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I raise my eyebrows at him like I don’t believe a word of it.

“It’s all true, baby.” Riley says.

“So basically you either had your brothers’ sloppy seconds or girls who were too drunk to know better?”

“Oh, I’m go

“Sounds like I’m probably much too young and much too inexperienced for you.”

He glares at me. At first he was trying to impress me with his experience, now I just turned it around and made his experience seem like a bad thing.

“I think you’re faking a boyfriend.”

“Oh really?” I grab my phone and pull up a picture of Brooklyn and me. One of only two that I was allowed to download to my new phone. We’re standing facing each other, swimsuits on, boards stuck in the sand next to us. His arms are casually around my waist, and he’s getting ready to lean in and kiss me. The sun is glimmering on the ocean as it’s getting ready to set, and the sky is a brilliant shade of fiery oranges, pinks, and reds. Brooklyn is looking at me in the dreamy way he always does.

Not that you can see that in the photo. I wasn’t allowed to have a picture of his actual face.

“See?”

The boys pass the phone around.

I hear a freshman say, “Dayummm, look at the bikini. Nice.”

Then they all huddle around my phone. You’d think I just handed them a centerfold.

I try to grab my phone from them. “Oh my gosh, you’re not supposed to be looking at my body.”

Riley has my phone now. “What are we supposed to be looking at?”

“At us. Can’t you tell how happy we were?” Were being the key word in that sentence.

“All guys look like that when their arms are wrapped around a hot bikini.”

To prove his point, he puts his phone in front of me and scrolls through about a million pics of him with bikini-clad girls posing next to him, hugging him, kissing him on the cheek, kissing him.

“See. I’m not in love with any of these girls. It means nothing.”

Oh my gosh, he frustrates me.

“Fine then. I mean nothing to him.”

The dean guy is going on now about the activities for this weekend, how we should each join at least two extracurricular activities, how sports tryouts are tomorrow, and some other stuff that was all online.

I don’t understand why we need to hear it all. It’s pretty obvious that everyone has either read it or doesn’t give a shit because no one is even paying attention to him. Well, except for a few girls down front, who are pretending to be rapt.

Or maybe they are. Who knows. Who cares.

My phone is passed to Dallas. He stares at my bikini, then jumps slightly when it vibrates in his hand. “Ooooh, you just got a text from B with a heart.” I try to grab the phone. “It says, Miss you already. Last night was amazing and well, this morning too. Winky face. Then, Love you, heart. Oooh la la.”

Love you??? What’s that all about? And when did he add a heart next to his name? See, it’s this kind of stuff that’s confusing. Sex can really confuse the issue. Actually, I think sex makes you kinda forget that there even are issues.

“See, I’m not making him up.”

“What did you do last night that was so amazing?” Riley arches an eyebrow at me and there’s a stupid grin on his handsome face.

I look at him a little puzzled. “What do you think?”

“I take it you’re not a virgin?” Riley says smoothly. “Me either, but most of these douches are.” He points back at the freshman boys.

“You have no idea what he’s talking about. Maybe we made pancakes this morning. Or maybe we caught a great wave, and it was amazing.”

“Doubtful. My vote is that he’s talking about hot sex with you.”

We are now being told that we’re dismissed and to get in line, pick up our schedules, and get our dorm assignments and roommates. We’re supposed to go to our dorms, meet our roommates, and go to di

Ought to be interesting.

Probably more like lame.

All I know is there are a whole bunch of football players here with nothing to do tonight but workout. So, one would assume they’re having a party. Or they should be.





I’d like to meet a few of them because I could seriously stand to party.

And because I’m single.

The boys and I walk toward the commons area, where we’re supposed to go next. As we’re walking, I spy a group of boys out in the big green lawn kicking a soccer ball around.

A crazy idea pops into my head.

Something I would do if I were the cool/crazy girl in a teen movie.

THE SETTING: BOARDING SCHOOL

A group of boys are playing soccer in a big green lawn in front of the path to the commons area. commons area. They are split up into shirts versus skins because half the boys. . .

What am I doing?

Screw it.

The scenes I write never seem to happen. I’m done pla

I’m going to live in the moment, because if this doesn’t work and the stalker finds me, I might not have that many moments left.

This is the script of my life, and I’m in charge of living it. I don’t care what crazy teen girl would do.

This is about what I want to do. I’m wadding up the script and throwing it in the trash.

Right now I want to run down there, steal the ball, and kick it in the goal.

And I’m go

I’m confident. I’m good at soccer, and it’ll be fun.

I look down at the boots Cush gave me. They make me feel confident. Not that cowboy boots are the best for kicking a soccer ball. They’re good for shit kicking, Grandpa says, but what the hell.

The ball is heading toward me as we walk closer.

Here goes nothing.

I take off suddenly, run down the little hill, intercept the ball from the gorgeous, shirtless boy it was getting passed to, dribble the ball down the field, and kick the ball straight into the goal.

Right around the extremely—and I mean super de duper, super extremely hottie hott hot—hottie.

Like he is seriously the God of All Hotties.

I don’t say anything and neither do the boys on the field. I think I sorta shocked them.

The goalie for sure.

I give the Hottie god a big grin. A Haha, I just totally scored on you grin. Then I jog back up the field to my new friends, who stopped to watch me.

Then I think, why in the world did I just do that? I didn’t look like some cool girl! I probably looked like some freaking lunatic.

Shit. I’m such a liar. I do care what people think.

I’m go

But when I walk up to Dallas, he high fives me. “Dude, that was awesome! And in cowboy boots to boot. Haha!” He laughs at himself. “To boot, get it??”

Inwardly, I sigh with relief. Thank goodness, I didn’t make a complete fool of myself.

“Yeah, we get it,” I laugh.

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again. We’re go

“I did not hit on you.”

“You asked Is this seat taken, and there was like this much space.” He puts his hands out and shows the others that there were like two inches.

“Maybe I just wanted to meet some boys. Some nice, fun to hang out with, boys. I figured the boys in the back were a good place to start. But if you had all turned out to be losers, then I woulda had to ditch you.”