Miraculously, my white shorts still fit. There was no logical explanation for it, but I'd learned not to question miracles when they landed in my lap (or squeezed over my hips).

Hanna and I turned on some pregame tunes and pulled open the kitchen window, letting cool evening air drift in while we readied ourselves for the evening's festivities. The flat iron was hot, our faces were primed, and every article of white clothing we owned was laid out on our beds.

Pollock was always a wild night. Freshman year, when Andre and Hanna and I were bright-eyed and naive, we'd chugged so much Bacardi that we'd woken up in Hanna's dorm room with five stolen traffic cones and an unmarked styrofoam box of waffle fries, the origins of which haunted us to this day (none of the restaurants near campus did waffle fries, and there were no Uber receipts indicating we'd ventured off-campus to find them—not that an Uber driver would've taken us anywhere, drenched in blacklight paint as we'd been).

Sophomore year, we'd been older and wiser. We'd paced ourselves. And still, Hanna and I had ended up on the roof of the Jewish House—on the other end of the Rodeo—cheering on paint-splattered streakers. Meanwhile, Andre had smoked pot for the first time. He'd eaten an entire stick of salami and then passed out in soaked clothes on the couch in Mehri Rajavi's room.

Tonight, it was time for Pollock, round three.

Woman's intuition drove me to spend a solid four minutes brushing my teeth before I popped a handful of mints. Just in case.

"Han?" I asked when my breath was almost unbearably minty fresh. "Can you help me with hair and makeup?"

I pulled one of our dinky IKEA chairs into the bathroom so I could sit in front of the mirror while Hanna fluttered around me, using whatever clips and scrunchies we could find to aid her in the battle to tame my hair.

"You smell like a toothpaste factory," Hanna mumbled as she worked.

"Thank you?"

"No, no. It's good. Bodie will like it."

I made a wheezing sound like a horse choking on an apple.

Hanna met my eyes in the mirror and beamed at me.

"You haven't kissed him again, have you?" she asked as she sectioned off another chunk to be straightened.

"No," I admitted quietly, twisting a hair-tie in between my fingers as I watched steam rise from the flat iron. "Remember that time I told you about? When he said he was working on it. Like on making me his girlfriend?"

"Oh, I remember."

"So he said that, but then I feel like there've been opportunities, and he hasn't made a move. That has to mean something, right?"

"Yeah," Hanna said, dumping the flat iron back on the counter with a flourish. "It means you're both little bitches."

I turned, pulled back the hair-tie, and shot it at the mirror. It ricocheted and hit her in the forehead.

Our laughter was interrupted when my phone buzzed on the cluttered bathroom counter, momentarily muting our pregame tunes.

Andre had texted: Just parked!!! We got the goods

"Boys are back," I announced.

Plural. Ugh. It felt weird.

I ducked back into the bathroom for a final once-over.

"Do you want a shot before they get here?" Hanna asked, appearing in the doorway with a handle of Fireball in one hand.

"No," I said on a heavy exhale. "I think I'll take it easy tonight."

"Good call," Hanna nodded. "You need to stay sharp."

Oh, God. I was a nervous wreck.

I followed her back out into the kitchen.

The thundering of footsteps up the stairs drifted through the paper-thin walls of the apartment.

I combed my fingers through my still-warm hair one last time before Hanna tugged open the door to reveal Bodie and Andre, the patron saints of fast food delivery, who carried paper bags in their hands and were dressed in solidly white outfits. They both had In-N-Out Burger paper hats (the ones with the silhouetted palms trees and boomerang logo on them) perched on their heads like halos.

Andre had opted for white compression leggings under athletic shorts, a white t-shirt, and a pair of white sweatbands on his wrists to tie the whole look together. Bodie had gone for a slightly dressier look, with his white jeans.

"Lemonade," Andre announced as he passed a paper cup to Hanna, who immediately popped off the plastic top and poured in a generous splash of Fireball.

She saw my grimace and said, "Well, since I don't have anyone to impress tonight..."

Then she puckered her lips around the straw and took a long sip.

Bodie beamed at me and held out my keys.

"Thank you," I sing-songed as I plucked them out of his fingers.

I was sure I caught his eyes drop to my shorts. So, when he shuffled past me into the kitchen, I returned the favor and admired the way his white jeans clung to his butt.

The four of us congregated around the kitchen counter so the boys could lay out our banquet. When Bodie drew a white cardboard box with a shell lid out of one of the bags, I circled him like a shark. I'd told him I could eat an entire bucket of animal fries. This was not by any means an exaggeration, or one of those fun facts girls tossed out to make up for their complete lack of a personality.

I loved animal fries.

It took me ninety seconds flat to polish off my tray. Bodie wasn't even halfway done with his, then, so the smell of them—the caramelized onions, the cheese, the secret sauce—lingered.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's animal fries.

Across the kitchen island, Hanna pinched the bridge of her nose, like she couldn't believe she was watching me ogle a tray of fries when I had Bodie St. James right there.

When we were done eating, she slapped four shot glasses down on the counter.

"For good luck," she announced.

We all tossed back Fireball.

Bodie and I both shivered and sputtered in disgust.

Andre slammed his empty shot glass onto the counter and bellowed, "Let's go make some art!"

❖ ❖ ❖

The Art House had used chain link fences and black trash-bag-like tarp to create a tunnel down the driveway to the enormous tent in their back parking lot.

Music was already blasting when the four of us arrived.

The cool night air was sweet with marijuana and sharp with the chemical stench of blacklight paint, which had been laid out on folding tables in the front yard. Pink, blue, green, orange and yellow had been rationed into individual plastic squeeze tubes—the kind restaurants put off-brand condiments in.

