I glance down, and my eyes get big.

“What?” He glances down, realizes why my eyes are big, and shrugs his shoulders. “It’s morning.”

“It’s cute. Can I keep it?”

His phone buzzes. “It’s from Coach. Ha! Sweet. Games this morning rained out. Says he’ll update us at eleven.”

“Good. Come back to bed.”

“What if I’m not really that tired?” he says with a grin.

“I said come back to bed, not go back to sleep.”

He takes a huge leap and pounces on top of me. I let out a little scream then giggle when he tickles my sides.

“KIKI, KIKI!!” I hear being screamed from outside my door. “LET GWEYSIE IN!!”

“Shit, it’s my little sister. Put that thing away!” I whisper. “Just a second, Gracie!” I yell out. I hop out of bed and grab my robe while Cush slides on a pair of shorts.

I unlock and open my door just as there’s another huge clap of thunder. Gracie barrels into my room, jumps on my bed, and hides her head under the blankie she has dragged in behind her. Then she peeks her head out from underneath it and looks at Cush.

“Kuffffmannn!” she says excitedly. “High-five?” Cush always gives the girls high-fives when he sees them at my soccer games.

He gives her a high-five. Then she stands up in the middle of my bed and starts jumping up and down.

I grab her by the waist and sit her down on the bed. “Gracelyn, you know you’re not supposed to jump on beds. You can fall and get hurt.”

“Merde,” she mutters under her breath.

“What did you say?”

She smiles at me, starts jumping on the bed again, and screams, “Merde! Merde! Merrrrdaayyyy!!”

“Gracie, do not say that! That’s a naughty word.”

She stops jumping and looks at me, trying to gauge how serious I am. She grins at me, knows I’m probably not a threat, jumps again, and sings, “Va-gina. Va-gina. Gweysie has a va-gina.”

Cush gives me a glance, stifles a laugh, and starts coughing.

“Kiki have a ’gina too. Do you?” she says to Cush.

Cush smiles with his lips shut. He’s trying really hard not to laugh. “No, um, only girls do.”

Gracie’s eyes get big, and she looks Cush up and down.

I know she’s about to start screaming the word penis. The girl has way too big a vocabulary for a two-and-a-half year old.

“You better go check on Mommy and Daddy, Gracie. They might be scared of the thunder.”

“Gweysie no like funder,” she says. She throws her blankie around her neck like a super hero cape then tears out of the room.

I shut and lock my door behind her. “Sorry. That was awkward.”

He pulls me on the bed with him. “So I hear you have a ’gina. Does it want to come play with me?”

I swat his shoulder. “You’re naughty.”

My phone buzzes on my nightstand. “I suppose we should look at Vanessa’s texts, huh? See what the damage is?” I say.

“I suppose,” he says, like he really doesn’t want to, but then he swipes my phone. “How ‘bout I read them. Okay, first one is from B. Who’s that?”

My heart literally stops beating.

“Uh,” I stutter. My throat feels constricted, like an invisible hand is choking me. I rip the phone away from Cush with quite a bit of force, but I try to act nonchalant when I say, “Oh, it’s just Brooklyn. You know, the surfer.”

I quickly read the message to myself before I read it to Cush.

B: Pouring here. Don’t come. Partied with some chill people last night, and gonna go at it again tonight. Hang Sunday?

I try to pretend like it’s no big deal, but his text totally pisses me off, because I know what it means when the guys say they met some chill people. It’s code for girls who like to party and hookup.

I need to thank Vincent again. He was so right about Brooklyn not caring about me.

“Are you going to hang out with him Sunday?” Cush asks.

One look at his cute face tells me that he doesn’t want me anywhere near Brooklyn, and I decide that I don’t want me to be anywhere near him either. The jerk.

I type a snarky reply then hold it up for Cush to see.

Me: Can’t. Have a date with my boyfriend.

B: You get back with the asshole?

