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I push up on my toes then jump up to see who they’re singing to, and I see … “Dean!”
I look over my shoulder at Oz, and he laughs. “Go, Riles. I’ll still be here, waiting if you want me.”
Shaking my head, I say, “Oz, I—”
He kisses the top of my head. “Go.”
“I—”
“You need to figure that out.” Then he firmly states, “Go.”
So, I do.
Holding my arms straight out, fingertips touching, I snowplow my way through the crowd to where I saw Dean and run smack into Ellie and see Leo, Evan, Kameron, Dean, and Drew Daniels.
“Hey! How was your date?” Ellie asks.
“It was really good. He’s—”
“Little sis!” Dean reaches through the crowd and pulls me into a hug. “You went on a date with a football player? Isn’t that against the house rules?”
“Cody’s a football player, so I figured …” I shrug.
“Cody shouldn’t be dating; he should be focusing on the game,” Dean jokes.
“How come no one told me you were coming into town?” I ask.
“We didn’t know,” Kameron gushes as Evan wraps his arm around her from behind.
“If I had Costello’s dollars,” comes through the speakers louder this time, and I look back at the stage. “Well, I’d do amazing things to your monkey.”
“The fuck, Rivera?” Koa laughs instead of echoing him.
Theo points to me. “Cielo, I wanna love on your monkey.”
Koa shakes his head but doesn’t miss a beat. “If I had Costello’s dollars?”
“I’d buy your love!”
“That was the”—Drew laughs—“oddest but sweetest serenade I have ever heard in my life. How are you gonna say no to a man who just told two hundred people he wants tolove on your monkey?”
I feel my face catch fire. “Maybe it’s your monkey he was serenading?”
I see how Dean looks at her, brow arched. “Am I missing something?”
She huffs, “Really?” then looks back at me. “Rivera only has eyes for your monkey. Everyone knows that.”
The song ends, and Dean yells out, “Joey, shots and a Sam Adams for the house.”
“I should go find Oz. I’ll see you guys at home?”
“You need a ride?” Ellie asks.
“Hoping she’d drive us,” comes from behind me, and I look over my shoulder.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Theo drunk. No, strike that. I have definitely never, not once, seen him anything but in control and, until recently, he was a comfortable kind of cool. Not cool as in an emoji with sunglasses, but … reserved.
I won’t lie and say that sophomore Riley isn’t aggravatedly turned on by this version of Theo. The Theo at the game Monday night who drenches my insides with gasoline and threw a match on it. The Theo from the cafeteria who, in a kind of fucked-up version of a verbal 90’s music video dance-off, made it known he was interested in me. And yes, the Theo who just sang on stage about … wanting tolove on my monkey.Why was that hot? Shouldn’t that make me uncomfortable? I know if Oz had done something like that, I’d have gotten the ick immediately. But not with Theo Rivera. No, it’s a complete turn on … even though I still believe something went down with him and Drew, which is messed up because I’m kind of catching on that she and Dean are together, which is also confusing as hell.
