I didn’t even want to know. “So is this our invitation?”
“Of course, dork. Aubrey, you can invite Justin. It’s for juniors too. I think some seniors might even show up.” She paused and looked at Ethan, her eyes carefully assessing him like he was an interesting new addition to the cafeteria she just now noticed. “You come too, Ethan. You’re tall enough to pass as a sophomore.”
Red blotches appeared on Ethan’s cheeks. “Oh, uh, maybe. Yeah.”
Paige smiled, waved, and jogged off to join Travis by the vending machines. Aubrey, Ethan, and I continued to the food line.
“You are going, right?” I asked Aubrey, recognizing the pinched look on her face. Already, she was worrying about getting caught at a party filled with underage drinkers.
“I guess so.” She stood on her tiptoes, craning her neck to see over the crowd. I knew she’d spotted Justin when her face relaxed into a slight smile. “I’ll be back,” she told us before darting into the crowd.
I peered at Ethan. “Are you actually going or did you just say you were because you think Paige is cute?”
He smiled mysteriously.
“She has a boyfriend, you know,” I said in a mock-stern voice. Ethan didn’t go to parties, and he certainly didn’t talk to girls, unless I counted as one. It surprised me that he was even considering going.
“Don’t worry,” Ethan said as we shifted forward in line. “She’s not really my type, anyway.”
I turned to him, all set to ask what type he did like, when it suddenly hit me why Paige had looked at him like she’d never really noticed him before today. The change had been gradual, building over the past few months, but now it was glaringly obvious.
Ethan was starting to get cute.
Getting to the party on Saturday night involved some planning. My mother totally bought the watching-movies-at-Paige’s-house story and even offered to drive us over there, but I didn’t want her to get tipped off by loud music or extra cars in the driveway. Instead, Aubrey and Ethan came to my house first and then the three of us walked the short distance to Paige’s.
“When are your parents going to start letting you drive their cars?” I whined to Aubrey as the early-June wind tangled my hair, which I’d spent twenty minutes brushing to perfection. “You’ve had your license for ages now.”
She rolled her eyes. “Maybe when I’m ninety and on my deathbed.”
“They don’t trust her,” Ethan put in. “They think she might get a taste of freedom and never come back.”
“Maybe they’re right,” Aubrey mumbled as we turned onto Paige’s street.
Right away, I was relieved we hadn’t let my mom drop us off. Cars spilled out of the driveway and lined the curbs, and some guy was walking across the lawn with a six-pack in each hand. Aubrey and I exchanged a here-we-go look and followed beer guy up to the front door.
Not bothering with the doorbell, we let ourselves in. Paige’s house was a medium-sized split-level, and it seemed like everyone was on the upper floor, hanging out in the kitchen and living room. The three of us headed up there, shouldering through the mass of sweaty bodies. I recognized a lot of people from our class, but there were older people too, juniors and seniors who didn’t discriminate when parent-free houses and copious amounts of alcohol were in play.
“There’s another fridge in the garage,” Paige was telling the guy who’d carried in the six-packs as we squeezed into the kitchen. She spotted us and grinned. “Hey, guys! You made it.”
I reached out to hug her, careful not to flatten her perfectly curled hair. She wore a tiny skirt and an even tinier sparkly tank top, the type of outfit that would look borderline obscene on me. Paige’s natural skinniness—along with Aubrey’s petite figure—always made me feel extra bulky when we all hung out together. I hated being the tallest and most well-endowed of my friends.
“You guys want a drink?” Paige asked as Travis sidled up beside her and wrapped his arms around her waist. He greeted us with a nod, his eyes glassy and unfocused. Clearly, he’d been taking advantage of the party supplies.
“Um . . .” I glanced behind me to discover two pairs of dark brown eyes locked on my face. Aubrey had that pinched expression again, and Ethan seemed curious, like he was waiting to see if I’d cave under peer pressure even though I’d told them on the walk over I was definitely not going to drink.
“No, thanks,” Aubrey answered for all three of us, then caught Travis’s eye. “Have you seen Justin?”
“Downstairs,” he said with a smirk. “He’s working his way through a case of Bud.”
Aubrey sighed. Apparently, before they started dating, Justin used to get hammered with the junior jerks almost every weekend, and sometimes he still did. Aubrey hated it.
“I’d better get down there,” she told me, turning in the direction of the stairs. “He’s probably waiting for me.”
Or maybe, I thought, he was drowning himself in beer because he didn’t want to see her or get back together with her or any of the other things Aubrey was hoping for tonight. “Find us later,” I called after her as she left the kitchen.
“Should we go downstairs too?” Ethan asked.
“Nah.” I shook my head. “Let’s give them some distance.”
Relieved, he leaned back against the counter, his gaze following a trio of sophomore girls in tight jeans as they passed by the threshold to the kitchen. I nudged him with my elbow and he looked back at me, wide-eyed and innocent.
“What?” he said.
I snorted and ran my hand over my hair, trying to smooth out the tangles the wind had made. It probably looked like a rat’s nest. “Nothing.” I patted his head, surprised at how high I had to reach to get to it. We were officially the same height. “I’m gonna go fix my hair. Stay out of trouble while I’m gone, okay?”
“Can’t make any promises.”
I wagged a finger at him and edged out of the kitchen. The hallway leading to the bathroom was mobbed with sweaty bodies, and it took at least ten minutes for my turn to arrive. Ethan was probably wondering about me.
Or not. When I got back to the kitchen, he was nowhere to be seen. I turned and started in the other direction, occasionally smiling at people I knew. As I entered the living room, a hand shot out and seized my arm.
“Dara!” shouted Levi Mosley. Without letting go of me, he turned to Shane Dobbs, who was standing next to him, and said, “She’ll do anything if you dare her first.”
“Excuse me?” I pulled my arm out of his grasp.