Which was good. I think.

“All your friends are out there. I’m sure you want to hang out with them.” I nudged him softly. “You don’t have to choose between me and your parties.”

But that wasn’t the whole truth, and we both knew it.

“I’d rather stay here with you,” he said, lacing his fingers through mine.

We both looked at our hands, silently contemplating our next step. The atmosphere shifted into something heavy that pressed on my chest, making it hard to breathe.

“Then I’ll come with you.” I mustered a smile.

I didn’t like Vicious’s parties, but for Dean, I was willing to show my face. Even though it was a face no one wanted to see.

People at school still thought of me as an inbred hillbilly. But now, I was no longer bullied. Once it became known that I was hooking up with Dean Cole, no one dared to stuff crap in my locker or mutter hateful words when I walked by. Even though it was difficult to admit, that was a big part of the reason why I liked spending time with my new boyfriend.

He made life easier. Nicer. Safer. I wasn’t using him by any stretch of the imagination. I cared about him. Helped him with his homework, left “good luck” sketches in his locker last fall before football games, and smiled like a loon every time he walked by me in the hall this winter.

“You’d do that for me, babe?” An easy smile spread across his face. Out of the four of them, Dean was probably the stoner. He seemed to take everything in stride. Including our relationship. “I knew you were perf.” He was already up on his feet, pulling me by the hand. “Now hurry up, babe. I’m dying for a beer, and I’ve got some killer bud. Trent and Vicious are gonna shit themselves.”

I flashed Dean a weak smile through my reflection in my small mirror as I fixed my hair. I liked my hair messy, but no matter what I tried to tell myself, I cared what people thought. I cared, and like everybody else, I wanted to be liked.

I was wearing a creamy oversized sweater, cropped to my midriff and falling off one shoulder, and a pair of cut-off denim shorts. I slipped into my black-and-pink flowered boots and chuckled when he jerked me to his body and kissed me hard again.

I pulled away after a few seconds, wiping our saliva from my mouth.

“After you,” I said.

He stopped, his brow furrowing, a serious expression on his face. “I love that you want to make me happy. Wherever we’re going next year, we’re going together. Got it?” He was staring at me like I was the sunrise.

It felt nice.

So nice.

I allowed myself to bathe in his warmth, even though it wasn’t mine to take.

“Yeah, Mr. Caveman. Got it.” I rolled my eyes but smiled.

He kissed me again.

So safe.

He smacked my butt lightly. “Good. Let’s move it.”

I was ready to be happy with him. I really was.

“Last Nite” by The Strokes was pouring from the speakers as we shouldered our way through the drunken crowd. People were standing, dancing, and making out in Vicious’s living room like they owned the place. When my family first started working here, I couldn’t understand how his parents allowed him to throw these wild parties every weekend. Turned out they just didn’t give a damn. Not about the parties and definitely not about their son.

Baron Sr. and his wife, Jo, were never around, especially not on weekends. It was my suspicion that Vicious lived by himself at least seventy percent of the time. I’d been there for over four months, and I could count on one hand the number of times I’d seen him interact with his father.

I didn’t even need one finger to count the times he’d interacted with his stepmother.

I thought it was sad.

But that was the exact same thing Vicious thought about my life.

Dean and I spent some time in the giant kitchen, with Dean tossing back shots—at least five or six—before he motioned for me to go upstairs with him. I obliged, mainly because I felt weird hanging out in the kitchen where Mama worked, and anyway, I hadn’t seen Rosie anywhere on the first floor. I was hoping she was upstairs somewhere. With any luck, without someone’s tongue shoved into her mouth in one of the many bedrooms. It wouldn’t be a big deal—and definitely not the first time I’d caught her making out with some random guy—but it always made me feel like a protective mama bear.

Upstairs, Dean strode right through the door into the media room, while I hesitated outside, scanning to see if I could maybe spot my baby sister on the landing or in one of the hallways to the right and left.

Truth was, I wasn’t only looking for her—I was also looking to avoid the other HotHoles. To say that they didn’t like me was like saying the Pacific was slightly damp.

