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“Of what?”

“Sex. Are you afraid to sleep with Coop?” But Ben didn't need to answer because the answer was in his darting eyes, his flushed cheeks, his fidgety free hand. It was written all over Ben's body. He wasn't simply scared, he was terrified. I pulled Ben into the family room, where we could talk without being overheard. “But you're always pressuring Coop to do it.”

The fear that had been so plain a moment ago was replaced by a devious smile as Ben pushed me against the wall, invading my personal bubble. “It's you, Simon,” he said throatily. “It's always been you.”

I struggled to shove Ben aside, but he had muscles that I didn't even know existed. He licked his lips, which were so close
that I could smell the beer on his breath.

“So, this is weird,” I said.

“Don't tell me you haven't felt it.” Even though I knew deep down that Ben was messing with me so that he wouldn't have to talk about what was actually on his mind, there was a fraction of a second when I thought he was going to kiss me. And it's not like it would have even been the first time, but that had been a case of mistaken identity because he'd been drunk and I'd been wearing one of Coop's hoodies. Then that moment passed, because it was Ben for Christ's sake, and I knew better.

“Get off me or I'll tell everyone about your secret stash of
My Little Pony
DVDs.”

Ben busted up laughing, but it was forced. Everything about Ben tonight was too much. His smile too big, his voice too loud, his movements too wide. “I had you going for a minute,” he said.

I gulped my beer. It was barely cold but it felt amazing going down. “If you don't want to talk about why you're afraid to sleep with Coop, just say so.”

“I love him.” Ben's whole carefully crafted facade crumbled with the words and I saw the real Benjamin Kwon. Not the guy who hid behind jokes and pranks, the guy who ate up compliments, always craving more. Just Ben, my friend. Stripped down, acoustic.

And then he was gone again. But the words, they were out there. The words I'd never heard him say before.

“Shit,” Ben said. “You weren't supposed to hear that.”

I put my hand on his arm but he pulled away. “It's cool,” I said.

“They were meant for Coop.”

“They're words,” I told him. “You can say them again. It's not like you've wasted them.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “I'm not a moron. It's just—I've been saving those words for Coop. Saying them over and over in my head, waiting for the perfect moment to unleash them. I thought tonight was going to be it. We'd find a condom and a quiet room. Cassie told me about the spare room off the garage that no one uses. I bartered everything I brought for candles and flowers and shit, and I even paid a kid to set it all up for me. I was going to tell Coop—you know—and then we'd fuck like bunnies.”

I held up my hand. “Thanks for the unnecessary yet horrific visuals.” I peeked around the corner to make sure Coop and Cassie were still occupied. The lecture portion of the night appeared to have passed, and Cassie was wearing her bruised knuckles like a prom queen crown. I wanted to ditch Ben and join them so badly my teeth hurt. But it was rare that Ben needed me. “What's stopping you?”

“You were right,” he said. “I'm scared. Terrified.” He paused and scrubbed his face with his hand. “I applied to MIT without a safety school, Simon. I jumped out of an airplane. But sex with Cooper Yates is the scariest thing I can imagine doing.”

“I get it,” I said.

“You don't get shit,” Ben said. “You think you know things, you think you love Cassie, and you think everything in your life
is going to turn out like a movie. You know fuck all about love, Simon. Less than.”

I'd rather Ben have slapped me in the face. His words hurt ten times worse. But I came back swinging. “I'm not stupid,” I said.

“You're worse because you don't even know how dumb you actually are.”

“Drop it,” I said. Anger was bubbling up and the last thing I wanted to do was get into a fight with Ben.

Dropping things was not Ben's strong suit. “You don't know what love is. You're hanging on to the memory of a night you almost kissed her. That was over three years ago. Do you think Cassie remembers? Do you think she even cares?”

“Fuck you, Ben.” My voice became ice, I became stone. But I couldn't deny the truth of what he'd said. Cassie probably didn't care. She most likely didn't remember that night despite the fact that I remembered every second of it in such painful detail that I could describe each individual dimple on the blue golf ball I used to win our bet at the eighteenth hole. I sat on the floor and hugged my knees to my chest.

