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  Her mouth twisted, like she was fighting off a smile. “I'm a slow learner.”

  “Says the smartest girl in history. Maybe you’re just super judgmental.” But I smiled when I said this.

  “Or that.”

  “Are you going? To Ty's?”

  She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure. Everybody goes. Music and free alcohol. What's not to like?'

  The way she said it, though, made me think she was telling me there was plenty she didn't like about it.

  “I'm sorry about the assuming,” she said. “I won't do it again. Or if I do, you can stab me with a pencil.”

  “My pencils are usually dull.”

  “Good. You'll have to really jab it into me. It'll be more painful that way, which will remind me to close my mouth.”

  The first bell rang and she started backing away.

  “And if you don't turn into a major dick by the party, maybe you'll come talk to me at Ty's,” she said. “And prove to me that you read actual books.”

  “Maybe.”

  The corner of her mouth curved up into that grin again. She spun on her heel and I watched her walk down the hallway and I wondered again what color her bra was. And what it was made of. And what it would feel like under my fingers.

  NINE

  Friday night at Ty Hammerling's house. He'd said it was a kick-off for the season. I wasn't too excited about going because I wasn't much of a party person, but when Amy said she'd be there and acted like she was interested in seeing me, it changed my outlook, as hot girls can do sometimes.

  What I wasn't planning on was the majority of the school being there, too. I knew she said everyone went, but I thought she was probably exaggerating.

  You know those movies where the opening shot is people hanging out of windows and sitting on the lawn and music is blaring from somewhere and it just seems like something that would never actually happen?

  Ty's house was an R-rated movie come to life.

  I cruised to a stop on my bike. (Yeah, I rode my bike. I rode my bike everywhere. I had my license, but my dad needed the car to get to work and he finished in the middle of the night when I was asleep, so it never made sense for me to take him to the restaurant. So pretty much I arrived everywhere covered in a fine sheen of sweat. Which was awesome. Not.)

  I hopped off and hid it in some tall hedges to the left of Ty's house, not so much so that people wouldn't see me on it but so it would still be there when I went to leave. I'd somehow left my u-lock in Colorado when we'd moved and we didn't have the twenty bucks for a new one. Barely anyone rode to school, so I wasn't worried about it getting taken there. But at a party where a bunch of drunk kids were gonna stumble home?

  I could see it going home with someone else. Or up a tree. Or in a pool.

  The music got louder as I walked across the lawn, the bass thumping through the walls of the sprawling house and into my chest. Ty’s house was a two-story stucco with a red-tiled roof, which was pretty standard for southern California. Not the two-story part—there weren’t a ton of those—but the plaster and the roof made it look like pretty much every other house on the block. The front door was propped open and I stepped inside, my hands firmly tucked in the pockets of my jeans. People stood shoulder-to-shoulder, most holding a bottle or a cup of something. I could feel heads turn in my direction as I stood there in the entryway. I did my best to not look any of them in the eye.

  “Mickelson!”

  I raised my eyes and scanned the room, looking over the sea of bobbing heads. Ken Blanton was on the far side of the house in a wide-open kitchen, shouting at me and waving me over to the island he was tending bar at. I waded through the crowd until I was standing next to him and Derek Stoddard.

  Ken held out a red plastic cup. “Dude! We were starting to think you pussed out on us!”

  I took the cup. “I'm always fashionably late.”

  Ken laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. His face had cleared up a little and his broad cheeks were pink. Dots of sweat cloaked his forehead like a crown and his blond hair was spiked straight up. He wasn't a great-looking guy, even with the zits gone, but he was probably always the biggest dude in a room and that made him stand out. Kinda like a gorilla in a hamster cage.

  Derek raised his own red cup. “To the man who's gonna help us win league.” He grinned. “That's you, Mickelson. Cheers.”

  He held the cup to his mouth but kept his eyes on me. I knew exactly what he was looking for. Was I gonna take a drink or was I gonna puss out? It was like a challenge. It always was in new crowds. Were you gonna fit in or were you gonna pass, or was this your first drink and you were making the decision to just do it? I knew Ken was paying attention, too.

  I locked eyes with him, held the cup to my lips, and tilted my head back.

  I wasn't some goody-goody. I'd had beer before. A lot, in fact, after I'd been relegated to the JV at my old school. I liked vodka and bourbon better. I wasn't gonna get shit-faced drunk—the season was about to start and I wasn't gonna wreck my body with alcohol—but I didn't mind having a beer. Or two.

  Another good reason to ride the bike.

  “He dunks and he drinks,” Ken said, chuckling. “You're like my hero.”

  “Aim higher,” I said, the beer already warming my gut. I took another swallow.

  Ken laughed again and took off into the crowd.

  Derek leaned back against the granite island in the middle of the kitchen and I slid into a spot next to him. It was a good place to survey the chaos that was the rest of the house. There were a couple of girls sitting on the leather couch in the living room, knocking back shots of something. Blake was sitting on the matching ottoman, some dark-haired chick I didn’t know draped across his lap, her hand caressing his crotch. Guess he wasn’t gay, after all.

  “Is it always like this?” I asked, leaning closer to him so he could hear me.

