“You look a little hot, Miley. You should take your t-shirt off.”
“You think?” My brows knitted. It made my face feel weird and I touched a finger to my cheeks.
“Yeah, babe. All the girls are in bikini tops, look.” He nodded over to the pool, and sure enough, most of the girls sitting around the edge were half-naked.
“It’ll be fine, babe.” Micah gave me a reassuring smile, and before I knew it, I was pulling off my t-shirt. The crowd cheered, and I blushed from head to toe, but I was so warm, and I didn’t want to end up a sweaty mess before the night was out.
The balmy air felt great on my heated skin and I balled up my t-shirt and threw it at Micah.
“Hell, yeah,” he wolf-whistled, setting off the crowd again. I didn’t know what they were cheering and laughing at. But I didn’t care. Everything felt too good. I felt too good.
“What the fuck?” A voice boomed, and I looked around to find Avery marching toward us.
He looked pissed; his sexy jaw clenched tight as his eyes lasered in on Micah. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“She was a little hot.” Micah shrugged.
“Put your t-shirt back on.” Avery snatched it off his friend and held it out for me.
“But all the girls are—”
“Just put it on, Miley.”
“Relax, man, we were just having a little fun. Weren’t we, snitch?”
My chest tightened.
Snitch.
That’s what they all called me before…
“You called me snitch,” I said, planting my hands on my hips. “That’s not a very nice thing to call your friend and I thought we were friends now.”
“Nah, baby, we were never friends. Just thought you should get a little taste of your own medicine.”
My eyes narrowed. His face looked funny. Everything looked a little funny. Faces were elongated and wobbly, the trees growing into huge giants in the distance. I blinked rapidly, trying to make it all go away.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“What the fuck did you give her?”
“Just a few edibles…”
“You’re a real fucking idiot at times.”
Avery wrapped his arm around my side, steadying me. But I felt sick all of a sudden, like I was spinning on the Tilt-A-Whirl at the funfair.
“I don’t feel so good,” I repeated.
“Come on,” he said, “let’s get you out of here.”
“Chase, come on, man, it was a joke.”
“Fucking asshole.”
I slumped against Avery’s side, my stomach churning.
“Think you can make it to my car?” was the last thing I heard before I leaned over and puked all over myself.
The ride back to my house was quiet. After I’d puked up the entire contents of my stomach, Avery found me a bottle of water and some paper towels and I’d managed to clean myself up enough to go home.
I felt like shit. My head and tummy hurt so bad, but Avery assured me it would wear off by morning.
“How are you holding up over there?”
“I’ll live.” I couldn’t look at him. He’d seen me like that, high as a kite dancing in my bra to an audience who were laughing at me.
God, I was an idiot.
“You shouldn’t have come tonight.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hissed.
“So, why did you?”
“I don’t know.” My shoulders lifted in a small shrug as I peeked over at him. He looked so freaking good in his Raiders jersey and ball cap pulled on backwards. And I was a mess.
“I think you do.”
“Fine. You want to know the truth? I came because I know I screwed up. I get it, okay? I thought if you’d just give me a chance to explain, that maybe we could—”
“There is no ‘we,’ Miley.” He rolled up outside my house and cut the engine. “You need to get that into your head. Anything that happened between us in junior year was a mistake.”
I knew I’d hurt Avery, betrayed his confidence, so I guess I should have been prepared for his cruel words, but I couldn’t process what he was saying. Because I still felt it. I still felt the tether between us every time he was near.
And he… didn’t?
“You don’t mean that,” I whispered, the words thick in my throat.
“Yeah,” he let out a steady breath, “I do. You lied to me for months, let me think you were someone else. That you were this smart, funny, cool girl determined to push her boundaries and try new things. I fell for you, Miley, and you fucking betrayed me.”
“You fell for me?” Hope blossomed in my chest.
“No, I fell for that girl. The one you pretended to be. I didn’t fall for you.”
“Oh.” God, it hurt.
It hurt so freaking much.
I’d spent all summer trying to figure out a way to make it up to Avery. I’d written list after list, plotted all the ways I’d make him see that what we’d shared was real.
But it didn’t matter. I realized that now.
He didn’t want me. He never had. He’d wanted the girl I’d become undercover. The quietly confident cheerleader out to make the most of her junior year.
I’d surprised everyone at tryouts last year. Half the girls didn’t even recognize me, someone they’d gone to school with for the last two years. But that only aided my cause. No one had paid me any attention previously, so I could carve out my own story. Get close to them and become their new interesting friend.
And it had worked.
But I hadn’t banked on getting close to the star quarterback. It had happened by accident. I’d been early for practice one day and he’d been running drills with Coach on the football field. I heard him telling Coach he was struggling in English class and I offered to tutor him.
Avery didn’t want anyone to know, so for almost six months, we’d studied in private. It was the perfect ruse at first,
