“How could he possibly know you?” Kai asks, flipping the blinker. “You two haven’t ever talked.”

“We hung out a couple of times when I taught him how to improve his free throw shots, and he used to stop Hannah from picking on me,” I tell Kai. “There was this one time when he even stopped his own friends from picking on me. A couple of his football buddies had me cornered, because Hannah basically had a choke collar on them. He came up and said something about them being late for practice so they’d have to leave.”

“He should have called them out on what they were doing, not just fed them a lame-ass excuse to make them stop without making himself look bad.” He makes another turn, this time down a street lined with single-story, seventies-style homes.

“You didn’t do that for me either.” I clench my hands into fists as they begin to tremble.

I hate memory lane. Let’s not go there ever again.

“Yeah, well I was a fucking asshole back then. Still am most of the time, but I don’t want to be when I’m around you.” He parks the car on a curb at the end of a very long line of vehicles. “My brother, on the other hand, walks around pretending he’s all high and mighty, when really, he’s a fucking arrogant prick who always puts himself first.” He slides the keys out of the ignition. “You may not want to believe this, but you’re too sweet and smart for Kyler. It’ll never work out.” He shoves open the door to get out. “He’d be better off with your sister. The two of them are pretty much the same, except your sister doesn’t give a shit that people think she’s a douche.”

With that, he climbs out of the car, leaving me to wonder if he’s right. Could Kyler really be the asshole Kai seems to think he is?

I shake my head. No, there’s no way. Not when he’s always been so nice to me. Plus, I know he doesn’t want to be the guy he is now; like he told me on the porch that day years ago, he wishes he could be different.

I don’t care what Kai says. I’m not giving up on my Kyler dream just yet. I want to see where it goes. If it’s an epic fail, then at least I’ll know, and then I can finally move on.

I’VE SEEN A ton of movies that featured high school parties. I figured the rowdy, loud music and tons of people crammed into a house were Hollywood’s played-up versions, but when I catch sight of the single-story home the party is taking place at, I start to think the movies nailed it dead on.

The small living room is jam-packed with a sweaty, unruly, stupidly silly drunk people. Music is booming and vibrates the floors. The smell of sweat, beer, and cigarette smoke laces the air, and I’m pretty sure I just stepped in a puddle that I think might be urine.

“Ew!” I shiver as I stare down at the yellow puddle on the linoleum floor.

I’m distracted just long enough by the grossness that when I look up, I’ve lost Kai in the crowd. I stand on my tiptoes, panicking as my gaze surfs the crowd. There’s just too many people to tell who’s who.

“I’m never going to find him.” Those old feelings of ridicule sneak up on me, and I hug my arms around myself, noting every glance in my direction.

They have to be staring at me. And you want to know why, Isabella? Because they know you don’t belong here.

“Hey, I know you, right?” Bradon, Kai’s friend, and the guy throwing this shindig, stumbles through the crowd and stops in front of me. He has overly long hair, his eyes are red, and his clothes smell like smoke with a kick. “You’re that chick from my school.”

I want to point out there’s a lot of chicks who go to our school, but I’m guessing I’ll probably just confuse him. “Yeah, sure.”

“You know Kai, right?” He wags a finger at me. “You’re that girl who was by his locker.”

Great. I went from being That Chick at School to being That Girl by Kai’s Locker.

I stick out my hand to properly introduce myself, so he’ll stop giving me lame nicknames. “I’m Isa.”

He eyeballs my hand then he wraps his fingers around mine, brings them to his lips, places a kiss on my skin, and then licks me like a dog.

I screech, loud enough to make a scene, and people glance our way. Apparently, drunk people have a short attention span though, because five seconds later, they’re all doing their own thing again.

“Sorry, I couldn’t help it.” He laughs at me as I wipe my hand on the side of my skirt. “I’ve never had a girl try to shake my hand before.”

“If it happens again, you should probably just shake it back,” I offer him some advice.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” He noticeably checks me out before peering around the crowd. “So did Kai come with you, or what?”

I inch forward as a guy staggers past me and jabs his elbow into my back. “Yeah, he did. I don’t know where he is, though. I lost him the second I walked in here.”

“Yeah, that happens a lot.” He looks back at me. “How about I help you find him?”

I nod, my anxiety going down a drop or two. “That sounds great. Thank you.”

“No problem.” He nods for me to follow him as he pushes his way through the crowd. “We can get you a brownie from the kitchen too.” He throws me a toothy smile from over his shoulder. “I make killer fudge brownies. They’re actually pretty famous.”

“I bet they are,” I remark, remembering Kai’s warning to stay away from the baked goods. “But I actually don’t like brownies that much.” Huh. Never thought that sentence would ever come out of my mouth.

“That’s because you haven’t ever tasted mine.” He raises his voice as an upbeat song blasts through the speakers and everyone gets all riled up. “One bite will change your mind.”

As I get jostled all over the place by the crowd, I thank the heavens that I’m wearing boots; otherwise, I’d be knocked flat on my ass by now. Heels were never my thing, something I learned every time I tried to wear them out to a club. I’d either trip, fall down completely, or my feet would end up hurting so badly that I’d have to sucker Indigo into swapping shoes. The only ones I can tolerate are platforms, but after wearing them to school last week, I’ve decide they might be as demonic as stilettos.

I struggle to maintain my balance, and Bradon snags my arm and tugs me out of the room, only letting me go when we make it safely to the kitchen. There are a few people hanging around a keg, but other than that, the room’s pretty empty.

“Brownie time,” Bradon announces as he lifts a paper towel off a plate. Underneath it are the most gooey and delicious brownies I’ve ever seen, and my mouth starts to salivate. Bradon picks up the plate and moves it toward me. “Try one. I promise you won’t regret it.”

I literally have to stab my nails into my palms just to stop myself from snatching one and gobbling it up. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, because . . . they have pot in them, right?”

He chuckles at me. “You’re adorable. I can see why Kai likes you.”

Before I can even wrap my head around what he said, an arm drops down on my shoulders.

“There you are,” Kai says casually, but I can feel the tension in his arm muscles. “I look away for like a second and you disappear on me. What happened?”

“I stepped in piss and got distracted,” I explain, glancing down at my boot. “Or at least I think it was piss.”

Bradon puts a finger to his lip, seeming way too fixated on me. “Seriously adorable.”

Kai gives me a questioning look. “How did you end up with Bradon?”

I lean in, keeping my voice low. “He found me in the crowd, licked my hand when I tried to introduce myself, then brought me in here, offered me a brownie, and called me adorable when I asked him if there was pot in it. I don’t know why. I haven’t done anything that could remotely constitute being called adorable.”