“Clothes.” He slowly nodded as if this were an interesting discovery. “One had a real nice cashmere sweater on and some black flats with gold buttons. I think my sister Carla might like a pair. The girl had wide feet, and so does my sister. Fat feet—that’s the Cruz curse.” He stopped to think. “And vestigial tails… Not me… but never mention it to Carla.”

I drew in a breath, trying not to lose my patience with this simple fool. Maybe I should have been upfront with him and we could’ve avoided the fourteen hundred bratwursts not so cleverly hidden in the bushes.

“You said there was a note?”

“Yeah, a note. They were just standing there looking at it. It was taped to the study room door. So I walked up behind them and snuck a peek. It said: Attention! Psych 101 study session for Deana, Carole, and Astor has been canceled tonight. Your position, although very flexible (#yoga), has been compromised. Best regards, S.L. Please accept the attached Starbucks gift card and my sincerest apologies.”

I slammed a fist against the porch rail as Fernando continued. “So then the girls looked pale as ghosts, ripped the note off the wall, and bought me a Frappuccino.”

He lifted his drink and sucked the rest down in one long, disgusting slurp.

Dammit. Sydney must be scurrying around, covering her ass. She’d probably already reached the dean by now. Spanky’s podcasts were now mysteriously missing off the station’s website. There were only three plays left: me, Jack, and the Shrieking T’s.

Even if Sydney corrected all her wrongs, there was one thing she couldn’t fix—Jack Porter’s virginity. He was my ticket. Out Jack as a virgin and expose Sunday Lane… or get him laid and raise his morale.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Back in high school, I could leave a message written in Cantonese on a mini Post-it note in the feminine napkin disposal of the women’s restroom, and within two and half minutes, it would have been deciphered, read over the loud speaker, and a special edition of the school paper would have been distributed.

Unfortunately, college is no different.

“I’m so stupid!”

I rushed inside my dorm room to find Allison lying in a fetal position on her bed. Her long hair was drenched in tears and snot. Sitting up as I entered, she yanked our shared box of tissues off our shared nightstand and snorted into one, releasing a trumpet-like sound.

As she looked at my face, her mouth twisted into a deep scowl. “Oh God,” she sniveled out. “I can’t look at you. You look so much like him.”

She stood from the bed and pointed a finger at the door. “Get out.”

I had no idea why she was crying, but she looked hilarious. She was wearing Hello Kitty pajamas, her makeup was smeared all over her face, and there was half a wine cooler on her side of the nightstand. If this was Allison during a psychotic break, I could sleep with both eyes closed tonight.

“Allison, what the hell is going on?” I peeled off my light-pink cardigan (yes, light pink. I’ll get to that in a minute). “I look like whom?”

“Jack,” she screamed, tossing the now-empty box of tissues at my head. “You look like that womanizer, Jack Porter.”

A huge, gaping hole formed in my chest because Allison Meyers had just sucked out every inch of my sanity. The world had flipped on its axis.

Jack Porter is a womanizer.

Jack Porter, who slept with a stuffed mouse he called Uncle McSqueakers. Jack Porter, who still maintained a subscription to BoysLife: Boy Scout Magazine. Jack Porter, whose side hobby was floral arranging (he’d done two weddings).

Allison stopped her hysterics for a split second, regarding me with curiosity. “You look nice. You curled your hair. Why did you curl your hair? And are you wearing a cream-colored shirt?” She squinted at me through her one un-swollen eye.

“That’s not important, Allison.” I came around her side, wrapped an arm around her waist, and sat her down on her bed. “You’re what’s important.” And I don’t want to tell you.

“Why would you think my brother is a womanizer? You must be crazy.” I rubbed her head, and she snorted into my chest.

Looking at me with red, mascara-streaked eyes, she bellowed out, “Because Theresa told Beth, who told Amy, who told Lisa, who told Jennifer, who told Katharine—”

Okay, I needed a flow chart. “Told them what?”

“Katharine said Theresa Denton, that little slut whore, is going to have sex with Jack tonight because he’s apparently soooo gooood at sex and his tongue is lengthy and smooth like buttery saltwater taffy, and his penis is so long and wide it always resides in two zip codes. Always.”

Now, a normal sister would be horrified hearing these things about her brother. And I would definitely be reaching for the nearest garbage can to barf in if I didn’t know with one hundred percent certainty they were false. How did I know this rumor was false?

I started it.

Last night, I came home to my own version of a Cantonese Post-it note on my door, but in badly scrawled English. Apparently, my dream wrecker was a two-year-old lacking fine motor skills.

Sunday Loser,

Nice trick with the Freudian Sluts, but try to get around this one. If Jack Porter isn’t laid by one of the Shrieking T’s by the end of tomorrow, it’s game over. Your precious running back brother (Brown-eyed Virgin) will be the laughing stock of Northern.

At first, I was impressed dream wrecker was able to fit all that on one Post-it note. It took me five minutes to read it. I had to turn my head and read along the edges and then follow a little drawn arrow to the sticky side of the note.

“I just don’t understand,” Allison wailed into my chest. With the absence of tissues, a waterfall of tears mixed with black streaks poured over my shirt, giving it a Rorschach effect.

“I really like Jack. It’s all Katharine’s fault,” she said, forming a fist and shaking it at the ceiling.

“Why is it Katharine’s fault?”

“She told me to play it cool with Jack. She said, ‘Don’t show him how much you like him. You’ll look desperate. Kappa girls aren’t desperate.’” Releasing a long moan, she slammed back on the mattress.

“I’m just depressed. I mean, we haven’t gone on any dates, but we meet in the library on Wednesday mornings. We have the same English class so we study together, and he always brings me one chocolate kiss.”

Flipping over, she played with the edge of her pillowcase. “And on Fridays, I see him in the cafeteria at noon. He was always sitting by himself, so now I sit with him. We’ve been meeting there for five weeks, and now he has my salad already made for me before I even get there. Two chunks of chicken and a half-tablespoon of runny, not creamy, ranch dressing. Just how I like it.”

She smiled. “And if I’m running late and he forgets to get a fork for me from the condiment counter, he sends me a text picture of my food with a caption: Do not eat if there are alterations to this food formation.”

If I didn’t already feel like the worst person on the planet, what she said next upgraded me to the worst mammal in the universe.

“And he waits outside my biology lab at night even though I don’t get out until eight thirty. He said he’s doesn’t like me walking home in the dark by myself.” She let out a long sigh. “Whenever it’s raining, he’s there with an umbrella, and he always holds it over me while he gets drenched.”

She was grinning like an idiot now. “Remember when it was so cold last week?” She glanced over at me, and I nodded. “Well, he slipped one of my hands in his pocket to keep it warm. Then he wrapped his arm around me and rubbed my other hand.” Allison’s voice faded into a low mumble. “I know it’s weird because you’re his sister, but I wanted him to be my first.”