“Um, party’s inside, bro,” Jaden said.

“I know, I just wanted to figure out the night.” I looked at my cell phone. “It’s 9:30 now so we have to be out of here in three hours to make curfew. We still doing the three drink max for the rest of us and Pris is the designated driver?”

They all nodded “Bet. Text if you need us, k?” I said to Pris and Aspen. I knew how guys thought—especially when there was alcohol involved. I knew what was always on my mind, so Jaden and I were always sure we kept an eye on the girls when we were out. There was this one time a guy got a little too touchy feely with Pris, but luckily she’d been smart enough to give him a right hook and find Jaden and me. After that we always came up with a pre-party plan, also known as the PPP just to be on the safe side. “Don’t do anything I would do.” I smiled at the girls, my eyes lingering a little longer on Aspen. My stomach flipped.

“You’re so funny, Bastian. It’s okay for you mess around, but not us.” Aspen put her hands on her hips like she was annoyed. She wore something different tonight. Maybe something of Pris’s because I’d never seen her wear it before. It didn’t show a lot of skin like the stuff I’d admired on the other girls as we walked through the house, but it was definitely more when it came to Aspen. It was a red—which I’d always thought looked hot on a girl -- sleeveless V-neck that teased, but didn’t really show the goods. A little teardrop-looking necklace hung down and rested between her breasts. And she topped off the outfit with a pair of hip hugging jeans that almost made me groan.

Yeah, I definitely needed to be here to watch the girls tonight.

Luckily, I was pretty good at playing things off when I wanted to, so instead of admiring her, I nudged her. “Hey, you know I’m all for equal flirting rights and all that, but I also gotta take care of my girls.” Damn, I was a pretty nice guy when I thought about it.

“If we don’t see each other before, let’s meet up at 11:00,” I said. If we came together, we left together, so we liked to meet up to make sure everyone was still having a good time. All for one and shit. I pushed my hands in my pockets, feeling pretty proud of myself. We got the pre-party plan out of the way and now it was time for the night of epicness to begin.

“Alright, Dad. See you guys later.” Aspen started to pull Pris away, and when she did, I saw Pris lean over and whisper something to her. Aspen shook her head no, while turning back to look at us. Pris nodded, Aspen smiled and they disappeared into the kitchen.

“They’re being weird,” I told Jaden.

“Who?” he asked, his eyes already scanning the kitchen through the glass door.

He had the right idea, so I mumbled a “Nothing.” After straightening my shirt, I looked over at Jaden. “Are you ready for our night of epic proportions?”

He gave his hair another ruffle with his hand to make sure it was effectively messy. “I was born ready.”

Blood pumped through my veins with so much fervor, I didn’t even take the time to tell Jaden how corny his last line was. I strode into the kitchen with my boy at my side, on a mission. We were going to find girls and I was going to get my head on straight, because no good could come from the urge I’d fought to pull Aspen back to me as she’d been swallowed by the crowd.

***

Mattie hadn’t been wrong about the ratio of female vs. males. There was a good two to one, which were odds I really liked. In fact, there were so many girls dancing around that I was having a hard time choosing which one I wanted to go for.

“Dude, you’ve found something wrong with every girl. I’m about to play this one solo if you can’t make up your mind.” Jaden leaned against the wall next to me. A fireplace with a mantle full of pictures of who I assumed was Mattie’s Mall Girl was behind him.

“We’re not trying to decide between a Big Mac or a chicken sandwich here. This is some serious shit. We want epicness, we have to be choosy.”

Jaden rolled his eyes, so I continued to scan the room.

“What about them?” he asked, pointing to a red head and girl with dark brown hair who were dancing with each other. My body perked up at the sight. “I’ll take Red and you can have the other one,” he said.

“Nah, I’m not feelin’ her.” I was starting to get a little worried about myself. I mean, this was a party and there were chicks everywhere, but none of them were really getting my blood pumping, if you know what I mean. What guy wasn’t trying to hook-up at this party?

Apparently, me…

“Okay, Sebastian. You pick, but I’m telling you, if you don’t pick some girls within five minutes, I’m out. I at least want to get some dancing in rather than staring at your frown all night.” Jaden pushed off the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m frowning?” Why was I frowning?

“Yeah, you’ve looked pissy ever since we left the girls. I think you’ve been hanging out with them too long. You’re swapping testosterone for estrogen. I feel like you’re going to start lecturing me on seeing women as more than a piece of meat any minute.” I opened my mouth, but Jaden cut me off. “Which I do. You know that, but I also want to have a good time and if there’s a girl I meet who I like and we’re both willing, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

I groaned. He was right.

About that time a set of twins, freaking twins walked up to us. They had black hair, blue eyes and curvy little bodies that I suddenly really, really wanted to get to know better. “Wow, how did we miss you ladies all night?” I took a step closer, eagerness making my pulse rock out.

“I was wondering the same thing,” Jaden said from beside me.

“I’m Abby,” the taller one who stood across from Jaden said. “And this is my sister, Crystal.”

