She nods. “Mama was trashed and had gone to bed earlier. I knew I shouldn’t have been up and making noise.” Her face pinches. “He was a tall man, burly and mean, but he thought he was handsome. He told me to go to bed and I hopped to it. He pulled the covers up, leaned down, and kissed me on the mouth…” Her voice trails off.

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I want to tell you. It helps, you know, in an odd way. Makes it real.” She sighs. “His breath smelled like cigarettes and liquor. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and his hands…they…I felt them trying to get under the covers.”

Revulsion creates goose bumps on my arms. I picture her, small and young and afraid.

She blinks rapidly. “I kneed him in the nuts and screamed my ass off. The walls were thin in that dump, and maybe he was scared Mama would get up or the neighbors would call the police, or maybe he just chickened out. Either way, he left the room. Honestly, living how we did, I was lucky nothing horrible ever happened to me, which is why the keg party is so frustrating. I protected myself all those years only to be helpless hanging out with a bunch of rich kids.” She plucks at her napkin. “All in all, it could have been worse with the things Mama did for extra cash. Since the moment she left us, all I’ve wanted is to dig myself out of where I came from and find my own way. Be independent, go to college, get a real job, take care of Tyler. Big dreams for a twelve-year-old.” She grimaces. “Dang, I kind of killed the conversation there. Sorry.”

The muscles in my shoulders have tensed, and I roll my head back and forth. Twelve. Fucking twelve years old.

“What happened to him?”

“Cooper? He and Mama left a few days after Tyler was born. Dumped us at the group home. Mama was Catholic, although she never took me to Mass. I owe the nuns for any religion I have. Those two leaving was the best thing that ever happened to us.” She waves her hands. “Topic change! I want to know about this rumor that you only have sex from behind.” She waggles her eyebrows and my body heats, tightening. “Well?”

“Who wants to look at my face?” I say the words lightly, but underneath…

“You’re beautiful,” she murmurs. “Hello, Tawny with the red claws—she was all over you yesterday.”

“I don’t want Tawny.” That ship sailed last year.

She shoots me a furtive look while she chews on a fry. “Oh? Who are you banging on the regular this school year, then?”

“No one.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “Truly?”

I pick at my burger. Fucking tomatoes. “Yep.”

“But why? You’re…you, and everyone wants to be a bleacher girl—or so I’ve heard.”

I push my food away. “Saving myself.”

“For marriage? Waiting till you’re a middle-aged has-been who peaked in high school?” She chuckles.

“No.”

“Ah, I get it. Some lucky girl under the bleachers at the first game of senior year. Sweet. Good plan. Typical top Shark behavior. Anticipation…then wham bam, thank you ma’am! Drawing it out.”

A slow blush crawls up from my neck to my cheeks. I still don’t jive with her seeing me. “You gonna come spy on me? Don’t even try. This girl doesn’t do bleachers.”

“Ohhhhhhh, this is good.” She leans in over the table, pushing her plate aside. Turquoise eyes glisten with mirth. “Are you…are you a bit of a romantic, Fort Knox?”

I laugh. “What defines a romantic?”

“Secretly loves rom-coms, listens to moody songs about unrequited feelings, writes pretty love letters and leaves them in girls’ lockers.”

My chest constricts sharply—it feels like I can’t breathe.

She impatiently taps her fingers on the table, and I wait a full minute before answering her.

“Now, Tulip, does that sound like me? I’m just a muscled-up football player who might be a bit dim with too much money, an elitist attitude, and a long line of girls who can’t keep their hands off of me. I mean, can you imagine me writing love letters? I’d just text her.” I pause, taking a sip of my drink. “By the way, someone plastered my number in the girls’ bathroom this week. Knox Grayson’s real cell number. You’re welcome, is what it said. Little hearts all around it. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

“How terrible. Man, you can’t trust anyone these days. Who on earth would do that to you?”

“Ah, Tulip. Don’t pretend. I’m going to have to get you back for that.”

She blushes, not even denying it. “Did anyone call?”

“Hmmm. Twenty texts last night. A few this afternoon. Guess I’ll need a new phone.”

Her face explodes in a huge grin as she slaps her hand on the table. “I’m not sorry. Not even a little.”

“Minx.”

“Guess you aren’t too pissed at me?”

I arch a brow. I was angry when the texts first started coming in, but it only took a little inquiry in reply to one of them to figure out where it came from, and by then it was obvious who the culprit was. Shit, I can’t even be mad at her.

Her eyes flash at me, holding mine. “Back to this girl you’re waiting on—does she go to Camden?”

“Mmmm.”

She pouts. “That’s a noncommittal answer, Fort Knox. Come on, tell me. Your secrets are safe with me.”

“You can’t be trusted with a phone number!”

She laughs.

Lou places down the tab in the middle of the table, and Ava and I both dive for it at the same time. “This is mine,” I say as we both pull on it.

She tugs. “You are not paying. This was my idea!”

I give it a pull. “I totally manipulated you into eating with me. You didn’t even want to hang out with me, but I wore you down.”

“You did—asshole—but I’m paying!”

“No girl pays for me, and I have money—”

“So do I! I work!”

“I know you do! Why are we yelling?” I gasp out.

“I don’t know!” She picks up a fry and tosses it in my face, and when I bat it away, she pounces forward, takes the bill, and waves it at Lou, who’s watching us with his head cocked. “I’m paying, Lou! Don’t let this rich preppy jerk give you money, you feel me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he rumbles then turns to go back to the front. “Don’t take the boy’s money. Let me get on that right away.”

I shrug, holding my hands up. “I give up. You win. I’ll get it next time.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, just rises and gathers her things. I follow her to the front where she pays our tab, gives Lou and the girl behind the grill a hurried hug, and joins me at the door.

We walk out into the night air. Our arms brush, and for once I don’t pull away.

“You wanna ride with me?” I hear myself offering, then regret it. Shit.

She turns to look at me, and I get tense, my palms sweating again, that anxious feeling sticking to me. I think about her sitting in my car with me, the close proximity, the way her hair smells, like vanilla, and how close her arm would be to mine—