They hated me, and I had no idea why.

“Jaime, my man!” Dean slapped his good friend’s back as he entered the inner circle of his friends inside.

They were all standing with beers in their hands, talking animatedly, probably about sports. I stayed in the hallway with the rest of the rejects. I didn’t want to go in and give Vicious the opportunity to scowl or say something crude in my direction.

After a few minutes, Dean whipped his head toward the door and noticed I was still outside. I didn’t particularly care, if I was being honest. I was talking to a girl named Madison who also rode a bike to school every day. But she did it to get fit and thin, whereas I did it because I was poor and didn’t have a car. We were talking bikes when Dean waved me over.

“Babe, what are you doing out there?” he slurred on a hiccup. “Get your fine ass in here before I bite it.”

Madison stopped talking and gawked at me like they’d just called me on stage to receive a Nobel Prize. I disliked her at that particular moment.

I shook my head. “Having fun right here, thanks.” I smiled into my bottle of water, wishing I could disappear. I didn’t want Vicious to notice me.

“Fuck’s going on here?” I heard Trent—beautiful, charming Trent Rexroth, who was a nice guy to everyone but me—grumbling from inside the circle. When he raised his eyes and saw me, he looked thunderstruck. “Jesus, Cole. You’re such an idiot.”

Why was Dean an idiot?

When Jaime noticed I was there, he pinched the bridge of his nose before shooting Dean a dirty look. “You just had to, huh? Douche.”

The circle broke, and I caught a glimpse of Vicious, his hip leaning against a desk, a beautiful girl I didn’t know by his side. My chest hurt when I noticed how close he was to her. Still, he didn’t touch her or even look at her.

What he was looking at didn’t surprise me. He was staring right at me.

“That’s my fucking girlfriend, man,” Dean garbled to Trent, ignoring Jaime. “You better shut your pipe if you don’t want that pretty face of yours ruined.” He turned around, his steps wobbly and uneven, and shot me one of his panty-melting smiles, but his eyes were heavy with drowsiness and alcohol. “Millie, please?” He clasped his hands together, sinking down theatrically and walking the remaining way to the door on his knees. His dimples were on full display, but it did nothing to ease my embarrassment.

I turned a nice shade of tomato-red and buried my face in my hands, my fake beam so wide my cheeks hurt. “Dean,” I groaned, squeezing my eyelids together. “Please get up.”

“That’s not what you said just twenty minutes ago, babe. Actually, I think it was ‘Dean, does it ever go soft?’” He snorted out a laugh.

I was no longer smiling.

When my hands left my face, it completely wiped the grin off his face. Behind his back, Vicious sent me a death glare, his jaw ticking to the rhythm of my heartbeats.

Tick, tick, tick, tick.

His lips were so thin they were practically invisible. The first step he took forward made me flinch. He cut through the mass of people in the media room toward the hallway in a few long strides and yanked Dean from the floor by the back of his collar. Dean spun in place, his face colored with surprise, and that’s when Vicious slammed Dean’s back against the nearest wall, twisting his designer white crew-neck shirt.

“I told you not to bring her here,” he whispered darkly, his lips barely moving.

My heart stuttered in my chest.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Dean pushed him away, taking a step forward, his every move laced with unrestrained adrenaline.

They stared at each other for a moment too long. It made me think this was going to escalate to a fight, but Jaime and Trent stepped in. Trent pulled Dean toward the door, while Jaime shoved Vicious deeper into the room.

“Enough!” Trent shouted at both of them.

Jaime grabbed Vicious’s arms, locking them behind his back. The rage radiating from both of them was thick in the air like suffocating smoke.

“Tennis court.” Vicious shook out of Jaime’s hands and pointed at Dean, seething. “This time don’t cry when I fuck you up, Cole.”

I didn’t want them to fight. Vicious had a reputation. He fought until he passed out. His arms had the scars to prove it.

Trent rotated, marching in my direction and narrowing his gray eyes at me. “Get the hell out of here,” he commanded, his big body filling the doorframe, his eyes hooded. He looked royally pissed off.