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I kept my face blank, not wanting to comment on anything to do with the guy who’d started to become the bane of my existence. Everyone at school worshiped him despite the fact they barely knew him. I was very much in the minority when it came to my opinions of Liam Black.

“So, are we going to go?” Evan asked.

“Duh,” was Hayley’s immediate reply.

“Yeah, I’m in,” said Madi. “I’ll have to change my shift at work, but I’m sure someone will swap with me.”

All heads then turned in my direction as they waited for my response. “It sounds great,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. It didn’t sound great at all. But this was the first Saturday I wasn’t booked for a babysitting job in weeks and I wanted to hang out with my friends.

“We should all get ready together,” Hayley said.

“How about your place, Teags?” Evan asked.

“It’s a no-go zone this weekend,” I quickly replied. Mom was going through a bad phase at the moment, and I didn’t want to risk them seeing her. “Mom’s painting the house this week and the whole place stinks.” I gave an eye roll to emphasize how irritated I was.

“Bummer,” Hayley said, easily buying the lie. Once upon a time, my mom had been the type of parent to repaint the house on a whim. Not so much anymore. “Well, we can get ready at mine,” she continued. “Though I can’t promise Kitty won’t be a nightmare.”

“Aw, don’t say that. Your sister’s cute,” Madi said.

“She’s the devil in a tween body, and if you believe otherwise, you’ve clearly been brainwashed,” Hayley replied.

Evan chuckled. “I’m sure she’s not that bad, Hayley.”

“Well, you’ll see for yourself on Saturday.” She seemed pretty certain we’d all come to the same conclusion as her. “But, who cares about Kitty. We should be focusing on the more important issue at hand: what do you wear to a Hollywood actor’s party?”

“Something hot,” Evan replied. “Somethingveryhot.”

* * *

The party had feltlike forever away, but Saturday night rolled around all too quickly, and before I knew it, I was sitting in Evan’s car, speeding toward Hayley’s house. Evan was stuck driving his grandma’s old Ford station wagon everywhere, but he handled it like it was a Maserati.

“Do you think any celebrities will be there tonight?” he asked, as he took a corner so fast I wondered how we hadn’t rolled.

“Doubtful,” I replied.

Evan pouted in my direction, so I gave him another piece of information that I thought might cheer him up. “But Liam has a super-hot assistant who I’m sure will be there.”

“How hot are you talking?” Evan asked.

“Almost as hot as Liam,” I replied. “He’s tall too.”

“Does this god have a name?”

I laughed. “I think he said his name was Zeke.”

“Zekeisa hot guy name,” Evan agreed. “How do you even know this?”

“He was at Liam’s house when I went over there to work on our English project.”

“Why am I only just hearing about this now?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I forgot about him.”

Evan shook his head at me. “What is the number one rule of our friendship?”

“To always report hot guy sightings,” I repeated back to him. We’d come up with the rule years ago though, so how was I supposed to remember it was still enforced?

“I can’t believe you broke our sacred pact, Teags. I’m very disappointed in you.” He shook his head at me again. “But,” he continued, “I’m willing to forgive you because I might have started seeing someone.”