeans way too well. I think of how the last time I took off my clothes with someone, it was my last night in the Outer Banks, a single night that felt much too honest at the time yet has been anything but since the first day of school.
And I say, “Yeah, I wanna.”
* * *
Ferris wasn’t kidding when he said they saved us a room; there’s a sign with a crown bearing a number 14 on the door and a little bowl next to the bed with more condoms than anyone could possibly use over the length of a party. My stomach flips at the sight. I’ve done my share of fooling around, but none of it has actually necessitated one of those colorful little packets.
Not that I’m opposed, and especially not with Chase; he’s been the guy I’ve imagined my first time with for years. Though maybe not in some guy’s parents’ bed at a house party, before we’ve gone on a second real date.
Chase laughs when he se
es them. “I see someone was a little optimistic.” He closes the door behind us and swoops down to drop a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t worry. I have zero expectation of using those tonight.”
“Good,” I say without thinking, and before I can wonder if that was a mistake, Chase lifts me in his arms and kisses me.
“I thought your muscles hurt,” I mumble against his lips.
“Oh, right,” he says, and he drops me on the bed with a wicked grin.
“Hey!” But there’s no time for my teasing protest because he’s crawling up the bed and taking my face in his hands—paint smears be damned—and we’re making out like everyone else in the house, in the world, has disappeared.
“I hope this paint comes off in the wash,” I murmur as Chase kisses my neck, my arms definitely staining the linen.
“I hope it doesn’t,” he says, pushing aside the shoulder of my shirt to kiss the skin it was hiding. “There should be evidence of Stratford’s newest record holder scoring yet again that same night.”
“That’s awful.”
“I’m just teasing.” His fingers creep up my shirt, grazing over my belly button ring, waiting to see if they’ll be stopped on their journey to my special occasion lace bra.
They won’t.
I can feel the exact moment he realizes it.
“Hi there,” I say, and he laughs into my neck.
I help him slip my shirt off and then there’s no more talking, no more teasing, no more laughing. The kissing is fast and furious, hands wandering, and his shirt joins mine, casually tossed on the floor. We’re skin-on-lace and skin-on-skin and it’s all good until we start hearing catcalls through the door.
“Get it, Harding!”
“Go, boy, go!”
Oh God. I want to die, but Chase wrenches his mouth away from mine long enough to yell, “Fuck off, losers,” before reclaiming it. There’s more laughing outside and a voice that is definitely Linus’s calls, “I hope you’re properly servicing our champion!” but it’s a little more distant than the voices had been before and there’s a clear shuffling on the stairs and the sound of someone else—Keith or Lucas, maybe—saying, “Move it, pervs.”
I slump against Chase. “Well, that’s kind of a mood killer.”
“Is it?” He kisses me, clearly not bothered in the slightest.
The truth is, I don’t know. I hate that they make me sound like a groupie, but isn’t that what I am? What I’ve always been? Didn’t I sit in the bleachers for years just watching, cheering, being a fangirl of this guy who barely said hi in the halls until this year?
Didn’t I have fantasies of “servicing the champion” late at night in my room, in the bathtub?
Isn’t every bit of this exactly what I wanted?
“Maybe not,” I say, hoping it sounds like a genuine concession. I don’t want it to be a mood killer. I want us to be on the same page. I want this to feel real. I spent so much time fantasizing and I get to make it come true if I want to.
It’s so much power.
I just wish it felt like power I still wanted.
In a flash, I think of Gia, how she makes her dreams happen—whatever they are. How she does the thing and hopes emotions will follow, and they usually do. I can do that. I can do the thing. I can do the thing and feel what I want to feel, what I’m probably just too self-conscious to feel.
“I don’t know if I’m properly ‘servicing the champion,’” I say, tapping his lower lip.
“Again, not something I was counting on happening tonight.”
“I know.” And I do. “But say I wanted to.”
His eyebrows rise a fraction. “Do you?”
I’ve always wanted to, I think, but it’s a weird answer and a weird non-answer all at the same time, so I kiss down his chest instead, figuring that’ll say everything I need.
His breath hitches as I get to the top of his jeans and slowly undo the button, and it’s quiet enough for me to hear that there’s still hollering coming in our direction, but it must be from downstairs. I wish we’d put on music or something, but it’d seemed so loud earlier that it wasn’t necessary.
Now all I hear is my own heartbeat pulsing in my ears and Chase’s shallow, rapidly increasing breaths as we take the “high scorer” title to a whole new level. For as much as he doesn’t care what other people hear or don’t, he bites into a pillow rather than screaming out, and it takes away any doubt I might’ve had about whether he’s worth taking this leap.
“Holy shit,” he breathes when we’re done.
So, not bad for my first time on a guy, then. Apparently the reading up on it I used to do in preparation of this moment paid off. Good to know.
