Brandon could feel Sage’s breath on his face, they were that close. He held the edge of his plastic cup between his teeth, his hands ceremonially out of the way as he tilted the cup toward the night sky and took a sip of Jungle Juice. Sage giggled as a river of the alcohol ran down his cheek, and he smiled as much as he could without dropping the cup.
“Okay,” he mumbled through his teeth. “Now you.”
Sage leaned in and bit down on the plastic cup. Brandon had never noticed how blue her eyes were—like the sky at the Cape on one of those endless July afternoons—or how perfectly smooth her skin was.
“Got it?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Got it,” she answered back, her eyes wide and framed with a smudgy dark blue liner. Maybe that’s why they were so bright.
Brandon pulled back. “No cheating now.” He grinned wickedly as she tilted the cup back. He watched her neck as she swallowed a huge gulp of the orangish concoction. She let out a high-pitched squeal and jolted forward. Some of the Jungle Juice spilled back out of her mouth and into the cup.
“Oh, that’s just gross,” he teased her. He was pleasantly buzzed by this time and couldn’t help taking a peek at Sage’s chest, hugged tightly in her orange US shirt.
“Lemme try.” Sam appeared suddenly in front of them.
“Let’s see some ID.” Brandon crossed his arms in front of his chest. It was fun acting all tough in front of the prospectives. He could get used to it.
“No, really. C’mon.” Sam reached for the cup, but Sage whisked it out of his reach, holding it up over her head so that a strip of bare skin appeared between her jeans and her T-shirt. Sam picked at the DM decal on the front of his T-shirt. “This shirt itches,” he said to no one in particular.
“Take it off,” Brandon suggested.
“I can’t. Not yet,” Sam said seriously.
“Why not?” Sage asked curiously. She shook her head, her long corn silk hair shivering in long waves.
“Because it hasn’t happened yet,” Sam said plainly, as if the answer were obvious. He scanned the crowd and ran a hand over his artfully gelled hair, the gesture looking particularly Heath-like. “Have you seen Heath? He was supposed to hook me up tonight. He promised.”
Brandon glanced around at the party, having sort of forgotten where he was. He’d been sitting by the fire with Sage, talking about movies. She had pretty terrible taste, but at least she knew it, and let him tease her about her love for
Coyote Ugly
and
Legally Blonde.
“They’re girl power movies,” she’d explained. Sage was astonishingly unpretentious and easy to talk to. Her bottom front teeth were slightly crooked, which only seemed to make the rest of her face seem perfect. “Haven’t seen him,” Brandon shrugged, dragging his eyes back to Sam. “He’s probably passed out in the bushes.”
Sam looked alarmed, as if Brandon had told him his parents had just died in a car crash. “No way, dude.” He looked at Sage lustily and turned to Brandon, lowering his voice a little. “Can
you
hook me up?” He cocked his head toward Sage, who pressed her hands over her pale pink lips to stifle a laugh.
“Sorry, man,” Brandon said, hoping that would be the end of it. Sam seemed to gravitate toward him whenever Heath wasn’t around, and Brandon was getting sick of it. He knew he’d have to make a halfhearted attempt to look for Heath if he wanted more alone time with Sage.
“Stay right here,” Brandon instructed Sam, “and we’ll send him over. Don’t move.”
“Okay, but hurry,” Sam said, plopping down on a log bench nearby. He glanced at his oversize plastic watch.
“We will,” Brandon said solemnly. He reached for Sage’s hand, which was warm to his touch, and pulled her away, steering her through the crowd of drunken revelers. He didn’t mind looking for Heath, but he wanted to be alone with Sage while he did it.
“Poor kid,” Sage observed. It was exciting to have her warm hand in his, though Brandon wondered if he should drop it soon.
“He’s better off,” Brandon assured her. “Heath’s been filling his head with crap about how he got laid when he was a prospective.” Normally he never would’ve said “got laid” in front of a girl, especially not one he was trying to charm, but the words escaped before he could stop them.
“Gross,” Sage responded. Brandon didn’t know if she was turned off by Heath, or by his language. But she didn’t drop his hand, so he took that as a good sign.
“And I have to room with him,” Brandon joked.
