Her eyes haze with suspicion.

  “One of us is driving home. Let it be me, okay? I’m not a big beer girl anyhow.” I hold her stare as we each grasp the cup between us. She hasn’t fully committed yet so I don’t let go.

  “Abby, I promise. I’m going to stay, and I’ll have fun, just not with the beer, okay?”

  Her eyes squint a little more. She’s still not buying it.

  “How about this? Whatever they’re doing in there, on the sofas”—some stupid game I would normally make fun of—“you take my beer and I’ll go play that game.” I regret my offer the second the cup leaves my grip. She gulps nearly half of it down before wiping her chin along her forearm and kicking her leg over the beam to stand on the deck.

  Shit. We’re going to play a party game.

  “Well, all right then,” she says, threading our fingers together and tugging me forward until I lose the balance battle and fall to my feet.

  Not wanting to look as though I’m being dragged into this—even though I am—I loop my arm around my friend’s and smile at her. She isn’t convinced. She tosses her head back in laughter, but lets me save face while we make our way inside. At the huge sectional sofa , people are tossing dice on a giant trunk-style coffee table and picking small papers out of a bowl depending on the number they roll. Abby and I kneel on the floor behind a few of the others.

  “I’m not next. You’re next!” One of the many faces I don’t know but recognize shoves playfully at another vaguely familiar girl. In their fit of nervous giggling, the one holding the dice glances in my direction.

  “New girl! Your turn.” Bile shoots up my throat and burns.

  “Oh, no.” I hold up a palm and shake my head as if refusing hors d’oeurves.

  “She’s being shy. She’ll play. What’s the game?” Abby takes the dice and plops them in my palm, which she has to pry open after lifting my fist from the carpet.

  I make wide eyes at her while I hold my breath, but she shakes me off.

  “You promised,” she says, holding up the rest of her beer and tipping it back with an “ahh.”

  I inhale deeply while the girl who volunteered me explains the rules. “You roll a number and pick out that many dares.”

  “So, I could have to do twelve dares?” I ask this as though I’m really going to roll these dice.

  “Oh, my God, no! You pick them and then the last person who went gets to pick which one you do. Like, Naomi made me walk to the kitchen and back in her bra!”

  This game seems incredibly complex for what it really is: Truth or dare, sans the truth part. I’d like to make a motion that we add the truth part back in, but that’s because I’m painfully boring.

  “So, who gets to pick my dare?” I’m still acting as if I’m really planning to play.

  “I do.” I recognize the voice without turning around. Of all of the faces I don’t recognize here, that voice belongs to one I know I will. For as long as I have loved Lucas Fuller, Ava Pryor has hated me. I’d blame her for all the lame pranks I endured sophomore year, but overt bullying isn’t her style. She’s more of the “burn you with a glare” kinda girl, and that glare has this amazing power to make a person feel insignificant with a bat of her lashes. I glance over my shoulder and that stare is ready and waiting to zap my ego—what little there is of it—to shit.

  “Lola went last,” the girl I’ve identified as Naomi says.

  “That’s because I had to refill my beer. Scoot.” Ava flits her fingers and the girls slide apart to make space for her on the center of the couch. She steps between Abby and me on her way to sit down.

  “I’m not doing this,” I mumble to my friend. She’s already taken the dice from me, though, and thrown them on the table.

  “It’s time to stand up and show some balls.” I meet her eyes, trying to plead my way out of this, silently begging her to take my turn, but with the slight cock of her chin I can tell she’s going to make me walk through this fire.

  “Four,” Ava says, a tinge of disappointment in her tone that I rolled such a low number.

  “Okay, so I just . . .” I reach toward the bowl and Ava taps it toward me with the toe of her white canvas shoe.

  I pull it toward me and search the contents, hoping to find clues in the poorly folded strips of paper, but it’s no use. It doesn’t matter how deep I dig into the plastic snack bowl. I pick out four from the top of the heap and toss them on the table as I sit back on my heels.