Me: New guy. I’m very lucky.

B: He popular too?

Me: Have fun with your “chill” people. I’ve been around your friends long enough to know exactly what that means.

B: You don’t know anything. You seriously need to grow up.

Me: Oh, I am. Speaking of that, tell Mark I might take him up on his offer soon.

B: Tell him yourself.

“What’s that all about?”

“Nothing. He’s a dick.”

Cush squints his eyes, not quite believing me. “What was Mark’s offer?”

“It’s nothing. What’s Vanessa have to say?” I grab his phone. “Maybe we should start with your phone. Did anyone say anything about the party?” I ask, while I pull up his texts. “Wow.”

“I’m sorry. I know there are lots of texts from girls, but I didn’t respond to any of them. I don’t care.”

“Oh, yeah, I saw all of those.” I smile at him and squeeze his hand. “There’s one from RiAnne.”

“She never texts me; what’s it say?”

“It says, Do you see the virgin as a challenge, or do you not know she never hooked up with Sander? Wow. I always thought she was more on my side.”

“You dissed her party. What’d you expect?”

“Yeah, I know. There’s also one from Vanessa. It says, You and your friend are going down. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. And don’t even think about sitting at my table on Monday.” I look at him. “What are we going to do? Sitting where we want is one thing, being banished is another.”

“I thought we decided we don’t care.”

“I was talking about next year. Not right now. I’m not prepared for this. Shit! What have I gotten myself into? Why did I think I could do this?”

“What do you want to do?”

I’ve seen Mom and Tommy do it several times over the years. I know how to play the PR game. “Damage control,” I say.

I get on his Facebook and change his status to In a relationship. Then I grab my phone and accept it. “Now I’m gonna comment on it.”

“What are you gonna say?”

I read aloud as I type. “So glad we left the MC night and went to the other party.”

I grab his phone and type his response. “I loved dancing with you. And doing shots with Deron was pretty sweet too.”

I toss his on the bed, pick up mine, and start typing. “I loved waking up with you. Not that we got much sleep. Should I add a winky face?”

“Yeah. But I don’t get it. How are those few sentences going to stop her?”

“They’re not, but now everyone knows we’re officially together and sleeping together. They will also believe all the rumors about us that have been floating around school since I broke up with Sander. We also need to throw a party of our own. An epic bash that everyone who matters will be talking about.”

“Who matters, again?”

“The juniors she was trying to recruit. Well, the cool ones anyway.”

Cush’s face droops a little. “So we’re skipping our special night tonight and throwing a party to get back at a girl we don’t care about?”

I turn my head quickly toward him. “No way I’d miss out on tonight. Speaking of that. Don’t you have some planning of your own to do?”

“Yeah, I do need to make a few phone calls. You look just a little too happy right now. What’s running through that devious little mind of yours?”

“I just came up with the perfect plan! We’re not going to school on Monday, and neither is anyone else. Vanessa and RiAnne will be sitting on their thrones all by themselves.”

“We partying Sunday night, skipping school on Monday?”

“Exactly. And it’s gonna be epic, but very small. Like only the twelve people we like best. People that are cool and not into just appearances. Like the tennis shoe girl. She’d be perfect. And Alex Littleton, for sure. At school, everyone will notice that we’re all gone. And since the seniors are already out, Vanessa and RiAnne will be sitting at their table all by themselves. The whole school will know that they were left out of something big. Plus, we’ll tweet about all the fun we’re having on Monday during lunch. Once it’s too late for her to do anything about it.”

“What kind of fun are we gonna have?”

“Old school fun. Remember how much fun we had when it was just a few of us? We’ll get naked in the hot tub, play spin the bottle, beer pong, hell, maybe strip beer pong, get really tipsy, party all night, then bring everyone back to my house for breakfast on the beach. I’ll ask Tommy’s assistant to set it all up. We’ll have some cabanas brought onto the beach, a bunch of lounge chairs, set up a volleyball net, and we’ll lay out in the sun and tan off our hangovers.”

