The overpowering bass buzzed in my eardrums as I made my way to the bathroom. After the game, Jackson invited us back to his house for a party. Quite a regular occurrence for him. According to Carrie, Jackson's mother spent nearly every weekend going on trips to the beaches in Gulf Shores and the casinos in Biloxi with her boyfriend, so Jackson had a party almost every week. He didn't have a palatial home like Brandon. It was just a normal house—smaller than mine—on a huge plot of land. His nearest neighbor lived a mile down the road, making it ideal for a raucous evening of teenage debauchery.

The front lawn looked like a parking lot by the time Clay and I arrived, cars parked bumper to bumper without concern of blocking anyone in. We'd stopped off for dinner after the game, partially to celebrate how well our first public appearance as a couple went—around people we actually knew.

"Hey!" Carrie yelled over the music. She'd changed out of her cheer uniform into a sexy emerald green mini-dress that accentuated her curves with cutouts on the hips. It was slightly over-the-top for a kegger. Definitely inappropriate with the chill outside. Her curls hung free, bouncing with every step as she trailed along beside me.

"Hey."

When someone exited the bathroom, I raced in before anyone else could. Carrie grabbed the door before I could close it and slipped in behind me.

I grimaced at her. "I gotta pee."

"Who's stopping you?" She gestured to the toilet, turning to the mirror to check her makeup.

I rolled my eyes, angling my body so I was partially facing away. It was a good thing I didn't have a shy bladder.

"I don't know why you're being so prudish. It's not like I haven't seen your dick before. I highly doubt it's changed any in the last three years."

I laughed, thinking back to that day in ninth grade when Carrie convinced me and several of our friends to go skinny dipping.

"Do you remember Dan's?" I asked, zipping up my pants.

"How could I forget? I didn't know a guy that skinny could have one that big." She raised her lipstick and twisted it all the way out, giggling. She twisted it back to a reasonable size to apply a fresh coat. "The proportions just make no sense."

I nudged her to the side so I could wash my hands. "I don't know how Makenzie walks straight after taking that thing."

Carrie barked out a surprised laugh. "Tell me about it. I couldn't handle that."

"I second that, sister." I glanced down at her makeup bag. I picked up her eyeliner. "Can I use this?"

"Really?" She looked surprised. "You don't usually wear makeup around the straights."

I shrugged. "They all know anyway. Why not be myself while I have the chance?"

Carrie held the tube out to me. "Go for it."

"Clay's never seen me like this." I expertly drew thin lines around my eyelids without once poking myself in the eye. "I don't know if he'll like it."

"That boy is so smitten with you, he'd probably like you in full clown makeup."

"No!" I shook my head vehemently. "He actually hates clowns. He's terrified of them."

"That's hilarious." Carrie mumbled, holding her mouth wide open as she put on mascara.

"It's really not. He has an actual phobia. I was watching The Greatest Show on Earth one day when he came over."

"You mean The Greatest Showman?"

"No. It's a completely different movie. From the 50s. It won Best Picture at the Oscars, and people say it's one of the worst choices the Oscars ever made. It somehow got nominated and Singin' In The Rain didn't. I wanted to see if it was really that bad." I waved my hand in the air to tell her to ignore that. All of that was inconsequential. "Anyway, I paused the movie when he came into my room. The second he saw the clown on the screen, he literally backed out into the hall, shaking his head. He told me to turn the movie off or he'd leave."

Someone pounded on the bathroom door. "Would you hurry up in there?"

I handed her the eyeliner. "Ready?"

Carrie traced a finger around the outline of her lips, her eyes looking over her appearance. "I think I should wait a few minutes to teach that guy out there some patience."

"You are not." I took her hand and pulled her to the door.

We pushed past the guy standing outside, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He raced inside and slammed the door behind him.

"So, how goes the rebellion against Whitley?" I asked.

"I think I've got enough people on my side to call for a vote of no confidence."

"Do they have votes of no confidence in high school cheerleading?"

Carrie patted me on the back. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Just know, by this time next week, Whitley will be busted down to the bottom of the pyramid. Metaphorically speaking. Because she's way too tiny to be an actual base. Her bird bones would get crushed. Not that I wouldn't kinda secretly love to see that."

"You scare me sometimes."

Carrie beamed at me. "Thank you."

We found Clay and Jackson sitting around the kitchen table, along with Brandon and Tyler. Jackson was facing off against Brandon in a game of Quarters.

"Fuck!" Brandon said as his quarter missed the shot glass in the center of the table. It flipped almost all the way across the table to Jackson. Brandon downed the shot glass in front of him. Of the five glasses in front of him, three were already empty. Brandon hissed and slammed the fourth glass on the table upside down.

"Baby!" Clay held his arms out toward me. When I went to him, Clay slipped his arms around my waist and pulled me down to sit on his lap. A crease formed between his brows as he stared at me, puzzled. "What's different?"

I loved that he noticed, even in the dim lighting. "I put on eyeliner. Do you hate it?"

Clay shook his head, tightening his arms around my waist. "I think it's sexy. It really makes your eyes stand out."

"That's kinda the point."

"Why haven't you ever worn it before?"

