A few minutes after we sit down, a bartender brings a drink over, and places it in front of Kayla. It’s some bright-green drink in one of those shakers. Her eyes widen for a second, confusion on her face. I stare at the drink, eyebrows drawn together.

   What the fuck?

   My gaze moves from the drink to her. She’s looking at me. Who the fuck would buy her a drink when I’m sitting right here? Did she talk to some asshole while I had my back turned, or when she was out on the dance floor for, like, a minute, before I got there? She must sense what I’m thinking, because she shakes her head. It’s a small movement, but I see it.

   Just as she’s about to ask the bartender who got her the drink, he points to someone a few tables away. He’s sitting with a bunch of other guys around our age. I don’t recognize any of them. Understanding dawns on her face, and, slowly, a smile pulls on her lips. She looks down at her hands, almost shyly. She then picks up the drink, takes a sip, and stands up.

   She walks over to the guy without a word.

   Logan pulls his mouth away from his girl for the night. “You know that asshole?”

   “No. Do you guys know who he is?” I ask mainly Cam and Dylan.

   Dylan speaks up. “Looks familiar, but I can’t place him.”

   The whole time she’s talking to him, I’m watching like a creeper. They talk for a while, both smiling at each other. Then he leans down and says something close to her ear. Her expression immediately changes. She looks almost sad, but when he pulls back she nods a few times. He rubs her upper arm.

   I’m so close to standing up and punching this guy for touching her.

   When she makes her way back with drink still in hand, she doesn’t say anything—not one fucking word. She just acts like nothing happened. No explanation as to who that asshole is or what they talked about. Nothing.

   The shit with Kayla and that guy pissed me off, so I take it out on myself. I drink, and drink . . . and drink.

   By whatever the fuck time it is, I’m beyond buzzed and a little more on the drunk side. I’m at the bar, ordering another beer. I haven’t spoken to Kayla since she came back from talking to that asshole.

   “Jake, is that you?”

   I turn around to see Madison, this girl I went to high school with. Her dad’s the baseball coach. She’s a cool girl—knows her shit when it comes to baseball, which is all we’ve ever talked about. She’s cute, but she’s in no way even close to as cute as Kayla.

   “It is you!” she squeals and runs up to give me a hug. She’s obviously drunk—her face is splotchy and her breath reeks of alcohol.

   I hug her back, but it’s more like holding her upright. “You okay, Madison? Had a bit to drink, have ya?” I chuckle. Her arms haven’t left my neck, and I’m doing my best to keep her up.

   She moves closer to me. Maybe she isn’t drunk—maybe she just wants to be close. She says, “I was hoping I’d see you before you left for college. I’ve always wanted to fuck you, Jake Andrews.”

   My eyes bug out, and I try to pull her off me. But her mouth attacks my neck, and the one second she’s there feels like hours.

   It was only a second, but a second was all it took. When I look up, I see Kayla. She’s watching us. In her head it must have played out completely wrong, because she looks at me with tears already in her eyes.

   She then turns and walks away.

   And all I do is watch her.

TWENTY-EIGHT

MIKAYLA

   Seriously—fuck my life. There’s only so much shit I can take before all the fucked-up things in my life consume me.

   After I manage to stop the tears and clean myself up, I take a few deep breaths and open the restroom door.

   Jake’s standing by the restrooms, leaning against the wall with one foot up and his hands behind his back. He’s looking down at the floor. When he hears the door open, he looks up, and a sad smile creeps across his features. I try to smile back, but I don’t know that it shows.

   I start to walk back to the others, but he grabs my arm and starts to say something. Guys coming out of the men’s room walk toward us, and Jake has to push us against the wall so they can get through.

   So here we are. I’m leaning against the wall with him in front of me.

   When the guys pass, he doesn’t step back. I let him stand right where he is—so close we’re almost touching. He’s resting one hand against the wall next to my head, and the other hangs by his side. He reaches up and cups my face gently, and I can’t help leaning into him slightly. He shifts his body closer so the fronts of our bodies are pressed together.

   He dips his head so his mouth is close to my ear. I can hear him breathing over the noise of the club. “Whatever you’re thinking, quit. It wasn’t what you think.” Then he lightly takes my earlobe in his mouth. It’s enough to make my knees weak and my body give out.

   But he’s on me, holding me up as his lips move from my ear to the spot just behind it and down to my neck. I reach up to grip his hair. He lowers his hand that was cupping my face and moves it down my side, past my waist and hips to my bare thighs. He lifts my leg so it’s around him and he’s in between me.

   Leaning against a fucking wall.

   In a fucking club.

   With people all around us.

   I forget what my name is, because I’m so goddamn turned on right now, and I know he is—I can feel he is. My head falls back slightly and I moan, because being with him like this is so intense, physically and emotionally.

   He takes that as an invitation, and his kisses get less gentle and more extreme. He’s licking and sucking—hard, like he wants to leave his mark, like he wants the world to know I’m his. And I am—his, I mean.

   Just when I’m about to bring his mouth to mine, because I need to kiss him, and we’ve never, ever kissed like that before—

   “Holy shit!”

   Jake immediately lets go of my thigh and cups the back of my head to pull me into his chest.

   He knows I’m embarrassed.

   I turn slightly and peek under his arm to see who interrupted. Some guy I don’t know is standing frozen just outside the men’s room. The doors open and two other guys walk out and bump into the back of him. The smell of weed pours out behind them.

   “Jake fuckin’ Andrews,” one of the guys sing-songs.

   Jake nods at them, no emotion on his face.

   “Holy shit, dude,” the other says, his eyes roaming over me. “You got fire!”

   Then all three walk past us, patting Jake’s back on the way out and laughing to themselves.