He moves closer to me, and instinctively I take a tiny step back.

“You’re never going to get to know me like that. Come on.”

He lays an arm across my shoulder, hooking me closer to his side, and starts leading me out of the kitchen.

“Wait. My friend.”

“She’ll be fine.”

I’m not worried about her.

“He’s right!” Stella calls behind me. “I am fine,” she announces to a group of three guys that she’s already managed to ensnare. Good God, it’s like she’s found her natural habitat. I envy her confidence.

I envy a lot of things about Stella.

He pulls me toward the living room, and I automatically fall into step with the rhythm of the music. But when I see the room packed full of grinding bodies and decorated with wandering hands, I panic. It’s not that I’m incapable of dancing like that. My tastes run more toward ballet, lyrical, and jazz, but I’ve taken a few years of hip-hop.

It’s not the movement that intimidates me. I can roll my hips with the best of them. It’s the intimacy I can’t handle. There are no secrets when your body is that close to another. Hell, it took me close to a year before I could comfortably press up against Levi that way.

Fat lot of good all that caution did me.

As much as I get annoyed with the way my father affects my love life, a really small part of me is glad to have him as an excuse to not get too close. As an excuse not to get hurt again.

“Bathroom,” I blurt out, grasping for another excuse. “I, uh, need to use the ladies’ room.” I thought ladies’ room might sound less embarrassing.

Wrong on all counts.

He gives me that look again like I’m behaving like the grandma who I apparently stole my personality from.

I cough and add, “Bathroom,” once more, like that somehow might clear the air of all the terrible, but yeah . . . this place is officially polluted. He raises an eyebrow, and I wait for him to ditch me because I am clearly the least cool person in this house, counting the dude asleep underneath the table in the foyer currently sucking his thumb.

But my weird doesn’t phase him. It’s a miracle. “Sure, there’s one upstairs, I think. Maybe we can find a quiet place up there to talk, too.”

Oh my Jesus. Make that miraculously scary.

His finger draws little circles on my shoulder, and I concentrate on swallowing down all the irrational excuses that I want to make to run away.

Claiming flesh-eating bacteria to get out of a private conversation might be overkill. Malaria might work, though.

As we climb the stairs together, my heart climbs higher and higher into my throat until it throbs on the back of my tongue. The two girls who’d been all over Levi earlier are still on the stairs, and when they see us coming, they sit up straighter. One fluffs her hair, her gaze darting between Silas and me, and I can see her confusion in her glossy-lipped frown. She stands as we near, petite to the point that she would look twelve years old were it not for the giant rack that has to completely throw off her balance.

“Hey, Silas,” she breathes.

He only nods back, but he smiles while he does it, and she looks grateful for even that little bit of attention.

Dear God, please tell me I don’t look that pathetic. Because I will not be that girl, begging for scraps, no matter how gorgeous the guy is.

Upstairs is surprisingly deserted. Or at least it appears to be. The long hallway of closed doors is probably hiding plenty of things I don’t want to be party to. Discomfort sweeps through me, and I’m grateful when he stops outside a closed door that I hope (oh please, please) is the bathroom.

He gives me another mock bow and says, “All yours, pretty girl.”

I cannot escape into that bathroom fast enough. And maybe (okay, definitely) it’s overkill, but I lock the door as soon as it’s closed.

Get a grip, Dallas.

I suck at the whole meeting new people thing. I’ve had plenty of practice, what with Dad’s propensity to up and move us every few years, but it never gets any easier.

All in all, I just really blow at being a normal human being.

But I am going to start now, damn it.

Note to self: do not use the world blow in front of Silas . . . in any context. It won’t turn out well.

No matter what I have to do, I will not let my dad limit my life here, too.

I don’t look in the mirror as I work to gather my composure. If I do, I know I’ll obsess over my hair—how the deep red color clashes horribly against my no doubt pink cheeks. I can feel the light perspiration above my brow, so my bangs are probably a clumpy, oily mess, too.

Nope. Better to avoid the mirror altogether. Silas didn’t seem to take issue with whatever he saw, so neither should I. Instead, I take a few seconds just to lean against the door and breathe.

By-product of having a coach for a father? A natural gift for mental pep talks.

But now . . . I wasn’t sure which pep talk to give. The familiar be cautious and careful routine? Or take a cue from Stella and treat myself to a live it up talk to get my ass in gear? In the end, I decide on something carefully in the middle. I’ll see what happens with Silas, but I am not staying upstairs with him, and I am not leaving the party with him either.

There. That seems reasonable.

Fun. I need to have some. Stat.

Decided, I open the door quietly, smile situated on my lips, expecting to find Silas waiting, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

Walking back toward the stairs, I see him, hands braced on the railing and talking with someone a few steps down.

“Come on. Give me one hint,” Silas says.

The answering voice is familiar, and immediately I feel sick.

“Dude, it took me years to get in her pants.” Levi. Freaking Levi. “No way I’m giving you an easy in. And no way you’re managing it in one night. She’s an icebox, man.”

I shiver. Like I really have been coated in ice.

Silas chuckles before replying, “Oh ye of little faith.”

“Oh ye of little chance.”

“Whatever,” Silas says. “If she gave it up to high school you, all farm fresh with zero game, she can’t be that tough.”

They talk about me like I am some play to master, a team to beat. I probably matter less to them than their helmets and pads. And, oh yes, I have no doubt now that Silas is on the football team. Levi wouldn’t be hanging out with him if he weren’t.