“Cassie's my friend,” Ben said. His voice had softened but it still had an edge. “And so are you. It might be kind of cool if you two hooked up.” Ben sat on the floor beside me. “But you have to stop living in the past. You have to figure out who Cassie is and stop worshipping who she was. And if you still love her after that, then good for you.”

It was a lot to take in, more to think about than I had the brain-power
to compute. I finished off my beer instead. “Coop loves you back,” I said. “He says it all the time.”

“Yeah,” Ben said. “That's what freaks me out the most. The moment I say it back, it becomes bigger than him, bigger than me.”

“It already is,” I said. I checked to make sure Ben was paying attention. “There aren't many constants in this world, dude, but you and Coop are one of them. Say it, don't say it. Have sex or don't. But Cooper Yates is always going to be sickeningly, maddeningly in love with Benjamin Kwon.”

There was an awkward moment after I'd finished talking where I didn't know whether Ben was going to cry or try to hug me, but he shattered it by putting me in a headlock and raping my ear with a wet willy. His finger made a squicky sound as he dug it around my ear canal. It was the grossest thing to happen to me all night. Then Ben let me go and said, “Thanks.”

I cleaned Ben's spit out of my ear with the corner of my shirt. “Now get out there and find a way to get your freak on with my best friend.”

Ben didn't waste another second with me. He ran into the kitchen, pushing past anyone in his way. He swept Coop up and kissed him in front of everyone. A couple of guys catcalled and some of the girls whistled, but two guys kissing wasn't the most interesting thing going on at the party. When the boys separated, Ben took Coop's hand and led him from the kitchen. I hoped they found their condom.

I waited a full minute before I got up and made my way to
Cassie as she moved in the direction of the dance floor. The rage that had possessed her earlier seemed to have subsided. She actually looked a little ashamed when she saw me.

“Nice right hook, Rocky.” Without asking, I took her hand and looked at her knuckles. They were swollen and purple and looked pretty painful. Worse, even, than the foot I'd stepped on earlier. “They hurt?”

“They'll heal,” she said. “Unlike Blaise's face.”

I laughed. “I think it's his ego that really took a beating. Punched by a girl. He's never living that down.”

Cassie wavered between pride and embarrassment. “I'm no girl,” she said. “I'm a warrior woman. An Amazon. If Coop and Ben hadn't stopped me, my parents would be picking pieces of Blaise off the ceiling fan.”

“Cassandra Castillo, champion of freshmen.”

“Seriously, that song was the worst.”

“The song?” I said. “I thought you were pissed about Blaise making the kid drink that cup of swill.”

Cassie nodded. “Sure, but that song was driving me insane.”

I chuckled. “You surprise me daily.”

Then she surprised me again. “Want to dance?” I didn't know whether she'd forgotten what had happened in her parents' room or if she'd forgiven me or maybe even just written it off as something regretful that had happened in the heat of the moment. Not that I regretted it, actually. But either way, I was willing to take what I could get. And maybe Ben had been right. Maybe I needed to forget the girl in anatomy, the girl at the mini-golf course, the
girl Cassie had been. I wasn't the same boy I had been, was I? I needed to get to know this Cassie, the one asking me to dance.

I glanced at her injured toes. “Remember? Simon dance bad.”

Cassie looked down. “My feet are evil and must be punished.”

“Then I'm definitely your man.” I took Cassie's good hand and led her to the dance floor.

For the first time that night, I could see DJ Leo. He was standing in the corner, dripping sweat. Except for the fight, the music hadn't taken a break all night, and I guessed that neither had he. DJ Leo was the reason Cassie was smiling right now, the reason she had her arms around my neck.

I didn't know the song, but I jumped along anyway, allowing the rhythm and the sound to move my bones, shedding my insecurity, forgetting the past, letting the Cassie I'd built up in my mind fade away, to be replaced with the one breathing my air.

