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“Yes,” Archie said. “It’s going to be a blast. Edward and Muriel are going to be out of town, so it will be just us.”
He called his parents by their first names.So weird. I’d never get over that. Mom and I might have our issues, but if I called her by her first name, she’d probably slap me upside the head. I’d probably call the sperm donor by his name—if I knew it. Since I didn’t, he just got to be sperm donor.
“You guys can all stay over, so pack overnight bags. The pool will be prepped, I’m getting it catered, and we’ll have some booze but in moderate amounts.” That was another thing I’d give them—they at least didn’t drink to excess at the parties.
I wasn’t spending the night, no matter how nice the party.
“Jeremy will take care of any issues, because he promised to chaperone.” Jeremy, his honest to God butler,chaperonedall of his parties, which meant he signed off on drinking and debauchery as long as they limited it to the pool house and didn’t wreck anything.
Yeah, my mom would never go for that, so I never mentioned it. We were really good at keeping those uncomfortable topics to ourselves. “I’ll be there,” I committed again. Maybe I’d bring Mathieu with me. Archie’s parties were legendary, and it would be nice to have someone to actually hang out with for the evening. I’d have to see how dessert prep went.
“Cool, you’ll get the blue room in the pool house. The rest of us can split the other two bedrooms…”
“Archie, I’m not spending the night,” I corrected him, then finished my burger.
“C’mon, we haven’t done a sleepover in forever. The guys were there this summer, but you bailed.” He eyed me. “And don’t think I didn’t notice.”
“I don’t care,” I told him as nicely as I could. “I have to work on Sunday, so I’m not spending the night. I’ll be at the party. That’ll have to be enough.” I even raised my hand. “Scout’s honor.”
“It’s enough,” Bubba said before Archie could launch into anything else. “We just miss having you around.”
Yeah, I’d missed them, too. “We’re all going to get busy.” They might as well accept that now. “You guys have the team, and robots and stuff and I’ve got work and grades and college essays.”
“We know,” Jake said, with a sigh as he pushed his mostly empty tray to the side. “You’ve always been focused. But we’re not letting you just slip away on us. You need to have some fun, too.”
“I know how to have fun.” Though the argument sounded weak. “You’ll see.”
“Uh huh,” Archie said skeptically.
But at least they shifted topics to the football game, and I could tune that out. Even when Jake bumped me and reminded me I said I’d be at their first game, like they were going to let me forget.
When we all split up to head to our fifth period classes, I checked in at study hall before diverting to the library. I caught sight of Coop and Laura in the hallway as I opened the library door. They were holding hands.
So cute.
Coop jerked a little when he saw me, but I just shook my head. Like I hadn’t known about Laura? Did he forget they’d been making out this summer or something?
Whatever.
After I found a quiet table, I pulled out my morning homework to try and get that done. It saved my time to study at night. The notecard from Mathieu was tucked away neatly inside the inner pocket of my binder. Pulling it out, I read the recipe—he’d written it in French. The final two steps said chill for one hour then serve with a kiss and a smile.
It was…ludicrous and sweet all at once. At the very bottom was a phone number with a note that said for any questions, call. I entered it into my phone, after a quick glance around, then saved it to my contacts under the nameDessert Option.
Sometimes the guys got nosy when my phone was out. Coop once took a hundred selfies with my phone, no joke. Jake used to steal the phone to send texts to the other guys with dirty jokes in them. It was always in good fun, and I usually laughed, but after finding out they’d pretty much taken out an ad to inform everyone I was untouchable, some of the fun worn off. No one was to ask me out, no one was to bother me, and no one was to call me.
Rachel had taken great delight last spring in dropping that little nugget on me. The spring dance was coming up at the time, and I’d kind of wanted to go. With all the class of a two-ton bomb, Rachel had said, “Good luck with that. The guys know you’re untouchable. No guy is going to risk it and ask you out, so go by yourself or don’t go at all.”Cheryl had at least looped her arm through mine while I tried to wrap my head around that. She’d added, “She’s not lying. I mean, I know she sounds like a bitch, but Archie and the guys? They made it clear. No one touches you; no one dates you. There was a guy last year who was gonna ask. I’m pretty sure he got a black eye and busted lip from Jake because he’d been looking at your ass when he said he was going to ask you out.”
Kent had been the only guy with a black eye right around then. Kind of cute and definitely funny—Kent and I had three classes together at the time. We’d actually started to hang out at lunch, then one day he started hanging out elsewhere, and that was that.
Rachel had shrugged. “Don’t believe us? Try asking out a guy. See what happens.”
Cheryl sighed and given me a spontaneous hug. Cheryl had always been a hugger. “It’s sweet, how they want to look after you.”
It wasnotsweet. They dated and frequently. I couldn’t count the number of girls I’d caught them making out with over the last couple of years, so why did they get to date and I didn’t? I didn’t need big brothers, because I’d been an only child my whole life. I wasn’t changing that now.
I hadn’t gone to the dance, and it turned out Rachel wasn’t wrong. Apparently everyone knew. The girls thought it was hilarious—well, some of them did. Not all of them found it funny. Some had stopped talking to me too along the way, I just hadn’t noticed. I got that most of their girlfriends didn’t like me, but whatever. The more I thought about it, the more I resented the idea the guys thought they got to make those decisions for me.
So, no, if Mathieu didn’t get the damn memo, I wasn’t going to let the guys know.Nope.
