She still stared at me.

I was going to have to tell her. “I’m meeting Sera there.” Sort of.

Kimberlee stiffened. “She doesn’t go to the parties.”

“Well, she’s coming to this one. Listen,” I said before Kimberlee could speak. “I know you don’t like her. So I think we’d both be better off if you just didn’t hang around when I’m with her.”

She laughed, a short, condescending bark. “You think that’s going to happen very often?”

“Maybe, maybe not. But it’s going to happen tonight and I want a little privacy.”

She said nothing.

“Kim,” I said, as gently as I could.

“Kimberlee,” she corrected, but she sounded more hurt than mad.

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask for a night on my own.”

“Fine,” she grumbled. “Go.” She plopped down on my bed.

“Kimberlee?” I said tentatively. “You want me to . . . turn on the TV for you or something?”

“Just go,” she said, turning away.

I opened my mouth to explain further, but after the hell she’d put me through, I decided I should take the opportunity to leave and hope she wouldn’t change her mind. I put my hand on the door and was about to turn the knob when Kimberlee said, very softly, “Wait.”

I looked over at her and she seemed a little surprised that she had spoken at all. “What?” I said, not bothering to hide my exasperation.

She lowered her eyebrows for a second then said, “Be careful.”

“Yes, Mom,” I muttered under my breath.

“And stay away from Langdon,” she added in a rush.

“Langdon?” I asked, my hand tightening on the doorknob. I still hadn’t told her it was Langdon who’d actually invited me. “I thought you two were tight.”

“We were,” Kimberlee said, making me think there was much more to this story. “That’s how I know he’s a mean drunk.” The concern vanished from her face as she flipped her hair back. “Just stay out of his way.”

I wasn’t totally confident Kimberlee hadn’t dressed me up like a freak for revenge, so when I arrived at the bonfire I slipped very slowly out of my car and walked with my shoulders hunched forward. But to my surprise, most of the guys looked pretty much like clones of me—a few even had sparkles on their belts. By the time someone dropped a big red plastic cup of beer into my hand, I was feeling pretty confident. I looked down at the foamy amber liquid that almost reached the brim of my very large cup, and sniffed it tentatively.

Now, it’s not that I hadn’t had alcohol before. I always got some champagne at Christmas and an occasional glass of wine at dinner. But I’d never had beer. Back in Phoenix, my friends and I had been planning a big party once school was out, so it was in my future, but none of us had gotten brave enough to acquire any on our own yet.

It didn’t smell much like wine. But everyone here was gulping it down like it was liquid crack, so it couldn’t be that bad. Right?

Right.

I took a deep breath and a big mouthful. Bleh. Swallow, just swallow. I finally got it down and looked around at all the partiers with new eyes. What the hell are they thinking? This is disgusting. Maybe the second taste wouldn’t be so bad; I knew what to expect now and I hadn’t liked wine on the first taste, either. I sipped this time instead of gulping. Hmmm, not much better. But maybe a little. I sipped again. It needed something. Sugar? I tried a bit more. Salt, I decided, but doubted I’d find any of that here. I’d have to just sip and walk and sip and walk while waiting for Sera to show.

As I walked around I saw familiar faces everywhere. In hindsight, maybe I should have brought a big duffel of bags from Kimberlee’s klepto-cave. I could have handed twenty bags back to people who were too drunk to remember who gave it to them the next day.

Though somehow I couldn’t see Kimberlee being very happy about that plan. Oh well.

I eventually finished my beer and managed to grab some more fresh from the keg. I took a sip and made a very important note to myself—beer is better cold. Who had handed me a warm beer in the first place? I couldn’t remember. But cold was much better.

Better is relative, of course; it was still gross.

“Heeey, man,” someone slurred as a meaty arm found its way across my shoulders.

I looked up into Langdon’s grinning face. I’d almost forgotten about him.

“I was hoping you’d come,” he said.

“Hey . . . Lang,” I said, smiling back.

He lifted his cup toward me, and I touched the side of my cup to his. Cheers.

“That your first?” Langdon asked.

“Second.”

“We gotta fix that,” Langdon said with a laugh, herding me off. Away from the direction of the keg. I resisted a little, not completely sure I wanted to leave the safety of the masses. And, well, I wanted to watch for Sera. But Langdon’s arm was really heavy.

Luckily, we didn’t leave the crowd, just kinda moved to the edge.

“You got ’em?” Langdon said to a guy who was handing out shots from a box where a bunch of bottles were semi-concealed.

“Course,” the guy muttered, and lifted out a cooler full of little plastic containers of Jell-O.

Well, not Jell-O per se. Jell-O shots in little condiment cups. I knew what they were, though I’d never actually had one before. I looked down at my beer and then over at the colorful display of Jell-O shooters. I wasn’t the world’s biggest fan of Jell-O, but anything was better than the beer.