  “Yup,” he said, nodding, smiling. “Almost always. Sometimes we'll play poker. You know, just the guys on the team. But most of the time?” He laughed. “It's like this.”

  “Where are his parents?”

  He shrugged. “Fuck if I know. They're richer than shit and always off to Alaska or Turkey or some other place I don't ever wanna go.”

  “Right.”

  We watched the crowd for a while and I swallowed more mouthfuls of lukewarm beer. It tasted like piss but I'd gotten used to that over the last couple of years. No one sprang for the good stuff. Not ever. Derek took my cup, refilled it from the small keg on the kitchen counter, and handed it back to me.

  “So,” he said, elbows back on the counter. “Who's it gonna be?”

  “What?”

  He grinned like a drunken Cheshire cat. “Who you gonna hook up with?”

  I hid my embarrassment behind the red cup as I took another drink. “I don't know. No one, probably.”

  “Dude,” he said, glancing at me with a seriousness I assumed I might see on the court, too. His green eyes were bloodshot, and I wondered how much of the keg he'd poured into his own cup. “You're on the team. Here, that means something. Any of these girls will wanna hook up. That's a guarantee.” He smiled. “You want me to send one to you?”

  I shook my head. I might've been a virgin, but I didn't need a pimp. “Nah. I'm fine.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. Then he lifted his chin, a subtle inclination toward the living room. “Cam's been checking you out.”

  I looked at the sea of faces. “Who's Cam?”

  “Cameron Whitfield,” Derek said. “Blond hair, big tits.” He pointed. “Over there.”

  I followed his hand and I saw her. Cameron Whitfield was leaning against the stairs, her own cup in her hand. Long, blond hair held back by some funky looking headband. A tight, pink top that showed off what was underneath, and jeans that were even tighter, hugging every single curve she had. Definitely hot.

  But I still hadn't seen Amy yet.

  Cam caught my eye and smiled at me. Warmth crept into
my face and I looked away. I took another drink.

  “She's a sure thing, Mickelson,” Derek said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Trust me. You want that, it's yours.”

  I nodded, but didn't say anything.

  “Pretty much any chick here is gonna be a sure thing,” he said, smiling and nodding. “You'll see.”

  I snuck another peek at Cameron. She was talking to another girl, someone I'd seen in the halls at school but who was just another nameless, familiar face. Cam laughed and brought her cup to her mouth and I noticed her pink fingernails. How they matched the color of her shirt. And her lips. And her cheeks.

  Derek watched me for a minute, then straightened. “Up to you, brother. I'm gonna go make some girl happy.” He disappeared into the crowd.

  All my new friends were there at the party and I was pretty sure I'd never felt more alone.

  I finished the rest of my beer and stepped over to the keg. I filled the cup halfway. I knew that was gonna be it for me for the night. Any more and the bike would wobble the entire way home.

  I turned around and Amy Mitchell was standing in front of me, smiling, holding a cup just like mine.

  “Hey,” she said.

  My ears buzzed a little and my throat sort of closed up, like I'd swallowed a cotton ball with my last mouthful of beer and it had decided to stick to my tonsils. She wore a short black skirt, this clingy kind of fabric that showed off her ass. A blue shirt, all light and billowy. Kinda reminded me of a cloud. And that moved just enough so I could see down it.

  (Look, I might be kind of Mr. Nice Guy, but I'm still a dude. With hormones.)

  “Hey,” I managed to say.

  “You made it,” she said.

  “Told you I would.”

  “Yeah, but something else better might've come up,” she said. “Like getting a haircut or something.”

  “My hair's good.”

  She cocked an eyebrow and glanced at the top of my head. “You think?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “Whatever.”

  She leaned against the counter next to me. She smelled good and I wanted to lean close, to just sort of drink her in. Which probably would have totally creeped her out, because it sounded creepy, even to me.

  “So what do you think?”

  “About?”

  She held up the hand that was holding the cup. “All this.”

  I shrugged. “Just a party, I guess.”

  “Good God, don't let them hear you say that,” she said, rolling her eyes. “They think this is the pinnacle of life.”

  “Yeah?”

  She took a sip from the cup and nodded. “Oh, yeah. These are the kind of people that will still be doing this ten years from now, reliving the glory days because bagging groceries at the supermarket just isn't as exciting.”

  A group of four guys stumbled into the kitchen and squeezed between us and the island. She shifted to the side to give them more room, which meant she was pressed up against my arm and leg.

  I swallowed, acutely aware of her warmth. How close she was. How firm her body was. How good she smelled.

  “But not you?” I was having a hard time forming thoughts, much less words.

  She shook her head. “Not a chance. The first time you see me at a high school party after I graduate will be never.”

  “Good to know.”

  She sipped from the cup. “What about you? Will you be one of these glory hounds or will you be off dominating the world somewhere else?”

  “I have no clue,” I admitted. “But I don't think I'll be at these.”

  She eyed me, then nodded. “Yeah, you don't seem the type.”

  “What type do I seem like?” I asked.

  She turned so she was facing me. “I'm still trying to figure that out. Since I was so far off with my first assessment.”