  “Let’s see,” Ava says, leaning forward and rubbing her palms. I’m sweating watching her meticulously unfold the first paper and drag her gaze along the scribbled line. She’s twirling a lock of her white-blonde hair around her finger while her mouth moves slightly with the words. I stare intently at her face, trying to read her lips. She stops and flits her thick black fake lashes up to stare at me from underneath. Her mouth curves up on one side.

  “This one.” She tosses it on the table, but before I can grab it, Abby does.

  “You didn’t read them all yet,” my friend says, looking at the paper and chuckling lightly.

  “Don’t need to. That one’s the winner.” Ava leans back on the oversized sofa cushion and folds her arms over her chest while crossing her legs.

  “You afraid of the dark? Spiders?” Abby flicks the paper toward me with her index finger. I pick it up and read.

  SPEND FIVE MINUTES IN THE GARAGE IN THE DARK

  “Uh, not really . . . I guess.” I feel as if there’s probably a trick so I’m not going to boast confidently. There’s a catch. I know there is.

  “Good, then the time should just fly right by,” Ava says, both sides of her mouth curved into an ominous grin. She glances down the darkened hallway behind me, toward what I assume is the garage door.

  “Now?” That sounded stupid. Of course now.

  “Uh huh,” she says, flitting her fingers at me with the same nonchalance she had when she forced the girls to give up their seats. Ava is a stereotype. That stereotype is bitch.

  “All right,” I say through a sigh. I get to my feet and tug up my jeans a little, my shirt now feeling like a goddamn halter.

  “Atta girl,” Abby says, slapping my ass just before I make my way to the garage. Naomi is quick on my heels, probably to lock the door behind me. Do any of them realize I can hit the button inside?

  The escape plan zips through my mind just as I open the door, but then it’s quickly replaced with panic and dread so toxic that my knees buckle a little. Naomi pushes me inside and slams the door shut. The lock clicks behind me, and Lucas meets my stare. He’s sitting on a folding chair with his phone in his palm.

  “Oh, fuck me.” Disdain slips from his mouth the moment everything goes black. This was the catch. Five minutes in the dark, locked in the garage, but not alone.

  With Lucas Fuller.

  I spin around and flatten my palms on the wall, feeling in search of a switch or the garage door opener. Something stabs at the side of my palm as I slide it closer to the door.

  “Shit!” I mutter under my breath and feel along my skin. It’s damp. I cut myself on something. My phone is in my back pocket, so I take it out awkwardly with the opposite hand; it slips from my grip and bounces at my feet. I want to cry. I also want to punch things.

  I’m mid-squat when the glow of a phone light brightens the ground a few feet in front of me. I glance up and squint at the flash from Lucas’s phone.

  “Thanks,” I say. I feel humbled, and mortified. My phone is just underneath the front end of one of the cars. Lowering myself, I reach out until my hand lands on it to drag it closer. The garage goes dark again.

  Tapping on my phone with the hope it still works, I rest back on my legs, resigned to this pathetic position for the remaining four minutes I’m stuck here. The cracks on my phone screen take up most of the surface, and one of the corners is badly chipped. With my luck, I’m sure I’ll find a way to prick my finger on it . . . again.

  The metal chair Lucas was sitting in screeches along the floor, so I glance up to see whether I can see him. I can make out his form. His long arms stretch upward, and I bet if he jumped just a little, his fingertips would graze the ceiling. He’s wearing a light T-shirt and jeans, a flannel tied around his waist. It’s too dark with only my phone light to tell whether he’s looking at me or not, and I’m not sure which I prefer.

  As his feet slide closer, I let my body relax into a sitting position, legs folded around each other like a pretzel. I cup my broken phone in my lap and graze my fingertips along the screen to send shouty-cap swears to Abby. The dome light from the car flickers on at my right, and from my periphery, I see Lucas lean inside. He taps a button near the rearview mirror and the garage door lifts.