I glanced around the room before looking back at Clay. "I try not to call attention to myself most of the time. But sometimes I just have to be me."

"Is there other stuff that you don't do that you'd like to?"

"A lot."

"Like what?"

I brushed my fingers through Clay's silver hair—his own way of standing out and being himself. "I'd be a lot more outgoing with my clothes in public. I'd probably paint my nails. Oh, and I'd love to get some piercings."

Clay raised his brows, intrigued. "What do you want to have pierced?"

I fought a grin. "Nothing dirty, if that's what you're thinking. Just like around my ears and maybe my naval. And definitely my nose."

"So, no Prince Albert for you, huh?" Clay asked with a laugh.

"God, no!" I shook my head. I was surprised he even knew what that was. "No one's going anywhere near my dick with a needle."

"What the fuck are y'all talking about over there?" Brandon sounded horrified. It showed in his face, too.

Clay burst out laughing, making me shake on his lap.

I quickly explained, so they didn't think needles were some kind of kink I was into.

All the guys looked extremely uncomfortable. Carrie, meanwhile, cackled. She hooked her arms around Jackson.

Brandon shook his head. "Who the fuck would want that?"

I shrugged. "That's what I was saying."

"Who would even think of that?" Jackson asked.

I actually had an answer for that. "I don't know if it's true, but I read that it was started by Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert—hence the name. Apparently, the dude was so hung that it got in his way and it was uncomfortable when he rode his horse. So the piercing attached to like a hook in his pants to hold it in place and keep it out of his way."

"Dude must've been packing a twenty incher for it to be so unmanageable that he'd install a hook in it." Tyler said.

"Even then I couldn't do it." Emmett said.

"Agreed." Brandon said.

"Hey, Jackson," shouted a guy from the next room. "Someone's barfing in the fireplace,"

"Son of a bitch!" Jackson jumped up, slapping his handful of quarters on the table, and ran from the room.

"That's gross." I said.

Clay laughed. "Jackson's parties are always like this. Someone throws up somewhere they aren't supposed to at least twice a month."

"I know." I said, arching a brow. "I've been to Jackson's parties before."

"When?"

"I used to bring him." Carrie said, taking Jackson's vacated seat. "When me and Jackson started dating, I brought Emmett every weekend for like two months."

Carrie challenged Brandon to a match. He took her up on the offer, ordering Tyler to refill the empty shot glasses from a bottle of cheap tequila. She tossed a quarter down. It bounced off the table, directly into the shot glass. "Who do you think taught Jackson how to play this?"

"Fuck me." Brandon groaned, wiping a hand over his face. "I'm gonna be so shit-faced."

Clay couldn't seem to shake the fact that I had been to so many of Jackson's parties. He brought it up again as he was driving me home later that night. "Seriously, I can't believe you were at Jackson's before."

I nodded. "How do you think I met Alfie?"

"I guess I never thought about it."

When we stopped at a red light, Clay stared at me with a pensive expression.

I brushed my fingertips across Clay's cheek. "What is it?"

"It just occurred to me that I was probably there, too."

I shrugged. "Probably." I didn't recall ever seeing Clay before that night at the bowling alley. He was definitely a guy I would have noticed. Then again, I spent most of those nights huddled in a corner, staring at my phone, praying no one would talk to me.

"I wonder how close we came to meeting." Clay said, his voice wistful. "What if it was me you met that night instead of Duke? Do you think we still would have ended up together?"

"I don't know." It was a nice thought. Clay and I together for all that time. All those months feeling the joy he'd brought to me since we met. Even more since we got together. But it was no use dwelling on the past. So I posited an alternative: "Maybe we had to meet exactly the way we did to fall for each other."

When the light changed, Clay turned into our neighborhood. "Why do you say that?"

"You might not have been ready yet. That was over a year ago."

Clay chuckled, reaching over to take my hand. "I think I've been ready for you my whole life, Em."

"Yeah, but I mean ready to admit that. To understand your feelings. To accept them and to let yourself fall for me. All of that is a big deal."

Clay stopped the car in front of my house. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it was meant to happen the way it did. Either way, fate or coincidence, call it what you want. I'm just glad it happened."

"Me, too." I leaned over the console as Clay did the same. We met in the middle in a kiss.

When we broke apart, Clay said, "Then again, I've had feelings for you since the day we met. If you hadn't kept telling me you didn't like me, I probably would've done something about it sooner."

"Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Hmm." Clay puckered his lips, narrowing his eyes contemplatively. Then he shook his head. "I don't think so."

"I hate you."

Clay grinned. "You have a funny way of showing it."

"Shut up."

After I kissed him goodnight, he started laughing. "I love you, Em."

"Yeah, yeah."

Clay caught my elbow as I turned to get out. "Really?" he asked in disbelief. "That's how you're leaving me."

I turned in the seat to face him, reaching my hand up to press it to his cheek. I moved in for a quick, soft kiss. And again for another that was not so chaste. I pulled back to look into his beautiful brown eyes, glittering with the overheard light. "I love you, too."

"That more like it." Clay said. "'Night, baby."

"Goodnight, love." I said, getting out. I closed the door behind me and waved as I walked backwards toward the front door. As always, he waited until I was safely inside to leave.