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“Right,” I say. “Except for the entire internet. Pornhub is still a thing.”

Murphy hit us with the red alert right after he got out of the shower, found Becca gone and his phone face up on the bed. We gathered in the Brimleys’ experimental brew barn, where it was decided that it was time to pull the plug. Becca had deleted her videos from Murph’s phone, which meant that she’d seen the other pics, too. She’d blocked him, and he was actively panicking by the time he got out to Ethan’s. That panic peaked and is now sliding downhill into regret.

“Fuck,” he says, putting his forehead on the counter. “I really liked her, too.”

“Probably shouldn’t have done that, then,” I say, but Ethan’s mind is elsewhere.

“Why?” he asks. “She’s maybe a five, I guess a six if you put her in a push-up bra.”

“No,” Murphy says. “I mean, I actually liked her. She was fun.”

I watch him, suddenly aware that we’re not that much different. He’s also a piece of shit, but at least he knows it and has a conscience. Ethan and Blake are mourning the loss of a tits and ass library, but Murphy looks like he might cry.

“It’s not a big deal, guys,” Ethan says. “Murph fucked up, but whatever. There’s enough wank material online to see us all the way into the nursing home. I don’t know what’s got you so down, but—”

“I. Lost. My. Girlfriend,” Murphy says, glaring at Ethan.

“Get another one.” Ethan shrugs. “It’s not like it’s hard.”

“Maybe he actually feels bad about what he did,” I offer, completely knocking Ethan off-kilter. He looks at me, stunned.

“Why? He’s just being a guy,” Ethan says.

Murphy is staring at his beer bottle, and Blake seems perplexed at the concept of guilt. I finish off my second beer, wondering what felony a girl could commit, then claim she was just being a girl and have half the people in the room agree that it made perfect sense.

That’s an Ava Germaine thought, right there.

Wait . . . am I a feminist now?

“Enough sad floppy-dicks-and-feelings time,” Ethan says, getting to his feet. “Let’s go. I don’t wanna sit around here being depressed. It’s senior year, and we’ve got shit to do.”

“Like what?” I ask.

“I don’t know, Micah,” he sneers at me. “Maybe kick some ass?”

I sigh and put away half of my third beer in a single pull. I do not feel like kicking some ass right now. What I want to do is curl into a ball on my bed and wait for burnedoutgirl to answer me about meeting up.

“Let’s fucking go,” Blake says, coming to his feet and pulling Murphy up out of his chair. “What kind of shit we getting into?”

“Let’s heal Murph’s broken heart with his favorite thing.” Ethan gives us a wicked smile, reaches behind the bar, and comes up with a baseball bat.

“Ooohhhhh,” Blake says, then starts chanting. “Mail-box! Mail-box!”

“You’re just saying a noun over and over right now,” I say to Blake. “We deleted a whole bunch of digital evidence of one felony. Now you want to commit another one by playing mailbox baseball?”

“It’s not a felony, that’s an urban myth,” Blake says.

“It fucking is a felony, jackass,” I tell him, my dormant anger finally waking up. “Mailboxes are federal property, and if we get caught—”

“What’ll happen, huh, Micah?” Ethan asks. “Fucking nothing, that’s what. We’re with the sheriff’s son.”

“Yeah,” Blake says. “Sher-iff’s son! Sher-iff’s son!”

“Still just a noun, dickface,” I tell him.

“Hey, assholes,” Ethan yells from the door, where he’s waving the bat. “Get in the fucking car before I decide to play skullball instead.”

Ethan threatening physical violence isn’t anything new in my life. The only thing that’s changed is that now I think he might actually be capable of it. I grab two more beers before we head out the door, climbing into the back seat of my own car, since I’m the only one that doesn’t drive a truck, and I clearly should not be behind the wheel right now. I’m not sure Ethan should be, either, but he’s still holding the bat and muttering under his breath, so I decide not to push my luck.