  I stand to brush dust from my knees and ass, and flip my hair back just in time to come face-to-face with the source of that sharp pain I sometimes feel when I look out my bedroom window. Those blue eyes still glow like sapphires, even in the faintest of light, but the boyish dimples have given way to harsh angles and a set jaw framing emotionless lips. Lucas has always been three or four inches taller than me, but that difference feels even greater as he stares down at me.

  “I didn’t know you were in here.” Fuck, I haven’t spoken to him in two years and the first words I say are a pathetic apology for being in a garage at the same time. I roll my shoulders and force myself to stand straighter—taller. His head cocks to the side ever so slightly and he lifts his hand, holding the garage door opener out for me to take. I do, and I hate that I do. This is not how this conversation between us was supposed to go. He was supposed to apologize, not me. And he should be giving me flowers, not some taped-together garage clicker from one of his asshole friend’s cars.

  “Tell Ava she’s a dick.” He doesn’t stick around to wait for my response, turning and taking long strides out of the garage with his hands shoved in his pockets and his pace evident of just how much he wants to get away from me.

  There’s a little more than a minute left on my time in here, assuming those assholes plan on sticking with their own dumb rule. By the time Lucas disappears around the bushes at the end of the long driveway, I’ve made up my mind to take his last bit of advice. With the garage remote in my hand, I leave the same way Lucas did and reenter the house through the front door, elbowing through the people gathered in the front room. I toss the opener into the bowl of paper dares, and the gossip fest that’s probably going down on the sofa ceases immediately. I feel my best friend’s eyes on me without having to look. My focus is set on the ice princess leaning forward and folding her hands on her pushed-together knees like she’s some sort of lady.

  “You’re a dick, Ava.” I hold her stare for a breath, just long enough for her to understand that I mean it, and I’m not afraid of her opinion of me anymore. I don’t know where the chip on her shoulder came from, but I didn’t put it there. If she wants to keep it, that’s on her.

  I glance down to where my friend is still sitting on the floor, and the approving grin that has spread across her entire face tells me two things: one, I’ve just entertained the shit out of her; and two, she’s giving me a gold star for the night.

  “This game is juvenile. Next time, I’ll bring the games to the party, ladies, and we’ll have some real fun.” Abby winks at Ava as she gets to her feet and walks right through the middle of the group of girls still huddled around the scene. She reaches into her pocket and hands me her keys, then links our arms together as we turn our backs on only the first dose of drama we’re bound to see this year.

  I don’t say a word and she doesn’t ask questions as our feet hit the blacktop and we cut through the rows of cars lining the street. I notice that Lucas’s truck is still here about a second before his headlights flick on and the engine roars to life.

  “Looks like someone else thought that party was pretty lame, too,” my friend says. And because she’s my rock, and because I don’t lie to her, I tell her everything.

  “He was in the garage. And he’s a dick, too.” I save that last part until we’re walking right next to his unrolled window. I glance his way after I say it, and our eyes meet for a brief moment. When Abby and I get another full car length away, his tires peel out as he takes off.

  “Well, if this ain’t a new June Mabee,” she says, swaying her hip into me. I gurgle out a faint laugh and smile with tight lips. My smile falls as soon as our arms part and my friend walks to the passenger side of her car.

  Sure, I’m proud of what I did. Doesn’t mean I don’t wish like hell that none of it happened.

  Chapter Two

  I guess I made a name for myself, beyond “that girl who lives next to the Fullers.” That’s what I’m usually called, especially by the girls who had crushes on Lucas in junior high and our freshman year. A few times, his groupies have tried to befriend me just to worm their way into a sleepover so they can stare at him through my window.

  Joke’s always on them. I don’t have sleepovers, except with Abby, and she doesn’t count because she’s like family. That’s my mom’s rule. She’s funny about having strangers in the house. Even more so since my dad left. I think maybe she’s become really distrustful. I guess I have, too.

  I wonder how many sleepover requests I’ll get now that I’m “the girl who told off Ava Pryor.” Maybe it was a deterrent for others. Though, judging by the fact I’m now walking through the halls of Public with not just one, but three other people, I can’t deny that calling Ava a dick had some sort of quantum effect.

