Hailey opened Peyton’s closet door for about the tenth time, staring in blankly the way she did with the refrigerator when they hung out in the kitchen.

“Why aren’t we out doing something?” she eventually whined. “See. You do have cute clothes, liar. Look at this cool little mini-dress. All you have to do is belt it.”

Peyton looked up at the Blackberry Smoke shirt in Hailey’s hands. “That’s a men’s T-shirt.”

Hailey chucked it back into the closet. “Peyton! God, you wear dude clothes way too much. See, this is why you only attract those girly-looking guys when we’re out. It’s ‘cause they see menswear on you and subconsciously, they know that you’ll balance them out.”

“I think I attract girly-looking guys when we’re out because those are the only kinds at the bars you bring me to,” Peyton laughed before tossing her Blick catalogue aside. “Hailey. Woman. I can’t even look through this peacefully when you’re staring at me like that.”

“Because I’m bored! I want to go out! It’s the summer and I lost weight and I want to wear shorts and get hit on. I mean it’s Fleet Week, for God’s sake, there are like, a thousand hot Marines walking around the city right now, just waiting to flirt with you but you’re too busy looking at a paintbrush catalogue and, like… punishing yourself for the whole Blake and Kensie thing.”

Peyton shot Hailey a look. “I’m not punishing myself for the Blake and Kensie thing,” she said firmly, nearly convincing herself.

“Then what is it?”

“I have somewhere to be tomorrow.”

“What time?”

Peyton considered lying but failed last minute. “One.”

“Oh my God, you have plenty of time to sleep in if your thing is at one. There has to be another reason,” Hailey challenged. “What, are you still embarrassed about what happened with Connor Schaffer?”

Peyton cringed. “Oh God.” She hugged herself. “I told you not to mention that again.”

Eyes brightening, Hailey squealed with delight. “Aha! I found your weakness! Now you have to drink all your memories away! All those… humiliating, traumatizing memories of calling Connor Schaffer a ‘dickhead’ to his face and, and basically telling him that Kensie’s gonna fall in love with him, and – “

“Hailey! Enough!” Peyton curled into a ball on her floor. It had been two whole days since her little incident with Connor at the Memorial Day barbecue and she still wasn’t over it. She still couldn’t believe that it had happened – that a grown man like Connor Schaffer had carried on with a stupid charade for so incredibly long, just to humiliate her. Sure, she’d said a couple of rude things about him but hey, she hadn’t flat-out lied like he did.

And God, the way he’d smirked at her when she finally saw him without his cap. Peyton had spent the past forty-eight hours trying to push the memory back but once she was reminded, it replayed on loop in her head till she was actually freezing from her own shudders of embarrassment. His damned mouth. It had curled with a satisfaction so smug that Peyton’s heart began to pound. He had been so pleased with himself that he had to actually bite down on his lip and control his giant grin before heading off to meet Russell.

“Whatever, girl. At least you got to talk to him at all. He’s hot as fuck,” Hailey grumbled, checking out her side view in Peyton’s hideous full-length mirror. Once Kensie’s, it was a custom-made monstrosity lined with hot pink feathers and black rhinestones. After a trip to Bolivia one year, Kensie had decided that flamingos were her spirit animal, so she had Russell commission some Brooklyn artist to make her a “classy flamingo mirror.” To no one’s surprise, Kensie eventually grew sick of the thing and wanted to remodel her room to look strictly sophisticated, so the flamingo mirror went to Peyton, whose room already housed a mismatched array of Kensie’s old furniture from her phases past. Peyton’s favorite piece was the Victorian dome chair that was purchased during Kensie’s Downton Abbey obsession. It made her feel like she lived in a weird furniture museum, or in the dwelling of some time traveler with terrible taste.

“So, what’s the deal?” Hailey gazed at her reflection, unsuccessfully teasing her straight blonde hair. “Is Kensie’s skinny ass hooking up with Connor Schaffer tonight or what?”

“No, she said she’s boyfriend-hunting at Mila Milani’s pool party.”

“Oh God, Mila Milani parties are probably like, full of the craziest drunks ever. Isn’t she the one who got Kensie permanently banned from Uber and Airbnb in the same night?” Hailey asked.

“No, that was Poppy Somerville,” Peyton said dryly, remembering the disaster that was Kensie’s twenty-third birthday. “She has a tendency to damage property after three martinis.”

“Fine. But omigod!” Hailey gasped. “Didn’t Kensie meet Blake at a Mila Milani party?”

Peyton looked up with exasperation. “Hailey, can we not talk about Blake?”

Hailey rolled her head back. “What am I allowed to talk about then? We can’t talk about Connor, we can’t talk about Blake, we can’t get drunk ‘cause you’re afraid Kensie will need you. You keep saying you’re not punishing yourself for the thing that happened last month but I’m not sure if I believe you because all you’re doing is sitting here on a Thursday night with a freakin’ Blick catalogue and a glass of wine and it honestly makes me wonder if you did do something with Blake to feel this extra guilty about – ”

“Oh my God. Are you serious right now?”

Hailey grinned. “No. I just knew that would piss you off.”

Clenching her teeth, Peyton glared. “Okay. We’re going out.”

Hailey brightened. “Really?”

“Only because you’ve annoyed me so thoroughly that I need hard liquor.”

“Yay, yay, yay! Wanna go to The Boonies again? That was fun. And their bartenders were kind of hot.”

“No Boonies,” Peyton answered. The Boonies was a dive bar in the East Village that was populated with a weird mix of NYU kids and bridge-and-tunnel hipsters. She didn’t want to go to The Boonies. “If we’re going out, I get to choose where.”

“Really, now? I like! But you have to promise that we’re not going to spend the whole frickin’ time worrying about Kensie calling, because you know you’re like that.”

“Yes, I’m like that. But trust me, I won’t worry about Kensie calling.”

“Good! So then where we going?”

Peyton stretched her lips into a deliberately fake, sugary sweet smile. “We’re going to Mila Milani’s pool party.”