And I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm sitting here getting mauled by her King.

I grab Dawson's hand and place it on my thigh, keeping my hand firmly on top of it.

Jake says, “So, tell us about the after-party.”

“Although, at first, I wasn't supportive of the idea,” Whitney admits. “After spending the last three days with my family, I'm very much looking very forward to cutting loose.”

Jake grins and promptly refills her flute. She chugs it and then leans into Jake, clearly a little more relaxed.

When we get to the hotel, Jake asks Whitney, “How long do you need to change?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

Jake says to us, “Okay, so we’ll meet back here at 11:45.”

As we walk into the lobby, Dawson puts a shoulder into Jake’s. “I’m gonna need a little more time than that. Let’s shoot for 12:30.”

“But the party starts a midnight,” Whitney pouts.

Dawson shrugs his shoulder. “The party won't start until we get there. That's how it's always been."

Whitney beams at him.

As we walk to our room, I say to Dawson, “You gave Whitney a nice compliment.”

“Yeah, Jake hasn't quite learned how to deal with her yet.”

“But you know,” I say, not quite able to conceal the hurt in my voice.

He rolls his eyes at me. "We dated for a long time. She needs her ego stroked. Always has. That's why she and Jake won't work long term. He's too stubborn."

My stomach drops. Does he want her back? Does he want to stroke her ego?

He continues. “I’m so glad you're not like that. And, besides, it was worth it. I’m going to need every bit of that hour with you.”

“Oh really, why?”

He opens the door to our room and says, “This is why.”

He barely gets the door shut before he's got me pinned against it and is untying the bow at my shoulder.

The front of the dress falls down to reveal my nude-colored strapless bra.

“This needs to go,” he says, unhooking it and flinging it on the floor. I push his suit jacket off his shoulders as he bends down to kiss my chest. He tries to push the rest of the dress down off my hips, but it’s very fitted and has a zipper.

“There's a zipper,” I moan as he sucks his way across my chest.

He fumbles with the zipper, gets it undone, and pushes it and my panties to the floor.

He picks me up and carries me to the couch, quickly undoing his own zipper.

"God, that dress has been driving me crazy.”

Then he’s moving like we have two minutes instead of an hour.

I throw on a hotel robe, carefully darken my eye makeup, and add more blush. Then I hide in the bathroom and get dressed for the after-party. I want to surprise him with the full look.

I walk out into the living room. Dawson has changed into a pair of dark jeans, leather loafers, and a black shirt with silver stripes. He looks so incredibly hot.

“Whoa,” he says, grabbing my hands and taking in my metallic crepe strapless dress. “Now that’s a dress. What there is of it.”

He smacks my ass and tells me we better get downstairs.

Whitney and Jake are waiting in the lobby. Whitney looks perfect, not a strand of hair out of place. Completely different from the messy pony I'm wearing. But when you dance, you sweat, and there's nothing attractive about wet hair.

Whitney's club clothes, well, they aren't really club clothes. She's wearing a simple red silk dress with a black cardigan over it. She looks like she should be going to brunch at the country club.

I grab her hand, drag her back to the elevator, and tell them we’ll be back in five minutes.

“Let go of me,” she says.

I smile. “Nope, it's time for you to embrace your inner slut.”

“I don't want to look like a slut.”

“You're going to a crazy club, not the country club. You definitely want to look a little slutty.”

I pull her into our hotel suite. Of course, she takes in the articles of clothing strewn about.

“You ever think about cleaning up after yourself?”

I ignore her comment and lead her to a barstool. I pour her a glass of champagne from the bottle we didn't finish. “Drink. Don’t move.”

“You know, you’re kind of bossy.”

I grab my makeup bag and plop it into the counter.

“You have gorgeous eyes. We’re going to play them up a little.” I do up her eyes, starting with a white sparkly color in the corners, going to a deep rose in the middle and ending in an intense charcoal. I smudge a little of the charcoal under the bottom outer edges then add a thick swoop of a charcoal liquid liner with flecks of silver glitter. Then I find my reddest lip stain, carefully brush it onto her lips, and add some High Beam gloss.

“Okay, take off the cardigan.”

She takes off the cardigan to reveal the simple red dress and a pair of sparkly silver pumps. I grab my bag, which still has the black leather skirt I wore the other night in it. After our time at the lake, I just had thrown the little PJ shorts back on.

I’m trying to figure out what she’s going to wear for a top, when I spy a pair of scissors.

“Here, try this on,” I say, handing her the leather skirt.

She looks at the skirt like it’s a piece of trash. “Just because we want to look slutty doesn't mean we have to be cheap.”

I flash the Saint Laurent label at her.

She tilts her head, studying me and the skirt. Like she’s trying to decide if she should go for it or not. Finally, she takes it and slips it on under her dress. She holds the dress up and looks in the mirror. Then she spins around, scrutinizing the back. “My ass looks amazing in this skirt.”

“It does. And watch this.” I bend down and unzip the zipper that runs up the front middle of the skirt, giving her a nice slit leading straight to her crotch.

She studies her eyes in the mirror. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but I love what you did to my eyes.”

“Good, cuz you may freak about what I’m about to do next.” I hold up the scissors. “May I?”

She looks down at her dress, which I want to turn into a top.

She grabs the bottle of champagne, takes a big swig, and says, “What the hell.”

I carefully cut from the hem of the dress straight up to her bellybutton. Then I cut around the waistband of the skirt so that the new top will just graze it. When she puts her arms up to dance, her flat stomach will be nicely exposed.

She hands me the bottle and says, “Take a drink.”

I take a sip while she looks at herself in the mirror.

“Let’s go shorter.”