Hanna grabbed a tube of blue and immediately drew a very crooked phallic symbol on Andre's shirt.

Bodie plucked up a bottle of green paint and turned to me. I half expected him to squirt me in the face, like everyone else on the front yard was doing to each other, but instead, he dabbed a little on his finger.

"Hold still," he told me.

He grabbed my chin between his thumb and index finger.

"You're not gonna draw a dick on my face, are you?" I asked, doing my best not to squirm.

"Definitely not," Bodie replied unconvincingly.

He brought his finger to my face. I felt him press dots along my cheekbones.

"Let me see!" Hanna said, hauling me around by the shoulder. Her face sunk with disappointment. "That's cute. Where's your creativity, St. James?"

"You realize people have been drawing dicks on shit for literal centuries," Andre piped up.

This earned him another dousing.

With bottles of paint in hand (and two tucked into the pockets of Andre's athletic shorts), the four of us joined the steady stream of students heading into the tunnel.

This was my favorite part every year—the first plunge into the dark, before your eyes adjusted and before you got deep enough into the tent that the glow of the blacklights could touch you.

I ventured forward into the darkness.

And then, suddenly, the world was blue.

When I looked down, I was glowing from my sneakers to my shirt.

I laughed and spun around. Bodie stood just behind me, his shirt, his pants, his teeth, and the whites of his eyes all electric blue under the blacklights.

I lifted my bottle of pink paint.

He caught on a split second too late.

I had the front of his shirt covered in erratic zig-zag stripes before he lifted a bottle of orange paint and did the same to me.

We disappeared right into the colorful crowd in the tent. The music was so loud it shook the asphalt under our feet. Darkness, paired with the whiskey lemonade, made dancing easy. Hanna and I belted Justin Bieber lyrics in each other's faces as we jumped and swung our hips. Andre, who was quite talented when it came to dancing, tried in vain to help Bodie find some sense of rhythm.

Hanna finally stopped, after what had to be half an hour of strenuous dancing and dodging stray streams of blacklight paint, and grabbed my hand.

"I want another drink," she shouted.

"I'll come with you," I shouted back.

I turned to let the boys know. Andre was scanning the crowd, but Bodie's eyes were already on me.

"We're gonna run to the bar," I told him.

Bodie frowned. I realized he couldn't hear me over the music.

When he leaned down and offered me his ear, I put my hands on his shoulders and rolled up on my toes. The deja vu was like a flick to the forehead. This was how I'd kissed him, the first time around, when he'd chosen my mouth over Fosters Freeze.

The crowd shifted around us. Somebody bumped me as they brushed past us and I had to step to the side to keep my balance.

Bodie's hand caught my hip, anchoring me to him.

I loved big parties like Pollock for the same reason that I liked sitting in the stands during football games—the crowd swallowed you whole. You were a part of something. You were one tiny, vibrating atom in a big, wonderful universe. I liked that.

But right now, I wanted the world to fuck off.

I wanted Bodie to myself.

"What'd you say?" he asked over the music.

I didn't remember.

Bodie drew back and looked at me again. In the glow of the blacklights, I thought I saw stars reflected in his eyes. It took me a moment to realize they were the dots he'd painted across my cheeks.

"Bar!" I shouted. "We're going to the bar! Hanna wants a drink!"

I found Hanna's arm, striped with blue paint where Andre had doused her in retaliation for the dick on his shirt, and grabbed hold.

Together, we pushed through the crowd.

One of the best parts of Pollock was running into everyone you'd ever had class with.

I saw Ryan Lansangan in a white snapback hat and white button-up romper, his short but well-defined legs bare. I also briefly brushed arms with Joey Aldridge, who had a Four Loko in hand and lifted it in cheers as we passed each other.

Hanna and I surfaced again at the bar, a rickety plywood construction that'd been relegated to the far corner of the tent opposite the DJ's stand. Given that Hanna was small and I was not, it was my job to crane my neck and see over the people in line ahead of us. Danny—Hanna's stoner ex-booty call—was behind the bar pouring out Natty Light into red cups.

"So do you want room temperature beer or—"

"Are you going to let St. James kiss you or not?" Hanna demanded.

"What are you talking about?"

"I saw you! Four seconds ago! What are you doing, swerving on him when he's literally leaning in?"

"He was not leaning in!"

"Oh my God, I need more whiskey. You need more whiskey."

"He leaned in because we were talking."

"Laurel," she said, very seriously.

I let out a distressed grunt.

"I'm nervous, okay?" I admitted.

I wished I had a better excuse for my cowardice. The first time I'd kissed Bodie, it'd been all adrenaline. Everything had been new and unknown. But now that I knew how well we fit together, all I could think about was screwing it up, somehow.

"Of course you're nervous," Hanna said. "You like him. You're allowed to be nervous."

The trio of freshman girls ahead of us in line fluttered off with their drinks. I stepped up to the bar. Danny grinned at me, his eyes fixed on Hanna, who I was doing my best to shield from him. Tonight could be wild, but not so wild that I let my best friend hook up with a boy who looked like he shunned all forms of modern plumbing.

"Two beers," I called, holding up a pair of fingers.

Danny shuffled over to rip open another rack of Natty Light.

Hanna thumped me on the arm to get my attention. It was clearly important, because I was going to have a massive bruise come morning.

I turned to see what was up.

Bodie was pushing towards us through the crowd.

_________________

Am under the weather and out of clever author's notes. See ya tomorrow.

Your friendly author,

Kate