“Do you want to dance?” I asked in my most suave voice. Yeah, I knew it was lame, this whole game guys and girls played, but what could I do about it? People had been doing it way before The Hook-up Doctor was around and they’d do it long after as well.

“I’d love to,” she replied. I looked over to see Jaden and whatever her name was already locked in an embrace. I slid my hands to her waist as she wrapped hers around my neck. The song was fast, but we didn’t care. Her body slinked against mine and for a minute, all I could think was, “hell yes”, but then I remembered I hadn’t checked my phone for a while. What if Aspen or Pris had texted and I didn’t hear it?

Let me tell you, it’s not easy to slip your cell phone out of your pocket all incognito with a girl slinking her body as close to you as she can. Somehow, I managed it. While she was distracted, rubbing her hand though my hair, which annoyed the crap out of me, I checked my phone for messages behind her back.

Nothing.

Instead of being all mopey like I had for most of the night, I tried to get into what I was doing. I had a pretty girl in my arms. A guy definitely shouldn’t have to talk himself into enjoying that. “Do you live around here?” I asked close to her ear, inhaling a deep breath. Damn. Flowers. I hated that crap.

“No. My sister and I are staying with my cousin for the summer. It’s her house.”

“That sucks. I’d love to get out of this place for the summer and you’re stuck here.”

Her hand traveled up my back. “I don’t know… I think I’m starting to enjoy it.”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Every warning bell in my body erupted. I was pretty sure she just told me I’m the reason she was starting to enjoy herself. “Me--” too I tried to say, but just about that time, Aspen caught my eye on the other side of the room. She stood with some guy, her arms flailing around as she spoke animatedly. She cracked me up when she got excited like that, talking with her body just as much as she did her mouth. I chuckled.

The guy pulled her close to him and they started to sway to the music just like I was doing with Crystal, but all of a sudden, I wasn’t laughing any more. The muscles in my body tightened, like I’d worked them out too hard and got a cramp. I was sweating and felt like I’d had too much to drink when I hadn’t.

“You what?”

“Huh?” I asked, startled. I couldn’t believe I almost forgot I was dancing with this girl.

“You said ‘me’, but then you stopped.”

Get it together, Bastian. What’s wrong with you? “Nothing. I guess I’m pretty lucky you decided to come for a visit, huh?”

I could hear the smile in her voice when she replied, “Maybe.”

I tried to focus on the girl in my arms, I really did, but my eyes kept darting to the other side of the room. The guy dancing with Aspen tried to slide his hand under the back of her shirt, and I stiffened, immediately pulling away from Crystal. Aspen did the same with hand boy over there, turning her nose up at him in a playful way and walking away. That’s my girl.

“Are you okay?” Crystal stepped back and looked at me. The girl was beautiful. There was no reason in the world I should be so distracted, but I was.

“Want to just chill for a minute?” As much as I wanted to be into her, I wasn’t right now and I didn’t want to lead her on.

She bit her bottom lip and then smiled. I found the quietest corner of the room that I could, but one that still gave me vision to scope out the living room in case I was needed. I stood in the corner, with Crystal in front of me. She showed a lot of skin. Way more than Aspen, but not quite as much as Alex did, which was nice. “So, I think it must have been your cousin who met this guy I work with. He’s the one who told me about the party.”

Crystal ran her hands down her shirt as if she was trying to smooth it out. “Matt or something like that? Paula told me about him.”

“They hooking up?” I asked, not sure why I cared. Okay, so that’s a lie, if they were hooking up, I knew he couldn’t have Aspen because she wouldn’t be down for that. Which meant she couldn’t get hurt and I could go back to being my normal self.

“I don’t think so. They didn’t, yet at least. Who knows what will happen tonight though.”

Great. There went that plan.

We talked for a little while. She was pretty cool, liked to laugh and I found out her boyfriend dumped her when she told him she was leaving for the summer. “That sucks. Sounds like a jerk, but it’s probably better, anyway.” It was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to hook-up with this girl tonight and I was okay with that. I wasn’t feelin’ this whole thing and she seemed to still be caught up on her ex. My night of epicness was turning out to be anything but. She was pretty fun to talk to though, so I didn’t mind.

“Why?” she asked.

“What’s the point? Relationships never last anyway. Better to end them quick rather than drag things out.” I didn’t care how jaded I sounded, it was how I felt. Anyone who had seen what I had would feel the same.

“A guy who doesn’t believe in love? Wow, I don’t run across that every day.” We’d never see eye to eye on this, so I just shrugged, scanning the room for my friends. I saw Pris standing alone in a corner, her mouth tight. She obviously wasn’t having a good time. Just as I was about to tell Crystal I needed to go check on my friend, I saw Aspen with another dude. He had this cocky smirk on his face and she was looking up at him batting her eyelashes in a way I’d never seen her do before.

What was she doing? She put an arm around the guy’s shoulders and he did the same to her. They were laughing. With each passing second that they stood there, him looking at her like she was his perfect score for the night, my gut started to squeeze tighter. Was she flirting with this guy? And if she was, which was super freakin’ weird because I’d never seen Aspen flirt before, but why couldn’t I take my eyes off her?