“Send him a pic of you in that outfit.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Doesn’t matter. Do it, and I’ll tell him. I’ll even take the picture.”

“Uh, okay.”

He holds up his phone then says, “Hmmm, that’s not quite right. You need to fix it. Make it a little sexier.”

“Fix what?”

“Unbutton one more button.”

“But you’ll see my bra.”

He smiles and flicks the button open. “Just a little.” He backs up and says, “Smile.”

I smile. Except I’m pretty sure he didn’t take a picture of my mouth. I think he maybe took a picture of my chest area.

“Hmmm.” He points the camera down at my legs, more specifically the hem of my skirt.

“Are you getting all of me or just parts?”

“Maybe the good parts.”

“Why would he need . . . NO!”

Dawson grins naughtily. “You’re the one that wanted to help him. He can take care of himself first, then he won’t be so quick, in theory, his first time. I think he’s too young. That’s why I didn’t want to tell him.”

“Dawson, he is too young, but he wants to beat Riley. Riley was . . .”

“I know how old Riley was. I also know Braxton isn’t ready. He’s dumb. He’ll be careless.”

“That’s exactly why you should talk to him. Be a good brother.”

Dawson clicks around on his phone and then pins me back against the wall. “Do you realize there are only five buttons separating us?”

I swallow. Crap. I need to get out of here because I have a strong desire to undo the one button that is separating him from me.

“I need to go,” I tell him. “And you need to talk to your brother. He needs to hear about protection and all that stuff. And Dawes, don’t forget to tell him about love.”

“I love you. Maybe we should talk about that?”

“I love you too, but we both know what kind of love it is.”

“Yeah, the hot kind.”

“You’re naughty. We really need to stop having sex.”

“Not until you have a good reason for wanting to stop.”

“What should be my reason?”

“When you want to stop, that’s when you’ll know you should.”

“Shit. That may be the most profound thing you’ve ever said to me.” I push my way out of his room. “Bye, Dawson,” I say, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.

As I’m walking back to my dorm, I run into Aiden coming from the library.

“Trick or treating in the boy’s dorm?” he asks. Then he looks a little closer at me. “Your shirt is unbuttoned.”

I immediately look a guilty.

 Aiden looks at me accusatorially. “Were you just with Dawson?”

“No.”

Aiden shakes his head at me. “Then why were you in the boys’ dorm?”

“Well, I was in Dawson’s room but nothing happened. I had to talk to him about something important.”

“Uh huh. And your button just accidentally popped open?”

“This costume cost all of $47 dollars. It’s not exactly high quality, Aiden. And his little brother texted me and I thought he needed to deal with it.”

“And that’s it?”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“You look high.”

I giggle. “Jake was handing out special brownies.”

“And nothing happened?”

“That’s right.”

“That’s quite a costume.”

“Do you like it?”

Aiden’s eyes drink in my costume. “I wouldn’t have let you out of my room.”

He gives me a quick but spine-tingling kiss and then says, “Happy Halloween, Boots.”

Tuesday, November 1st

Just jack off.

7:40am

I wake up starving and scarf down the first thing I see.

After I eat half, it dawns on me that I’m eating a brownie.

Oh, shit.

Please don’t let this be a special brownie.

I wake Katie up. “Tell me you ate Jake’s brownie last night.”

“No, Bryce and I decided to save it and share it tonight.”

I close my eyes tightly. “Shit. I just ate half of it.”

“I heard you can kill a high by doing some shots.”

“You want me to get drunk too?”

“What if I try to scare you?”

“I don’t think you can scare me if I know you’re going to try to scare me because then I probably wouldn’t be scare-able.”

“You’re already high.”

“Wait. I know what to do.”

I call Dallas. “Dallas, dude. I totally, like, need some assistance.”

“Uh, okay?”

“Have you ever, like, gotten high but then felt like maybe you shouldn’t be high?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“No. Like, have you ever needed to get un-high quickly? How do you do it?”

“Oh. Just jack off.”

“I don’t think I have the right parts for that.”

“Are you high? Now?”

“Slightly.”

“I’ll be right over.”

Katie leaves while I wait for Dallas. While I wait, I start to think about how my brain has totally been on my case lately.

I mean what is with all this nagging?

All this Choose. Choose. You need to choose.

I decide to text Grandpa. He’s a smart man.

Me:  Grandpa, how do you like make an important decision? Do you like write out pros and cons, like how do you decide?

Grandpa:  I like totally like flip a coin, dude.

Me:  Very funny, ha ha. I guess I did say like a couple times. But here’s the deal. This decision is too important to flip a coin over. I mean, what if I don’t get what I want?

Grandpa:  Exactly.

Me:  What? I don’t get it. What do you mean? Exactly?

Grandpa:  Hotshot, when you need to make an important decision and you are trying to decide between two things, flip a coin. You just said, what if I don’t get what I want. That tells me you already know what you want. Most people do. They just need validation. Like fate played a hand in it. If you flip a coin and get what you want, you feel like you made the right decision, but it sounds like you already know the right decision. You’re just scared to make it.

Me:  That’s really deep, dude.

Grandpa: Thanks, dude.

I think about what Grandpa said. I have a hot pink Magic Eight Ball at home. I used it a lot when I was younger, and if I didn’t get the answer I wanted, I would shake it until the eight ball got it right.

Yes. Brooklyn is in love with you. 

Most of my questions back then revolved around Brooklyn. Will Brooklyn ever ask me out? Does Brooklyn think of me as more than a friend? Will Brooklyn kiss me tonight? Will we get married someday?

Okay, so I may have used it recently.

Dallas barges in my door and looks at me. “Did you eat one of Jake’s brownies for breakfast?”

“Yes. Accidentally.”

“Do you have any left?”

“Half.”

“Sweet. If we’re gonna skip school and hang out, we should both be high.”

I watch as he chows down the other half of the brownie.

Now we’re lying on my bed trying to count the stars on my ceiling. There are either 22 or 137, we’re not exactly sure.

“You know, I’ve been a mostly good boy all year long. Was it too much to ask for a girl to come up to me on Halloween, laugh like a vampire, and say, I vant to suck your dick?”

I laugh out loud. “Ohmigawd. I want to be a vampire next year. I’m totally going to say that to everyone.”

“You gonna follow through?”

“If they got me some food, I might. I’m starving. Are you starving?”

“That’s what we need. Food and a nap.”

“Oh, a nap sounds good. I’ll go raid the kitchen. You stay here.”

I scrounge through the dorm’s kitchen and take back an amazing feast.

“I found cinnamon rolls, skittles, Cool Ranch Doritos, and two avocados. But don’t eat the avocados. I want to make a face mask.”

Dallas and I chow, then I smash up the avocados, and rub them on our faces.

We lie down to rest.

“What the hell is on your face?” Dallas says to me.

“Why are you in my bed?”

“Brownies,” Dallas says with a smile, as he runs his finger through the avocado on my face then licks it off his finger. “I just need salsa and some chips.”