"Well someone looks reasonably warmed," Jasmine commented in the morning when she interrogated the guys' tent.

"Mm-hmm," I answered tiredly but also sure not to admit that I was really with Chase. I unzipped the sleeping bag and rolled out.

"You? With only a sports bra and shorts on?" Jasmine asked with her eyebrows raised. "That's it. Wes, did you f*ck her?"

"I wouldn't dare," Wes said defensively. I hugged my knees into my stomach again and noticed that Chase was sitting up against the other side of the tent, nowhere near his sleeping bag that I slept in.

"Well it's just odd..." Jasmine commented.

I shrugged, not wanting to deal with it because if I made a fuss, Wes would egg it on. I looked around. "Where are my clothes?"

"You mean the wet clothes that almost made you freeze to death?" Eli asked.

"Sounds about right," I pursed my lips.

"I put them outside on the tree to dry, but the wind blew your shirt into the mud," Chase announced.

"So I'm stuck wearing this?" I yelled, gesturing to myself, even though I had a blanket wrapped around my shoulders.

"Hey, no one's complaining," Wes commented. I smacked his arm.

"Here," Chase said, handing me his shirt. I threw it over my head and it went down to my thigh. "Your shorts are dry though."

"Sweet," I said. I exited the tent. To my surprise, I felt warmth. "Are you serious?"

"What?" Wes asked, flipping his messy hair out of his eyes.

"It was freezing yesterday and now it's warm!" I said while snatching my shorts off the tree to put them on. I just sighed and decided the universe was just against me.

***

Zoey and I were driven home, but not without Chase and Zoey making out through the car's window when we arrived there. I grabbed my stuff from the trunk and just headed to the door.

"Hey honey, how was it?" my mom asked. I dumped all of my stuff at the foot of the stairs and sighed before going in the kitchen with her.

"Fun," I finally answered.

"Where's Zoey?"

"Still outside with Chase," I answered, giving a suggestive look. My mom nodded understandingly.

"So...who went?"

"Just our friends," I answered, shrugging.

"What all did you do?" she asked. Normally, people would think she's nosey, but she's just making small talk as she washed the dishes. I grabbed an apple from the refrigerator and sat on the island counter while eating it.

"We went cliff diving and then just hung out at camp."

"Zoey went cliff diving?" she asked, surprised.

"Reluctantly, but yes," I laughed. The front door closed with a bang and seconds later, Zoey walked in.

"Hello," my mom greeted.

"Hey..." Zoey returned, suspicious.

"Did you have fun?" she asked, like she asked me.

"Hardly. It was cold," she complained. "Right Lili?"

"Uhh...I guess," I replied. My mom gave us a weird look.

"She almost froze to death," Zoey informed before leaving the room. My mom looked to me.

"She's overreacting," I lied. "I got warm eventually."

"If it was that cold, you shouldn't have gone camping then," she said.

"Well I think it was just the fact that my hair was wet and the baggy clothes I had on were far wetter than the bikinis that Zoey seems to love to wear," I reasoned. She laughed quietly while Zoey glared and I took that as a cue to leave. As I looked at the stuff that I dropped at the end of the stairs, I noticed that Zoey had dropped her stuff on top of mine.

"Lili! If you could take my stuff up, I'd love you forever!" she yelled from upstairs as if she mocked the incredulous look I was using towards the clothes.

"Forever and a day," I mumbled. I started to pick up all of her crap. Once it was all in my arms, someone rang the doorbell.

"Zo, can you get that?" I yelled up to her.

"Sorry! Busy!" she replied. With what? Not putting your shit away, that's for sure.

"I got it," I heard Mom's voice say. As I heard her shoes hit the wooden floor, I started my journey up the stairs, but once I got to the top, I dropped all the stuff in front of Zoey's door. Since I dropped something on the way up, I jogged down the stairs to get it, but also eavesdropped on the person at the door.

"Oh hey, I'll get Zoey for you—" my mom offered.

"No need," the familiar voice of Chase Cane replied. My mom shifted in positions. "Uh, this is Alicia's. She forgot to grab it—good thing I double checked..."

"Oh that's alright," my mom laughed. "If you want, you can run it upstairs to her."

"Sure."

I quickly ran up the stairs and stationed myself in my room so it looked like I wasn't busy. Two knocks rang off my door. I looked up to see Chase of course.

"Hey..."

Once he greeted me, Roanoke ran up to him and started jumping in circles.

"Nice to see you too," Chase said with a smile and brief laugh. Then he looked to me. "You left your shirt."