“Do I get your MVP trophy now?” I ask.
He laughs, still weak as he relaxes against the pillows. “For now. But you have to give me the chance to earn it back.”
His gaze flickers over my short skirt and it takes me a minute to realize what he’s saying.
One of Shannon’s rules was never to go down on a guy because it gives them all the power and they never reciprocate, which Gia reluctantly confirmed was true, though she definitely did it all the time anyway. Kiki had just snorted, and I’d pretended I was taking notes, as usual, though I’d been thinking, Good—I wouldn’t want him to. Way too many guys talk about how gross it is and I don’t ever want Chase to look at me that way.
Shannon’s proving to be wrong; reciprocating clearly isn’t an issue for Chase, not with the way he’s eyeing me. And it’s also clear he isn’t gonna find it—or me—gross. But … I still don’t want him to do it. It’s never been part of my Chase fantasy.
And, okay, maybe I’m not ready to have my memory of the one time someone did go down on me replaced, especially since it’s clear that’s never happening with Jasmine again.
Maybe.
“We’ve got plenty of time for that in the future,” I say, giving him a quick kiss. “How about we go downstairs before those guys come back and harass us again? Besides, you should spend some time at your own party.”
He looks disappointed for a moment, but only that. “True—we’ve always got Homecoming. I can get a room, if you want.”
From zero expectations to a room at Homecoming in the space of one blow job. Noted.
My thoughts must show on my face because he quickly adds, “No pressure.”
“I’ll think about it,” I promise as he retrieves our clothes from the floor and tosses me my shirt. And I’m sure that I will, nonstop.
“Cool.”
We get dressed and cleaned up, and he makes a little teasing “aw” of disappointment as I scrub off the last of the paint in the Ferrises’ enormous en suite bathroom. “You ready?” I ask as soon as I’ve reapplied lip gloss, a futile attempt to make myself look put together despite my clothes having the permanently rumpled look of someone who’s just rolled around with her new boyfriend.
“Ready.” He holds out a hand and I take it, amazed at how quickly and comfortably we’ve slipped into these roles, and then he opens the door.
The picture of the crown with a big number 14 on it is still there, but no one else is; they’re all crowded in the living room, being serenaded by what I immediately recognize as Gia on karaoke. Taylor Swift is her go-to. In addition to being a huge fangirl, she has no problem hitting the notes, but her performance always falls a little flat because she doesn’t have the romantic angst; very few of those lyrics work when you’re smiling happily at your boyfriend through them. Currently, she’s warbling her way through “Blank Space,” singing it at a starry-eyed Tommy as if it’s a wedding-worthy romance rather than an epic burn of a song.
Chase’s teammates spot us immediately and come over to give him shit, but he tells them to mind their business and find their own girls so they can stop worrying what he’s up to with his. Then he raises a fist and cheers loudly for Gia, and I squeeze him around the waist as I watch her cheeks light up with pleasure.
He really is a good guy. Hot as hell, an
d I feel safe with him. I genuinely like him, a lot.
That’s what matters, right? Not that I didn’t want to go further tonight?
God, I wish I could talk to Shannon. I know she’s here, but I doubt her brain’s been here here since five minutes after she walked through the door. She’s just so good at being blunt with her advice, and that’s exactly what I need—not Gia’s effusive and all-consuming belief that love is always the answer, or Kiki’s comfort in the form of dismissing all high school romance as temporary bullshit. I need some real talk, Shannon Salter style, even if it means sitting through a lecture on breaking one of her rules, complete with an I told you so, even though this isn’t what she told me at all.
And suddenly, there she is, on the “stage,” taking the mic from Gia as “Blank Space” fades out and everyone applauds. I’m stunned to see Shannon standing next to the machine. She never participates in karaoke, or anything else that might make her look silly. Even Kiki participates in karaoke more than Shannon, as long as you let her sing angry 90s girl rock. But maybe Shannon’s been practicing or something. I know better than anyone how much time she puts into making everything she does look effortless. And she certainly looks the part of a pop star in her sequined miniskirt, a purchase I don’t recognize.
A purchase that means she’s been shopping without me.
I don’t have any time to dwell on how her friendship is slipping away from me before Shannon hits me with the next blow. “And now,” she says in her most tantalizing I-am-the-first-to-everything voice, “for the first time in Stratford history, please welcome the vocal stylings of … Jasmine Killary!”
She’s joking. She has to be. When did Jasmine even get here? But sure enough, there she is, stepping up to the mic and laughing with Shannon as everyone cheers. Her hair is in a glossy high ponytail that swirls around her shoulders—shoulders bared by cutouts in her skin-colored dress and glittering with a dusting of gold. I’m too short to see anything else, but she’s head-to-head with Shannon so she must be wearing at least three-inch heels.
