“I’m not judging. I’mcurious.”
“Don’t be,” I said. “Please.”
Shayla laughed, like I was kidding or something. “Don’tyoube such a slut,” she told Larissa. “You’re just greedy-Miss-Breezy because you got to see him naked.”
“He wasn’t naked!” Larissa shot back—and went all flushed. I’d never met another black girl who could blush like Larissa Jones could. “He just didn’t have a shirt on…”
Shay cackled. “Greedy! And what did you do, stand there talking to him for like forty-five minutes? While he washalf-naked.”
“He was so nice!” Larissa balked.
“Please stop talking,” I grumbled, sipping my drink. “Both of you.”
I was aware of the incident they were talking about, unfortunately. Last summer, when Larissa stayed over with me one weekend, she’d run into my brother in the kitchen. In the middle of the night.
They’d somehow gotten chatting about music for almost an hour, and no, apparently he wasn’t wearing a shirt at the time. Larissa hadn’t mentioned that detail to me at first.
She’d told Shay, though. And yes, Larissa had a boyfriend. An awesome boyfriend. Yet she’d had some kind of hormonal meltdown over my brother’s hotness that I wasn’t supposed to know about.
Shay had blabbed to me at the first possible opportunity.
“I’ve met him like four times,” Shay said. “He was fully dressed, every time. How is it the first time you meet him, he’s not wearing a shirt? And he’s showing pubes.”
“What?” I choked out.
“Larissa saw pubic hair.”
“I never said that!” Larissa snapped.
“You know when a hot guy wears his pants like really low on his hips,” Shay said, ignoring her, “and he has that sexy V-thing going on, and you can see his pubes?”
“It wasn’t pubes!” Larissa hiss-whispered. “It was like, that little trail of hair below his belly button. You know, leading down. It was kind of… blondish…” She faded off.
I almost wretched.
“Pleaseshut up, both of you. Before I hurl.”
“Sorry,” Larissa said.
“This conversation totally goes against Lil Brat Society rules. You’re not allowed to fangirl over my brother.”
“I’m not fangirling,” Shay said. “I never said anything about his musical prowess. Even if he wasn’t ever a rock star… I’m just saying that your brother isso—”
The door to the poolhouse floated open… and Shayla’s words just kind of hung there in the air. My friends went dead silent.
Xander strolled out. Alone.
Shockingly, there was no bimbo dangling from his arm.
He wandered over to me and stood right in front of my chair, like he was waiting for me to notice. I grabbed the bowl of cheesy poofs back from Shayla and started snacking, ignoring him.
“Hey,” he said, his gaze shifting to Larissa. Unfortunately, he was friends with her brother. Xander was friends with everyone. You know, except me. “What’s up, Larissa.”
Larissa nodded. “Hey, Xander.”
“I’m just on my way to see Trey,” he told her.
“Cool,” she said.