“Just as long as his bad habits don’t rub off on you,” Sage said, glancing sideways at him.
They ducked into one of the tents and Brandon looked around, hoping to spot Heath’s familiar head of dirty-blond hair. But there were only Erik Olssen and Tricia Rieken, that Swedish guy and the girl who’d had a boob job, their faces pressed together and their clothes disheveled. They turned to glare at Brandon and Sage.
“Sorry.” Brandon grabbed Sage’s hand and led her back outside the tent as they stifled their giggles. But they began to laugh even harder when they saw what was going on ten yards away.
Apparently, Sam hadn’t waited for them to get back. He was on his knees at Chloe’s feet, staring up at her with a clump of wildflowers and weeds, clearly just pulled from the ground somewhere, in his outstretched hands. “But you’re so
beautiful!”
Sam slurred up at her. “I just want to cuddle.”
“Ohmigod, that is totally Heath’s work,” Sage giggled. “But it’s also kind of cute, in a demented sort of way.”
“C’mon,” Brandon whispered, electrified by the way Sage’s small fingers seemed to fit so perfectly in his. They turned back toward the roaring party. Sage squeezed his hand and a delirium he hadn’t felt in forever spread through him, leaping and darting like the dying bonfire.
J enny searched the growing crowd, the Jungle Juice tickling her brain. The party was beginning to look like a raging fire itself: a shifting mass of red- and yellow-clad bodies, the occasional orange US shirt visible, with the flames from the bonfire flickering all over the scene. She couldn’t wait to see Julian and was feeling better than she had all week. Easy had apologized. A kiss from Julian would complete her night.
Then she spotted him, heading in the direction of a group of squash guys. His longish hair was freshly washed and tucked behind his ears. He wore a baby-blue Adidas track jacket with yellow stripes over his US shirt, something Heath probably would not have approved of. Not that Heath was anywhere to be seen.
She waved to him and he smiled and started toward her, his long legs taking him quickly to her side. He stepped on a cinder that leaped from the bonfire, smothering it into the grass until it was reduced to smoke. “That’s all we need, right?”
“Right.” Jenny smiled. She waited as he dipped himself a cup of Jungle Juice and joined her on the edge of the crater.
“Maybe we should go, um, check out the woods?” Julian asked. The flames of the fire lit up his face, and his cute once-broken nose stood out from the shadows. Jenny wished she could lean forward and kiss it. The woods? Did he want to hook up with her right away?
“Could we hang here for a bit first?” Not that she wasn’t excited by the idea, but she’d been looking forward to hanging out for a while and being all coupley in front of everyone. She sat down on one of the logs. It was hard to talk to Julian when they were both standing up, since he was a million feet taller than she was. It made her neck hurt.
“Yeah, of course.” Julian sat down next to her on the log, but then he looked behind him in both directions, as if to make sure they weren’t being watched. “Actually, I don’t really feel like Jungle Juice. I heard there was beer in one of the tents. Help me look?” He stood up again abruptly, and Jenny couldn’t help but wonder why he was so jumpy all of a sudden.
“Sure, no problem,” Jenny got up, too, and they started walking. “Chloe’s totally in love with you, by the way,” she couldn’t resist pointing out. After they’d left Julian at the steps of his dorm, he was all Chloe had been able to talk about.
“Yeah?” Julian looked genuinely surprised, and Jenny loved that he had no idea how charming he was. “Too bad I like my girls a little older.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively, although Jenny thought she detected a trace of nervousness in his voice.
Benny ran by at full speed, screaming in delight as Lon Baruzza chased after her. They knocked over a castle of empty plastic cups constructed by two freshmen who sat dangerously close to the fire. One of the plastic cups fell into the fire and started smoldering, polluting the immediate vicinity with the rancid smell of burning plastic.
Julian led the way and they searched several tents, interrupting couples in various states of undress before they found the last four cans of Budweiser in an empty tent with different-size lava lamps in it.
“There must be kegs somewhere,” Julian noted, pulling the sleeves of his track jacket down over his hands to handle the ice-cold beers, which had been sitting in a small cooler.