  “So, where did you move here from?” Naomi, my first friend from the party, asks.

  Abby laughs hard enough to spit out her iced latte. Her mom runs a coffee shop so we start every morning there. Even when I went to a different school, we both got up thirty minutes early to have our coffee talk time.

  “You’ve known each other since fourth grade, when you moved here, Naomi,” Abby says. She and I glance at each other with crooked smiles while Naomi literally stops in her tracks.

  “We had the same homeroom freshman year,” I add through a crooked smile. I shrug on the outside, but the truth is I only figured that out last night when I looked them both up in my freshman yearbook.

  “I recognized her,” Lola brags, tipping her head back as she pours the crumbs from her granola packet into her mouth. It’s hard to tell whether she’s bluffing or not. Lola has a certain cockiness about her, an appealing kind. I don’t know her well enough yet, but when I do, I’ll tell her she looks just like the girl from Clueless.

  “I have to check in with the office,” I announce at the sound of the first bell. I accept the awkward side-hug-squeeze from Abby. She’s pushing the envelope today on the dress code. It’s not so much the length of her shorts, but rather the words on her shirt. I’m pretty sure the asterisk filling in for the U between the F and CK isn’t going to slide by.

  “We all have first lunch, so I’ll grab a table,” Naomi shouts over the rush of people between us. She’s maybe five-one, but she makes up for her small size with large volume.

  Slightly bolstered by the fact I’ve somehow started my final year of high school with actual lunch plans rather than aimlessly wandering rows of tables with my tray, I push through the door without really noticing the body coming at it from the opposite side. If it weren’t a glass door, I might have pushed harder, but seeing the familiar deep blue wool and white leather sleeves of Lucas’s letterman jacket is like getting hit with a flashing red stop sign shrouded by flares.

  “Sorry.” Damn it. Back to apologies.

  I step back to let him through, but to my surprise, he does the same. I catch the short twitch his mouth makes in amusement. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was definitely light years from the scowl I got last night.

  Not wanting him to change his mind, I push the glass forward and step through. He reaches to take the door’s weight just as my hand lets go, and his fingertips run along the tops of my knuckles. It’s nothing more than an accident, and I see the slight recoil in his arm when it happens. The effect on me, though, is exactly the opposite. I glow—flush with the shot of adrenaline and long-lost affection. I would swear he cut me, the leftover feeling along my hand is so strong.

  “June!” Maggie Williams went to high school with my mom. Not here, ironically, but in Fort Wayne. Her and Mom are more Facebook friends than real friends, but Maggie’s always been nice. And it’s good to have a familiar face in the front office.

  “Lucas! Wait!” she shouts, just before the glass door closes. I turn quickly to see whether he heard, hoping he escapes without her making some sort of embarrassing connection, like reminding him who I am even though we’re neighbors. But the good student and well-mannered guy that Lucas is wins the battle and he turns, cracking the doorway open to hear her out.

  “Can you take June here to your first hour? She’s in your class.”

  I’m pretty sure Lucas and I both vomit a little. There’s definitely a pregnant pause. The air is stagnant long enough for Maggie to blink twice with irritation and shake the paper she holds out for me to take. That little movement triggers my response, and I take my schedule from her hand.

  “Sure,” Lucas says, flashing his classic tight-lipped smile. I know him well enough to recognize that’s the one he gives when he’s playing nice. He made that face when Tory D’Angelo won MVP at the eighth grade football banquet, and he made it again when his parents told him they were spending New Year’s three years ago camping at Yosemite, just the three of them. Those lips are air-tight right now, and that bend is going to break even the moment we step back into the hallway.

  “Let me know if you need anything today, ’kay, hon?” Maggie’s already answering the attendance line, pen in hand and phone propped on her shoulder. Not that I could ask her to rewind life a hair or two and not mention the idea of Lucas showing me anywhere, but maybe if she weren’t swamped I could make up another question or two to stall and let him get away.