“I didn’t tell her you panicked,” he said calmly,inadvertently relaying it to his sister. “I told her you threw your ice cream on him.”
“Same thing!” Nellie heard the extreme reaction and assumed…something. Something I didn’t need her assuming. “MaybeIshould tell her about how you’re in the market for a girlfriend. Put her back on. Maybe she and I could see if Raelynn’s still interested?—”
Jamie didn’t pass the phone back to Nellie. Instead, he hung up.
Now that the call was over, music blared back through my headphones, nearly shattering my eardrums before I could scrape them off my head. The song still played, but the mood to finish Kit’s face was gone. The mood to strangle the life out of Jamie had taken its place.
I grabbed my phone and opened a text thread.
I’m going to wring your neck the next time I see you
Jamie
You can’t even reach it
;)
I all but threw my phone onto my desk, flopping dramatically back into my chair, now glaring up at the ceiling. I was certain of two things in that moment.
One? I meant what I’d told Nellie. I wassoover Dalton Giovanni. Or I would be.
Or, I mean—Iwas. As far as Jamie and Nellie were concerned, I totally was.
Two? James Brighton was dead meat.
CHAPTER 4
I’d only ever been to Lydia Johnson’s house twice in my life, and both times were for sleepovers Nellie had dragged me to. Even though Lydia’s house was on the other side of Addison from Nellie’s, their houses were roughly the same in size, with six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, all for three people. Two of which shared a room.
It was hard not to be bitter, thinking of the house we’d been crammed into. Five and a half baths when my house hadtwo, and one of those had a tub that didn’t drain and a toilet that clogged if the kids used too much toilet paper. So one working bathroom for six people. Ugh.
But for the party after our graduation ceremony on Sunday, a big house was a good thing—because Lydia had invitedeveryone.
“Chug, chug, chug!” the crowd of people chanted over whatever speaker system Lydia had gotten for the party, all eyes focused on one person.
Tyler Zigler from fourth period chugged from a can while standing on the coffee table in the center of the living room. His feet were spread to brace himself on the wooden edge instead of the center glass, but it was still a trip to the ER waiting to happen. Especially because he was insocks. His foot could slide off at any second.
Gosh, Ireallyneeded to turn off my big sister brain.
But then Tyler finished the can, crushing it against his forehead, and hopped off the death trap. The crowd cheered at his five-second guzzle, even as he let out a loud burp.
Ugh.
The party was supposed to be fun, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether or not the kids were in bed yet for school tomorrow. It was after nine, so theyshould’vebeen, but Mom rarely was in charge of bedtimes. In fact, Mom, drained after her long days, sometimes even went to bed before the kids. I couldn’t remember the last time she’d been responsible for tucking the kids in all on her own.
Maybe texting Mom wouldn’t hurt. Or Penn. Just to get some peace of mind. Just to have verification I wouldn’t be screwed over tomorrow morning when I needed to get them up for school. If they went to bed after nine, they’d be a nightmare.
“Daisy!” a voice called over the roar of the music, and I zeroed in on Raelynn Meyer. Her strawberry blonde hair curled around her shoulders, a few strands near her temples pulled back by cute butterfly clips. She still had on the white dress she’d worn to graduation, a pretty littlelace piece that dipped low on her chest. “Do you know where Jamie is?”
With how irritated I was with him, I very nearly directed her toward where he’d hidden away. “I think I saw him go outside.”
Raelynn wasn’t terrible. Couldn’t read the room to save her life, as evident by how hard she’d been trying to corner Jamie at every Alderton-Du Ponte party for the last few weeks, but she was okay. Not girlfriend material for Jamie, though. Definitely not. “If you see him, can you tell him I’m looking for him?”
Like I said. Couldn’t read the room to save her life. “Yeah, will do!”
I understood her determination, though. In her eyes, this was her last summer to catch Jamie’s attention before they both went off to college. She’d go from seeing him every day at school to potentially never seeing him again, so desperation drove her.
At least, that was what I assumed drove her. It’d been what drove me last year, clinging to Dalton through his senior year like he’d been a life raft.
