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“Paige and Kenzie room together. They’re a package deal, and they’re going to ditch me.” I put my stuff down. “It’s off campus. It’s at a house.”

“No, thank you.”

“There’s going to be food.”

Tessa looks up at me for the first time. “Like a real dinner?”

I grin. “No, it’s a party.”

“I don’t party, Kylie.”

I stand there in the middle of the room with my curling iron in my hand. “One day, you’re going to come out with me.”

She shakes her head.

“I’m serious. I’m going to wear you down. I’m relentless. Ask anyone who knows me.”

“I don’t know anyone.”

“That’s a problem I’m trying to solve.”

The corner of her mouth moves. “Have fun,” she says.

At eight, I put on the good jeans and a cute top. I do my makeup twice because I mess it up the first time, and I look at myself in the mirror on the back of the door for a long minute. My eyes are still a little swollen, but you can only tell if you know. Last week, I had a boyfriend. Tonight I don’t.

There’s nothing on my phone from Evan. There are nineteen messages in Corvin 4 + Kylie, most of them about what Paige should wear. I grab my bag.

“Don’t wait up,” I tell Tessa.

“I’m going to be asleep by ten.”

“I know,” I say, and shut the door.

I go up to their dorm room and watch them get ready. Then we’re off. The house is four blocks off campus, and we can hear it from the corner, a big sagging place with a porch. There are people on the porch and in the yard, every window on the first floor is lit up, and the music is loud enough to make the glass buzz.

Paige is walking about six steps ahead of the rest of us, because Paige is excited. She’s in a black top, checking her phone the way she has since we left Corvin Hall.

“Did he answer?” Kenzie asks.

“He said they’re already here.”

“They?” I ask.

“The team,” Paige says, and turns around to walk backward up the sidewalk, grinning at all of us. “Okay. Ground rules. Nobody leaves without telling the group. Nobody goes upstairs alone. And nobody—” she points at me “—starts a fight over a chair.”

I roll my eyes. “Okay, Paige.”

“You were relentless about it.”

Kenzie snorts, and Bianca says something I don’t hear. We climb the porch steps, somebody holds the door open for us, and Paige grabs my wrist and pulls me in.

8

Nobody Asked for Pancakes

Nash

Declan Greeley pulls the door open with a beer in his hand and a grin like he’s been waiting for us.