Jenny nodded. Waverly’s male population couldn’t
all
be drinking Jungle Juice. She had a feeling Heath had prepared the concoction not out of love for super-sweet mixed drinks, but because it got girls drunk quickly. “Too bad I’m new and you’re a freshman. We don’t know the insider keg secrets yet,” she said with a smile. She kind of liked that they were both newbies at Waverly. Everybody else here seemed to have such tangled pasts and dark histories. But being with Julian felt like a fresh start.
“Too true. But no worries, these’ll do.” Julian smiled, the dimple to the left of his mouth appearing for a moment. He slipped a can from the plastic ring and offered one to Jenny, but she shook her head, and they sat down on the hard ground. There was a noise outside the tent and Julian nearly jumped, looking over his shoulder.
“You’re nervous about tomorrow, aren’t you?” Jenny asked, her forehead wrinkling in concern. She was glad she’d figured out the source of his unease. For all his talk of having a cute girlfriend for an alibi, he had to be totally freaked out about the dean’s meeting tomorrow. After all, he had no way of proving he had lost his lighter.
“Yeah,” Julian nodded. His eyes were distant, and the lights from all the lava lamps cast sinister-looking shadows on their faces.
“So …” Jenny picked up the plastic web that had held the beer cans and thrust her tiny wrist through one of the circles, wearing it like a bracelet. “What
are
you going to say when they ask about your lighter?”
He took a long swig of his beer and then set it down on the ground in front of him. He shrugged. “I’m going to tell them the truth.”
“Which is?” Jenny had a sudden gnawing feeling in her stomach.
“Why don’t you tell
her
the truth. About
everything?
” Tinsley suddenly appeared behind them, wearing a pair of slim-fitting black L.A.M.B. pants and a supertight black Ogle turtleneck. She towered over Jenny, her slim figure perfectly silhouetted against the white backdrop of the tent, and the space felt suddenly suffocating. The red light from the lava lamps played over her features, making her look positively devilish.
The hairs on Jenny’s neck prickled in warning. “What’s she talking about?” she demanded. Julian was staring up at Tinsley, an angry look on his face. What was going on?
Tinsley watched as Jenny’s annoyingly cherubic face wrinkled in worry. She knew it probably would have been smarter to keep Jenny in the dark about her and Julian. But when she’d spotted them ducking into the tent from across the party, looking all cute and coupley, Tinsley was reminded, as though by a slap in the face, that she’d been unceremoniously thrown over by a
freshman
. And for that big-chested dwarf, no less. At least her reign of over-boobed terror was about to come to an end, once and for all.
“Julian?” Jenny asked again, looking up at him fearfully.
“Tell her,”
Tinsley said again, placing her hands on her hips in challenge. Julian frowned at her in annoyance, and she felt a momentary stir of regret—or maybe it was just pity. But really—did he think he could just dump Tinsley Carmichael and not suffer the consequences?
He sloshed back a mouthful of beer, as if to fortify himself, and then turned to Jenny. “I … I … Tinsley and I …”
He didn’t have to say anything else. Those two words—
Tinsley
and
I
—were all she needed to hear. They seared Jenny in half, tattooing themselves on her heart. She resisted the urge to hit him, but just barely. She couldn’t really slap him in disgust like girlfriends and wives did on TV—because she wasn’t really his girlfriend, and she never had been.
“That’s why you were always outside Dumbarton… .” She started to put the pieces together. He hadn’t been there to try to see her. He’d been there because he was hooking up with
Tinsley
. That was why he’d wanted to go off campus, too, and why he’d been so jumpy tonight—he was afraid Tinsley might see them. She wasn’t sure what hurt her more: that he’d been hooking up with the gorgeous mega-bitch who loomed over her at this very instant, or that he’d
lied
to her.
“But it was all
before
you,” Julian insisted. “Before I really met you.” He was looking at her intently, his brown eyes pleading, but she felt as though she didn’t recognize him anymore. He was just a tall figure with shaggy hair, a faceless boy she’d never really even known.
She stood up, shook off Julian’s hand, and wandered away from him, and Tinsley, and the party, and everyone in it. How could she have been so clueless—again? And what was she doing in a place full of liars and jerks?
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