"Oh, thanks," I said, taking the shirt which had a mud stain on it. I looked down and realized that I was still wearing Chase's shirt. "Crap. I'll give you back your shirt whenever I get it washed—"

"It's fine," he laughed.

"Thanks for letting me wear it...and of course warming me," I said.

"Eh. It's what best friends do," he figured with a smirk and I started to lightly laugh. "And plus, I didn't want you to have to deal with Wes."

"Well thanks..."

"You said that already," he reminded.

"Yeah..." I mumbled, oddly. Why was there so much tension between us? Oh, probably because you just slept in the same sleeping bag together even though he's your sister's boyfriend!

"Alicia! Why the hell did you leave all this crap by my door!?" Zoey screamed. Chase's forehead wrinkled, but I contained my smile. Soon enough, Zoey stomped over to yell at me, but then realized Chase was standing there.

"Oh, hey babe...what are you doing here?" she played cool as if she wasn't mad about me taking her request of taking her belongings just upstairs too literal.

"Uh...I had to drop off Alicia's shirt, since she took it off last night and I hung it up to dry..." Chase informed. He busted up laughing. "That sounded wrong..."

"He means that my shirt dropped in mud and he was returning it to me," I restated.

"Then whose shirt are you wearing right now?" Zoey asked, suspicious.

"Wes'," I lied before Chase could start to stammer. If she found out about it being Chase's she'd take it the wrong way so I had no choice but to lie. Lucky enough, she believed the lie.

"It was awfully nice of him to give you a shirt..." Zoey said, suspiciously, "considering that if he didn't, you'd be forced to walk around in less..."

"Yeah..." I said, sort of confused.

"That's odd," she commented.

"How?" Chase and I asked.

"Because I'm sure Wes of all people would actually want to see you with the least amount of clothes on," she answered. Good point...—damn. Why did she choose now of all times to be observant? "Not to mention that you never give him the time of day."

"Well I guess people change," I shrugged.

"Hardly," she muttered, narrowing her eyes. Right as I got the feeling that she was annoyed at me for my dishonesty she couldn't really pin, she turned around to face Chase. "So, babe, do you have to go home now? Or do you wanna head to my room and..."

"Uh, I'm sure I got some time," Chase said, winking. Zoey practically skipped out of my room with Chase in tow and I stood on my doorframe to watch them leave.

Although Chase said he'd wait for the next time he'd sex someone up, something was telling me that he didn't mean it. Of course the reason I'd believe that was because of the way he was basically eating up my sister's lips and neck even before they entered her room.

***

"So, Chase..." my mom started. Chase looked up at her as he chewed his food since my mom invited him to dinner. "Do you have any siblings?"

"Yes, there's three," Chase answered and I wondered if he meant three total or if he had three siblings. If it was the latter, why hadn't he claimed him when we were at his house? I looked to Zoey and her facial expression changed because of the fact that she didn't seem to know of any Cane siblings.

"Must be a handful for your parents huh?"

Zoey and Mom started to awkwardly laugh as Chase and I held a straight face.

"My parents sort of died early this year..." Chase informed. The laughter stopped. I noticed that Zoey didn't know that information either...

"Oh I am so sorry," my mom immediately apologized.

"It's okay," Chase dismissed.

"So who takes care of you then?" My mom asked.

"My older brother, but mostly myself," Chase asked.

"Will I be meeting him at the Halloween festival in a few weeks?" Mom asked. I rolled my eyes at the festival that covered up my birthday, not because it covered up my day, but because people were crazy on Halloween.

"Um...I'm not sure," Chase answered.

"What a shame," my mom replied.

"Yeah. Babe, I haven't met any of your family," Zoey mentioned.

"Oh?" Mom and I said.

"Maybe we should invite them to dinner one time," my mom suggested. I could tell how uncomfortable Chase got.

"Uh, I don't think that'd be—"

"Yeah. We could all meet and—"

"My brother is really busy all the time," Chase reasoned.

"Nonsense. It's just a dinner—"

"He works late," Chase said. Why do I think he's making excuses?

"Well we can do breakfast or lunch—"

"He's really busy and I'm not sure if he's off work and all that..." Can confirm. He was making excuses.

"Well we can—"

"Mom!" I stopped. "Stop insisting..."

My mom gave me that signature mom look that read "stop acting out" and went back to eating our food. Chase sent me a thankful look.

Our dinner was rather awkward and Chase high-tailed out of there as soon as he could. And honestly, I couldn't blame him. The first thing I did was text him

I laughed slightly at that and felt Zoey's stare at me.

"What?" I asked. She narrowed her eyes.

"Nothing," she lied before going into her room. What was up with her?