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“Hey!” said a familiar voice from behind me.

I pulled up with a gasp. Danny’s lips were almost on mine and his hand was on my chest and—I scooted violently backwards on the couch and looked up to see Liam giving me a Look of Concern—and then Danny growled, “Just because you’re a Lewis doesn’t give you a right to cockblock.”

I jumped up. His phone had been empty. Unless he’d deleted the pictures from it, he didn’t have them. Or, it hadn’t been him at all. Either way, I needed to get the hell away from here.

And Liam had seen everything.

I ran for the stairs, diving through the crowd of onlookers as Liam chased me. He caught up and grabbed my arm when I hit the entryway before his front door.

“Hey!”

“I’m sorry, I never should’ve come.” I tried to fold in on myself, like I could pull in time and space and disappear.

“No—it’s okay,” he said, his face kind and his voice a little slurred. I knew that slur. My stomach sank. “It’s not your fault. Danny always gets what he wants.”

“Yeah?” Had Danny wanted Lacey? He’d clearly wanted me. The memory of something stirring between his legs, oh God—I flushed with revulsion and my headache donkey-kicked me.

“I just have to go now. Please.”

His eyes focused on me with difficult and he drew me towards him. “You’re sure you’re OK to drive?”

“Yeah.” I took a step back and heard-felt the doorbell rang half-a-moment before whomever was outside stepped through.

“Who wants to party?” Darius shouted, hands up in triumph, only to lower slowly after seeing me standing beside Liam. Everyone who’d been watching Liam and I roared, excited to see Redson’s Most Valuable Pot Dealer. For them, the night was going from good to better.

For me—I ran out the open door.

CHAPTER 30

Iran past someone retching into one of Mrs. Lewis’s rosebushes and out into the night, until I was standing in the middle of the street, breathing hard, surrounded by nothing but cicada-song and the lingering sense of my failure.

What would I have done if I had found photos? Deleted them, that’s for sure. I’d been so close to his phone—I could have zapped it if I’d thought about it, hopefully cost him a few hundred dollars. But the whole night had been a wash—Liam probably thought I was easy, Darius probably thought I was a liar, and who the hell knew what Danny thought, oh God. I turned to look back at the glowing lights of Liam’s house. Everyone in there was having fun, they all knew how to have fun but me.

Well me and Lacey.

The only thing I’d learned tonight was that I wasn’t good enough yet. Which was something I already, deeply, knew.

I stomped out to my car and drove my stupid ass home.

Allie was waiting for me at the door.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?” I asked her.

“Shouldn’t you be a boogerhead?”

My younger sister occasionally tried to learn insults. She wasn’t very good at them. I sighed aloud. “I’d go with idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because. I am.” I kicked off my shoes and walked to the bathroom with her following me.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.” I stared at myself in the mirror. I’d done everything right, as right as I could.

“You can’t be an idiot.”

“Why not?” I pulled some toilet paper off the roll and started smearing away my lipstick.