  The eye shadow on her eyelids was close to the color of her shirt, a blue that on anyone else might like ridiculous. But it was this smoky sort of blue that, coupled with the thick eyeliner, did weird shit to my hormones. Her short hair was tucked behind her ears, almost like the top was sort of gelled back, and tiny silver hoops swung from her lobes. My flirting skills sucked, but I felt like I was talking to the hottest girl in the room.

  “You know you're like fresh meat, right?” she said, squinting at me.

  “Fresh meat?”

  She got this weird look on her face. “I can't decide if you are just really nice or utterly oblivious.”

  Heat rushed to my face and I tried to hide it behind the red cup, taking another drink. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  She chewed on her lip for a second, surveyed the room, then looked back to me. “All of us, we've all gone to school together for forever. Most of us, anyway. So we've all been together for years and it's all kind of...stale. Like, how do I hook up with someone who I saw pee their pants in 3rd grade, you know? But then you get here and you play basketball and you aren't hideous looking and they're all looking at you like they want to devour you. I'm pretty sure I could find four girls who'd have sex with you on this kitchen island right now.”

  My cheeks burned and I took another quick drink.

  “Holy shit,” she said, her eyes widening. “You really are that nice, I think. I need to get you out of here before they sink their claws into you. Give me your cup.”

  I handed it to her without thinking and she stepped over to the keg, refilling both cups. So much for being done drinking for the night.

  I moved my eyes over the living room and caught Derek's eye. He was making a face like he didn't really approve of my choice. He looked to Cam and raised his eyebrows.

  I shrugged.

  He shrugged back and looked away.

  Amy handed my cup back to me, grabbed my free hand, and pulled me toward the doors at the back of the kitchen.

  I didn’t think twice about following her.

  TEN

  Amy led me out onto a multi-level deck that was decidedly less crowded than the inside of the house. It looked out over an enormous backyard—well, enormous by California standards— and we found a bench near the railing and sat down.

  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “This is way better.”

  “I thought we came out here to keep me safe.”

  She opened her eyes. “We did. Fresh air is just an added benefit.”

  I was disappointed that she wasn't holding my hand anymore, but it was nice to be sitting with her.

  “You were saying something about claws in there,” I said.

  She leaned back against the railing and crossed her legs. The skirt slid up to the middle of her thighs. I tried not to stare.

  “The hoop groupies,” she said. “I was trying to save you.”

  “Hoop groupies?” I’d heard the guys talk, but that was just it: how much was them bullshitting and how much of it was real?

  She tilted her cup and took a drink. “Pretty much ninety percent of the girls in school. All they want is to attach themselves to a basketball player in order to level up on their social standing. It makes all the difference.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah. If you're in any way associated with basketball here, you're golden. Player, family, girlfriend, whatever.” She made a fist and then curved her arm, making a muscle with her biceps. “Basketball equals power.”

  “So is that what you're doing here? Hanging out with me to up your standing?” But I said it with a smile.

  “Uh, no,” she said, raising her thin eyebrows. “I tried that once. Never again.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means if I have to talk about that sorry mistake, I'm gonna be way drunker than I planned on getting.” She lifted the cup again and drained it in several long swallows.

  “Gotcha.” I was curious, but I didn’t push for details. Mostly because I didn’t like when people did that to me, but also because I didn’t want to do or say anything that might make her leave. I was enjoying sitting with h
er, talking to her. Looking at her.

  Amy set the empty cup down and focused her gaze on me. “So you're pretty good at basketball is what everyone is saying.”

  I shrugged. It seemed a far safer response than some lame, self-deprecating remark or owning it and coming off as a cocky dick.

  “I mean, you're probably pretty good at other things, too,” she said. “Like, math or something.”

  “I'm terrible at math.”

  “English?”

  “I'm okay at that.”

  “Right,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “You claim to read. Books are good.”

  “What's your favorite book?” I asked.

  “I have to pick just one?”

  I could have said the same thing. But I nodded and waited.

  “You've never heard of it.”

  “Try me.”

  She folded her hands and set them in her lap. I continued to try to not stare at her legs.

  “Stranger With My Face,” she finally said. “By a lady named Lois Duncan. I read it a couple years ago. It's about...”

  “Astral projection,” I said. “I know. I've read it.”

  She blinked a couple of times. “You have?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “The evil twin spirit inhabits her body and she can't get back in. It's awesome.”

  “It is awesome,” she said, leaning forward. Her eyes were a little glazed, and I didn’t know if it was from the beer or because I knew the story of her favorite book. “No one ever knows that book.”

  I smiled. “I spent hours lying on my bed, trying to project myself.” Onto the basketball court, into Dan’s house so I could beat the crap out of him for ruining my parents’ marriage, into Holly Dudek’s bedroom…I’d had multiple opportunities to try.

  She gripped my elbow. “Oh my God. Me, too. I wanted so bad to, like, fly out of my body.”

  I couldn't imagine wanting to get out of her body, but I was just a horny teenage boy and I was pretty sure we meant it differently.

  “And now I really, really need you to tell me you aren't going to turn into one of those raging basketball assholes once the season starts,” she said, squeezing my elbow.