Shuffle, Repeat(62)

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You should. Kaylie throws a good party.”

“Then why aren’t you going?”

“I’ve been to a lot of Kaylie’s parties.”

I eye him, debating asking a different question. We seem to be making progress—at least in this moment—but I don’t want to piss him off and possibly send him back to the Land of Jerkdom, even though there’s a certain peace in that land, because when he lives there, I have no fear of the attraction coming back.

“Is it because Ainsley will be there?”

Oliver glances at me, and I see him weighing how to answer. “No.”

“Then why?”

“I promised my mom I’d help her with some stuff at home, that’s all.”

We’re silent as Oliver finds a parking spot, but when we’re walking toward school, he suddenly turns to me. “Do you think I should go?”

“Yes.” I say it reflexively, which is why I don’t have an answer when Oliver asks the inevitable next question.

“Why?”

Because I want you there.

It comes into my head as a simple fact over which I have no control. Like gravity. “Because…because it’ll be fun.”

“But don’t you think there will be other fun parties?”

I’m not sure what Oliver is getting at. “Maybe. Or maybe not. We don’t have that much school left.”

Oliver nods. “So it’s one of the last times I’ll get to hang out with all my friends.”

“Yes. It might even be the last big party of the whole year.”

“Except for prom.”

Ugh.

“Right. Except for prom.”

Oliver’s face gets very serious. “So you’re saying that it’s important.”

“Exactly,” I tell him, and then realize my mistake as the first bell rings and Oliver grins really big. “Dammit!”

“Oh, June,” Oliver says, and all my attraction to him comes flooding back, because his smile is so wide and his eyes are so brown, and something about the way he says my name makes my abdomen tighten. “Another song for our playlist. When will you ever learn?”

Apparently the answer is “never,” because here we are again: me falling hopelessly; him unaware and unattainable.

Of course, the only thing I say is “Shut up.”

It makes him laugh out loud.





When Shaun arrives at my house, he insists on playing dress-up. At least, that’s what I call his desire to pick out my clothing for the party. “It’s not that you look bad,” he says, scanning me. “But it’s hardly party attire.”

“My dad says these are the hottest jeans in New York,” I protest, pointing to the elaborately ripped hole along my upper thigh.

“Those are sexy,” Shaun assures me. “But you could wear that shirt to teach Sunday school. What else do you have?”

After half an hour in my closet (and several jokes about coming out of it), Shaun has exchanged my T-shirt for a long-sleeved crop top screen-printed with tiny zebras: a present from Dad two summers ago. I tug at the bottom of it, which barely skims my navel. “I think this might be too small.”

“There’s no such thing as a shirt that’s too small.” Shaun assesses my outfit. “Shoes.”

I want flip-flops and he wants stilettos. Since I don’t own the latter and he refuses to sign off on the former, we settle on a pair of jewel-studded platform wedges that I’ve worn only a couple times.

“If I break an ankle, I’m blaming you,” I tell him.

Shaun only points to my hair, which is pulled back in a ponytail. “Down.”

“It gets out of control when it’s down.”

“You could stand to be a little out of control,” he tells me. “Down.”

A few minutes later, my hair frames my face in already tangled waves. Shaun gives me a double thumbs-up. “This is fun. We should always do this.”

“Or not,” I tell him. But my reflection in the mirror is smiling.

? ? ?

Since I don’t usually go to these house parties, I’m a little disappointed to discover that people aren’t jumping off the roof into a pool and no one is playing a game of Suck and Blow and there hasn’t been even one fistfight. Looks like Hollywood got it wrong.

What they got right, however, is the loud music and the beer keg and the revealing clothes. When we walk in to see a pack of girls with a lot of skin showing, I have a flash of gratitude for Shaun’s pushiness.

We find Kaylie in the kitchen, in the center of a crowd. She’s leaning against the counter and giggling through a slice of lime between her teeth. As we watch, Bo Reeves shakes salt onto her chest, right above the line of her halter top. He licks it off, then tosses back a shot glass. As the crowd cheers, he slurps the lime wedge out of Kaylie’s mouth and sucks on it for a second before spitting it into the sink. He turns back to Kaylie and presses his mouth down on hers, which she allows for a scant moment before pulling back with a loud “Woohoo!”

The crowd echoes her response and I exchange glances with Shaun. “Romantic.”

Kaylie squeals again, and I realize she’s looking at us. “June! Shaun! Come do body shots!”