I don’t tell her that the real reason I’m implementing a No-Boy Summer is because of Tarek. Because I want to make sure I don’t relapse. She did enough to shake me out of it after my failed grand gesture—chocolate and sleepovers and reality TV. She blocked Instagram on my phone, which didn’t prevent me from scrolling on my laptop but helped a little, despite Tarek’s lack of updates. I kept waiting for his next gesture, the girl who’d be receiving it who wasn’t me. Waiting, and knowing it was going to crush me once it happened.
But it never did. Unless he managed to keep a relationship offline, Tarek’s been single since last summer.
“Completely,” I say, and I zip my bag one last time.
“Tell me when you’re ready to go home and do sheet masks,” Julia whispers as we kick off our shoes in the entryway of Alyson Sawicki’s house, where photos of Alyson Sawicki beam at us from every direction.
We didn’t keep to ourselves in high school, exactly—we were drifters. We had friends who were in AP classes with us, friends who did theater, friends who played sports. About a fourth of our graduating class is going to UW, going from a school of two thousand to one of more than forty thousand. And yet people are hugging and toasting each other like they’re going off to war.
We’re making our way to the kitchen for drinks when someone shouts, “Julia!”
Noelle Matthews, a short Black girl with natural hair, looking adorable in a denim romper and Keds, is waving at us from across the room. “I’m so glad you guys are here,” she says when she hurries over.
I feel Julia stiffen at my side. “Hey, I didn’t know you were coming,” she says, trying to sound casual. Only Noelle can reduce my confident best friend to a puddle of nerves.
“I didn’t either, until about an hour ago. We were visiting family in Portland, and the drive back took less time than we thought. Thank god, because I was about to murder my little brother for listening to Kidz Bop without headphones.”
“An offense that should be punishable by law,” I say, because Julia has temporarily forgotten how to word. “They’re still making those?”
“They shouldn’t be allowed to, but apparently. Anyone up for beer pong?”
“You guys should team up,” I suggest, and Julia grips my arm with a please-don’t-leave-me kind of strength. “Julia’s awesome at beer pong.”
“I’m not,” Julia rushes to say, but Noelle’s eyes light up.
“Great!” She grabs the elbow of the next person who walks by. “Corey! Beer pong? Quinn needs a partner.”
Oh, you have got to be kidding me.
“Quinn, hey,” Corey Esposito says, staring down at me with these sleepy, heavy-lidded eyes. “You look… really cute.”
I offer a meager wave. Clearly I’m being haunted by the Ghosts of Hookups Past. First Jonathan, then the shitshow with Tarek, and now Corey. There’s something about a rule of three, right? This has to be it, even if Tarek isn’t technically an ex.
Corey and I hung out for a while junior year, a few back-seat make-outs and a homecoming dance before I started obsessing over his texts and wondering if he was thinking about me when we weren’t together as much as I was thinking about him. It freaked me out, so I told him we had to stop seeing each other. The guy you broke up with because he made you feel an emotion is how Julia refers to him, which is not only an attack but also false. If it was an emotion, it was frustration with myself for not ending the relationship earlier.
The only emotion I feel when I see him now is that he looks really cute tonight too. And maybe that is exactly what I need to erase Tarek from my mind.
“And you sound really thirsty,” I say, giving him what I hope is my flirtiest smirk.
He holds a hand to his heart, mock-offended. “Be my beer pong partner? For old times’ sake?”
“Only because I’m feeling nostalgic.” And then a hiss to Julia before we take our places on opposite sides of the table: “She’s glad you’re here!”
“Glad we’re here,” Julia says. I refuse to placate her when she’s being impossible.
Corey turns out to be excellent at beer pong, and when we beat Julia and Noelle, he wraps me in the kind of hug that deserves to be capitalized and italicized. It is a Hug, filled with suggestion, that makes me feel things in more than a couple different places. He’s been bumping my hip the whole game, winking at me, gazing at my mouth. It’s the kind of attention I’ve always liked—people making it so obvious they’re into you that you don’t have to drive yourself wild with anxiety trying to decipher their feelings.
So when Julia and Noelle head off to talk to a few of Noelle’s friends from the volleyball team and he asks if I want to go upstairs, I say yes.
I’m perfectly sober when we start kissing in the Sawickis’ guest room—photos of Alyson with braces, at Disneyland, on a beach—and I was right: it takes away, just a little, the stress of B+B and the question mark that is college. The best way to turn off my brain. I am the one in control as I push Corey onto the bed and wrap my legs around him. It’s great. Corey is great. Exactly what I wanted.
Sure, I swore off boys a couple hours ago, but since we’ve already hooked up, this doesn’t count. It’s just an encore.
“I missed this,” Corey says with his mouth on my neck,