I cut up an inch higher all the way around. “You look hot,” I tell her.

“And you . . . I still hate you, but maybe not as much as I used to.”

I smile, knowing that’s a compliment.

“Come on, let’s go knock Jake’s socks off.”

Jake’s response is more than expected and he’s all over her in the limo.

When we get to the club, I’m shocked to see that the dance floor isn’t packed yet.

I grab Whitney, round up Peyton and Maggie, and lead them up to the center stage.

“Girls, it's time to get this party started.”

Whitney gets a panicked look in her eye. I know she's not a great dancer.

“Don't worry,” I tell her. “Just move a little and let your hands glide across the other girls’ bodies. Drives the guys crazy.”

The DJ sees us coming up to dance and cranks up one of my favorite songs.

I grab Maggie and grind up against her. Peyton does the same to Whitney and pretty soon we're in a line, butt to butt, and lost in the music.

I lose track of how many songs we dance to but when I look out, I’m excited to see that the dance floor is now packed.

I see Katie, yell at her, hold my hand out, and pull her up onto the platform. Dallas takes my hand as I climb down. He’s already hypnotized by Katie’s boobs bouncing up and down in her teeny top.

I find Dawson and Jake and pull them both onto the dance floor.

“Jake, go get Whitney.”

He laughs and says, “I’m just enjoying the show.”

Dawson pulls me close and runs his hands all over me. We dance for at least an hour before Dawson says he needs some water. “That champagne gave me a headache. They serving food?”

“Yeah, there's snacks upstairs. Want to get something?”

“Definitely.”

We go upstairs and find Aiden, Nick, and Logan chowing down. It's a little quieter up here. There's a balcony that's probably packed on a regular night, but our school isn't big enough for that. So this is a great spot to sit and watch everyone dance below.

“You go get food. I’ll get water,” Dawson says.

I’m waiting in the short food line when Aiden gets in line behind me.

“Hey,” I say to him. “Are you guys having fun?”

“We were having fun watching you dance on the stage. Although some of the things they were saying about my sister were a bit inappropriate.”

“Do you like watching girls grind on each other?”

“I like it better when we grind on each other. Don't forget you promised me a dance.”

“I won’t.”

“Great shoes by the way.”

“You noticed my shoes?”

“Yeah. The stones on the heels were catching the light when you were dancing. It looked really cool. Peyton asked me to take some pictures. Wanna see?”

He holds up his phone and scrolls to a picture of us dancing. There is light dancing all around my feet.

“Oh, that is cool. Will you send me that?”

“Sure. So did you do that to Whitney?”

I laugh. “Yeah. She got the Barbie Goes Clubbing makeover.”

“I’m surprised.”

“That I'm nice to people?”

“That you're nice to her after what she did to you.”

“Honestly, I mostly did it for Jake. He's my friend. And if that means Whitney won't hate me as much, all the better.”

“Just when I thought I had you all figured out, you surprise me again.”

I load up a plate with bacon and other breakfast foods.

“Was it a good surprise?”

His eyes bore into mine.

He nods, then smiles and steals a piece of bacon off my plate, popping it into his mouth. “This is good. We did good with the party, don’t you think?”

I look around. “Yeah, Aiden, we did good.”

I finish filling our plates with some fruit, a couple muffins, fried hashbrown patties, and French toast sticks. I don’t even think about the calories. I know I’ll burn them off dancing.

Dawson laughs about how much I eat of the kind of junk food I usually avoid.

“We're gonna burn it off dancing.”

He pulls my hand up to his lips and kisses the back of it. “I can think of some funner ways for us to burn calories.”

The party starts out fun, but as the night rolls on, the drama grows.

We take a break from dancing and Whitney runs to the restroom.

She comes marching back out with a pissed look on her face. Rachel and the minions are behind her and they all look to be in tears.

“Those backstabbing bitches,” she rants. “They all practically jumped me in the bathroom and bitched me out for dancing with you. For coming in the limo with you.”

“Well, I am practically your sworn enemy. You’ve confused them. They don’t know who the hell to like.”

Whitney breaks out in laughter. “They couldn’t find their ways out of a paper bag without me.”

“I don’t know what you said to them, but they’re all crying.”

“They’re all drunk. Which is something I am not.” She reaches in Jake’s pocket, grabs his flask, and drinks whatever was left.

Then she looks at Dawson. He takes the flask out of his pocket and hands it to her. The three of them do multiple shots.

Once it’s finished, Jake and Dawson go on a hunt for more alcohol.

I sip on my water for a few minutes and then go back out to dance.

Maggie is dancing with Parker, Nick, Logan, and Aiden, so I join them. Hard to believe that two of the hottest guys at school don’t have dates.

Aiden tells me it’s time for our dance and pulls me into his arms.

I pull out of his arms and dance with a more respectable distance between us but, really, we’re all sort of grinding on each other.

For the first time all night, they play a slow song. Aiden pushes his leg between mine and moves his hips against me. I feel the fog in my brain start to collect. Like it always does when I’m near him.

But, no.

I can’t.

“I told you, I can't dance with you like that anymore.”

He grins at me. “Can't blame a guy for trying.”

I gave him a sad smile. I had fun dancing with him. I don't know what kind of game he's trying to play. Maybe it’s just that gods are used to getting their way. Or maybe not getting a Homecoming date bruised his ego.

“What?” he says when he sees my pout.

I shake my head. “I’m just disappointed that you'd say that. But it shouldn't be a surprise. Have fun tonight, Aiden.”

I stop at the dessert table, grab a cheesecake square, then go sit down with Whitney.

“The boys still aren’t back,” she slurs.

I can tell that the alcohol she was chugging early is starting to affect her.