Tease(61)

And then he looks up and sees me, and he smiles. Like a Hey, what’s up smile, an easy smile.

“Yo, Crazytown,” Brielle says behind me, poking me in the back. “You gonna let us in the door?”

I’ve stopped in the doorway, I realize, and I jump out of the way like a spaz.

Jacob walks up to Noelle and kisses her. Then he looks at us and goes, “Coats in my room, right?” It’s weird to see him being all party host. It’s a nicely non-douchey look on him.

“Come on, I’ll show you guys,” Noelle says, and we follow her down a narrow hallway, covered in more family photos.

“This is seriously embarrassing,” Brielle says, laughing and pointing at another soft-focus picture of Jacob.

“Don’t even get me started,” Noelle says. “His mom wants to hire someone to take our prom photos.”

“Ew! No!” Brielle shrieks.

“I’m like, ‘Get an iPhone, lady,’” Noelle goes on, opening a door at the end of the hall.

Not surprisingly, Jacob’s room is plastered with those porny girl posters they sell at the mall. There’s a really old Pamela Anderson Baywatch one, and some Rihanna posters, and then I have to basically stare at the floor because the walls are just a boob festival. I wait for Brielle to say something about the posters, but I guess she’s not surprised, either. Or maybe she thinks it would hurt Noelle’s feelings to make fun of Jacob’s personal decorating.

I suddenly remember how Dylan’s room just has a few college football posters, the rest of the room decorated really tastefully by his mom. This room feels like no one’s mom has ever been inside it, or ever should be.

We drop our coats on the bed—which is at least made, with a Green Bay Packers bedspread—and Noelle goes, “You want to stay in here to smoke? We can open the window, it’s cool.”

Brielle looks over at me like we haven’t had this same conversation a hundred times. “You wanna?” she asks.

I hate that I have to say no again, but I’m also glad she asked—I still feel left out, but a tiny bit less than I would have if she’d just ignored me. I’m starting to shake my head when Noelle adds, “It’s good stuff, totally mellow.”

“I’m cool, thanks,” I say.

Jacob and another guy I don’t know come into the room behind me and I can tell that this is where I’m supposed to leave, so I do. I’m barely out the door before the other guy has shut it behind me, and I hear them all laughing. Not at me, I know. Or I’m pretty sure.

Brielle doesn’t understand why I don’t smoke weed, and sometimes I don’t either. There’s something about the thought of staying in that room with them that just scares the hell out of me. Like, in this house I don’t know, with people I don’t really know—even with Brielle there, it just feels scary and lonely. Like being driven out into the woods and left there. At night. Brielle says it’s better than doing prescription drugs or something, which is what the real dropouts at school do. But whatever, it’s all too much for me.

I stare at one of the photos in the hallway, an airbrushed shot of Jacob when he was maybe five or six, posing with a toy fire truck. My only option now is to go back to the front of the house, where Dylan and Kyle and Noelle’s friend Amy are hanging out. I still don’t really know Kyle that well, and I’ve only talked to Amy maybe once ever. And I don’t know Dylan anymore.

At least Emma isn’t here. I take a deep breath and force my feet down the strip of plush carpeting.

The first thing I see when I walk back into the living room is Dylan’s face, smiling at me. My whole chest swells, like it’s being inflated, just because of that smile—pointed at me again, after all this time. I almost can’t stand it.

He’s obviously a little drunk, but I don’t care. When he pats the couch beside him, the universal Hey, sit here gesture, I glide across the floor and take a seat. It’s dangerous and sexy; I’m dangerous and sexy. Never mind the me that wouldn’t smoke weed a second ago—this Sara is accepting a can of beer from Kyle and smiling at Amy.

“You guys are so cute,” Amy slurs, smiling back at me and Dylan. I think maybe she’s being sarcastic, but I can’t tell. I decide I don’t care about this, either.

“Dylan looks good with everything,” I say boldly and, I think, cleverly. Like Brielle’s voice is coming out of my mouth. “He’s just got one of those faces.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, teasing. “What’s wrong with my face?”

“That’s my point, dummy,” I say, poking him playfully in the arm. “Nothing’s wrong with your face. It’s a great face.”

I’m looking right in his eyes and grinning like an idiot. I was never this obvious with him when we were actually dating—I never talked like this, flirted so openly. For some reason I feel like I can now, now that he’s not my boyfriend. Now that he’s dating a stupid slut, a girl everyone laughs at. I’m doing him a favor. I’m rescuing him. He could be with me instead. It’s not too late.

“Where’d Tex go?” Kyle asks Amy. I figure he means the other guy I saw in Jacob’s room, which is confirmed by Amy’s response. She just holds her fingers to her mouth in an imitation of smoking pot and Kyle goes, “Oh, right.”