“I was just leaving,” Monika says, grabbing her purse off the chair by my window. “I’ll talk to you later,” she tells me before saying bye to Cassidy and slipping out of the room.

Cassidy’s gaze follows Monika until she’s out of sight. “What was that all about? Are you fucking your best friend’s girlfriend?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I saw you two holding hands.”

Rolling my eyes, I stand. “We weren’t holdin’ hands, Cass. I grabbed her arm as an experiment we were workin’ on for sociology,” I lie, knowing that if she knew the truth I’d have a lot of explaining to do.

I’m in trouble here, because Cassidy doesn’t know how to keep her mouth shut. If she thinks I’ve been screwing around with Monika, everyone in school will know it.

Hell, she’ll probably post it on the Internet.

Cassidy, who used to falsely accuse me of cheating on her and nagged me constantly that I wasn’t being a good enough boyfriend, takes a deep breath and says, “Okay, here goes. I still think about you every day, Vic.”

“Cass—” I start to say, but she holds up a hand, cutting me off.

“I’m still in love with you.” She puts her head down. I can tell she’s about to get emotional.

“What? I know you talk shit about me,” I tell her. “You think I don’t know what you say behind my back? Fremont’s a small town.”

“I trash you because I miss you,” she says, as if that’s a completely sane explanation. She looks up at me now, and I can see the tears welling in her eyes. “I miss us. If you dated anyone else it would devastate me. You don’t even look at me anymore. When I walked in here and saw you and Monika together, I got so jealous I seriously felt sick.”

“There’s no reason to be jealous.”

“Can we try one more time, Vic?” she says, walking over to me like she’s a predator. When she’s close, she runs her hands slowly on my chest and moves lower. “I swear I can be the girlfriend you want me to be.”

I take her hand off me. “I can’t be the boyfriend you want me to be, Cassidy.”

“Why? Is there someone else?”

“No,” I lie, still feeling a connection to the girl who just left my room. “I’ll never live up to your standards.”

“I promise I’ve changed. I don’t even have a date to homecoming because everyone knows I want to go with you.”

“So basically you’re blamin’ me for not having a homecoming date?”

“Exactly.” She sighs.

Damn.

I’m gonna hate myself for saying this, but I don’t want her to be without a homecoming date. “If you really want to go to homecoming, I’ll take you.”

Her face perks up. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. But this doesn’t mean we’re datin’. It just means we’re goin’ to homecoming together.”

“Okay.” She wraps her arms around my shoulders. “You’ve made me the happiest girl, Vic! Now I can shop for dresses with your sister!”

At least someone is happy around here.

Chapter Sixteen

MONIKA

On Wednesday after school, Ashtyn, Bree, and I make plans to go shopping for homecoming dresses.

Bree makes a beeline for the back of the store where the dresses are. “I want a black leather one,” she blurts out loudly.

“You gonna buy whips and chains, too?” Ashtyn teases her.

Bree nods, seemingly impressed at Ashtyn’s suggestion. “Sounds good to me. Jet needs a little whipping into shape. Speaking of whipping boys into shape, I heard Trey took you on a roller coaster to ask you to homecoming.”

“That was a complete disaster.” I concentrate on the dresses, picking out a red off-the-shoulder one. “What about this for you?” I ask Ashtyn.

“Too red.”

I pick a black one filled with sequins.

“Too flashy,” she says.

Bree picks out a really short dress and holds it in front of Ashtyn. “What about this one?”

Ashtyn puts a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh. “Where’s the rest of it?” She sets the dress back on the rack. “To be honest, I’m sure I have something in my closet to wear. Why buy a new dress I’m only going to wear once?”

“Listen, honey,” Bree says as she picks out another dress and shoves it into Ashtyn’s hands. “You can’t go in your football jersey or anything else you have in your closet, because both me and Monika here have seen what you have in that dungeon and it’s pathetic. You might as well face the fact that we’re going to make you dress like a girl for homecoming.”