We danced for what felt like hours, though it might have been only a couple of songs. The seamless way one became the next befuddled my sense of time, my ability to judge where I was or what I was doing. There was nothing but Cassie.

I could have danced all night, but Cassie motioned that she needed a drink, so we floated off the dance floor. Instead of going for another shot, she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and chugged it. The plastic made crinkling noises as she sucked it dry.

“About before,” Cassie said when she was done. “What I said—”

“Forget it. I was stupid.”

Cassie touched my hand. “No, you weren't. You were only being honest.”

With Cassie touching me, it became difficult to keep my thoughts straight, but I struggled not to stutter or make an ass of myself again. “Yeah, but you were still right. I don't know you.” I quickly added, “I want to, though.”

It was a bold move. I hadn't forgotten her other challenge, but I couldn't prove to Cassie that I really loved her until I could get to know the real her. I expected Cassie to move on, to leave me like she'd left me twice that night already. But she started doing that thing with her tongue and her teeth again.

“What do you propose?” she asked. It was such an innocuous question that it caught me off guard.

I hadn't thought about the how. I had no plan. Nothing. I swept the room with my eyes, hoping something would leap out at me, that I'd have a sudden moment of inspiration. DJ Leo was still spinning; people were still dancing, drinking. And then I saw Eli Fucking Horowitz in the courtyard, watching us. If I didn't come up with something quickly, it would only be a matter of time before he swooped in and did what I was unable to.

“Beer pong,” I said.

“Beer pong?” Cassie looked confused. “Are you trying to get me drunker?”

“That's just the added bonus. We'll play for answers. Sort of like truth or dare without the dares. Plus, there's beer. And Ping-Pong.” I gave Cassie a chance to absorb my proposal and then said, “Unless you're chicken.”

Cassie grinned with the same manic energy she'd greeted me at the door with. “I hope you don't play beer pong like you play mini-golf.” Before it registered that she'd accepted my challenge, she was off.

“I do,” I said, and ran to catch up.

Of course Eli and Cassie were back together. I should have known that he was going to show up and sweep Cassie off her feet and that I didn't have a chance in hell. I never had a chance, not really. Especially with Eli in the picture. I was a wholly straight guy, 100 percent attracted to girls with their perfect, God-given girl parts, but if Eli had shown up at the party and asked
me
to take him back, I'd probably have said yes. He was that good-looking. And that smart. And that nice.

And I was just Simon Cross. A delusional dweeb who didn't deserve a girl like Cassie.

When I realized that I'd been spying on Cassie and Eli for long enough that any rational person would consider it creepy, I trudged back to the kitchen and grabbed the first drink I found, not caring who it belonged to or what it was. I tipped back the bottle; empty. All Cassie and Eli were doing was talking, but I knew what came after that. He'd apologize for whatever he'd done, she'd make him beg, he'd beg, she'd take him back, and before the stroke of midnight they'd be
up in her room—the rest of the thought was simply too much for me to bear. I could not, would not, think about what came next. I wanted to drink, to be drunk. I wanted to wake up in a puddle of my own puke, the entire night nothing more than a bad, blurry memory.

“Trade you a beer for a smile,” Aja Bourne said, sliding into view, holding out a full red cup. Aja's smile I got for free. Her teeth gleamed against the backdrop of her lush lips and black hair. She was the last person I wanted to see, and yet I was glad she was there.

“Aja.” I reached out to take the beer but she pulled it back.

“Smile first.”

“I'm not in the mood for games,” I said. “Give me the beer or leave me the fuck alone.” Most girls would have told me off for speaking to them like that, but Aja had grown up with four brothers and was more man than Ben, Coop, and me combined.

Aja seemed to consider it and then handed me the cup. “Who pissed in your cornflakes, Smoochie?”

I took a cautious first sip—a little because it was warm and a little because I didn't trust Aja not to roofie me—but then gulped the rest. At that point in the night, even roofies would have been an improvement. “Don't call me Smoochie.”

“Princess Teeny Bladder?”

“Thanks for the beer.” I turned to leave but Aja sighed through her nose, a thoroughly irritating sound that made me hate having ears.