“That sounds fun. Speaking of breakfast, I’m, like, starved.”

I lean over my phone and kiss him. It started out just a little kiss, but he throws me back on the bed and kisses me hard.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“Yeah, I am. For you.”

So seventh grade.

4:45pm

I’m sitting out in the misty rain, watching Cush and the team play. It stopped storming around noon, and now it’s just a miserable dreary, misty day. Normally I hate days like these. I prefer the sun shining, but I’m too happy to care. I still can’t believe I’m not a virgin anymore, and I still can’t believe I did it with and am now dating Cush.

This is definitely a twist in the plot that I hadn’t scripted or imagined. But I think it’s a good thing. Mom says you should cherish little surprises in your life, and she’s right. Cush makes me feel happy. Like I can’t stop smiling.

During half time, he runs to the bleachers and plants a big kiss on my lips. “Just a few more hours,” he says and winks at me as he runs away.

Mandy, who apparently hooked up with a soccer player named Dillon last night, grins at me. “What’s happening in a few hours? Are you going to that party Vanessa and RiAnne texted everyone about?”

“No, we’re not. We have other plans. Not that we were invited anyway.”

“Not invited? Is it because you and Cush left the Monte Carlo party? I heard you went to some amazing Hollywood party. Is that true?”

“Yeah, it’s true, and we had a great time. Last night was amazing,” I gush.

“So what are you doing tonight? Is there another party? Can we come? Like we want to sit at your table next year, but Vanessa has always been such a bitch to us. She’s slept with two of our boyfriends. After you and the soccer guys left, the party just felt over. Everyone else left by like ten-thirty. I bet she is pissed at you.”

“I’m sure she is, but we all have to make choices about stuff like that,” I say in my bitchiest tone.

Alicia, who was Alex Littleton’s prom date, agrees with me. “I totally understand. I wanted to go to Vanessa’s party tonight, but Alex said no.”

“Alex seems really nice.”

“He is. He’s one of those guys that everyone loves, but being popular isn’t really important to him. Vanessa was all over him at the party. It pissed me off. We aren’t going out or anything. Yet. But I think we might. I was kinda mad he left with you and Cush, but at least it got him out of her claws.”

I think about Vanessa’s targeted approach toward Alex, and it hits me why she’s so focused on him. It’s not because he’ll be one of the hottest seniors next year. It’s because he doesn’t care about being popular.

And that makes him a very big threat.

Vanessa values popularity above everything else, and you can’t control a person that doesn’t care. If Alex really is that kind of guy, the only way she could control him is to date him.

Is that why she’s been trying so hard to control me lately? Because all of a sudden I decided I didn’t care.

Is Cush right? Is she afraid the spotlight will follow me, and she’ll be left in the dark?

“I don’t think he’s interested in Vanessa,” I tell Alicia.

“I hope he’s not,” she says. “Personally, I was glad the party was over early. I thought it was kinda lame. Her parents practically stood watch, and we had to sneak into her room to drink. It seemed so seventh grade.”

“Cush and I might be having a party soon. A very small party. Like only ten, maybe twelve people. You two want to come?”

“Enough to fill your own table?” Alicia guesses.

I tilt my head and shrug my shoulders. “No comment.”

“Let me give you my number,” Mandy says.

“So, if you should happen to get a text about a party, please don’t mention it to anyone. Just show up. There are certain people we don’t want to hear about it.”

“I thought you, Vanessa, and RiAnne were like bffs—what happened?”

“She offered to sleep with Sander on prom night.”

The girls’ eyes get huge. “Oh my gosh, what did you do?”

“Sander told her no flat out, but I was standing behind her listening to it all.”

“I saw you and Cush are going out now.”

“Yeah, he asked me last night. I can’t believe he’s playing so well. He didn’t get much sleep.”