“So, you and Adam are friends now? Really?” Sydney arches her eyebrow, a move she spent hours perfecting in front of a mirror hidden in her textbook during high school algebra and shakes her head at me.

“That will never work, Piper.”

“Why not?” I take a sip of my marshmallow latte and grimace. It’s so sweet that there’s a very real chance my teeth will spontaneously rot if I finish the entire mug. I might have to order another one.

Syd holds up a finger. “One, he was your first love. Two, he was your first dick.”

“Not true,” I interrupt. “I gave Alex Gilbert a hand job at the movies junior year.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Why not? He had a dick and I touched it.”

“Please, Piper. That kid was so primed that he shot all over the popcorn before you got two strokes in.”

She has a point there. I didn’t eat popcorn for years.

“That was just practice for Adam anyway,” she continues, dismissing poor Alex Gilbert with an eye roll. “You knew he wouldn’t touch you until you turned eighteen and you used that popcorn kid and his dick to get some experience.”

Harsh, but kind of true.

I open my mouth to defend myself, but she shuts me down with a third finger. “Three. He broke your heart.”

Nothing I can say to that. Syd was there when Adam and I broke up and she knows the story. How I was so excited to celebrate our year and a half anniversary that I spent all my money on two tickets to Paris and maxed out my credit card on lingerie, figuring Adam would be happy to skip the competition in Japan if it meant a week of steamy sex in a French hotel. It never even occurred to me that he’d blow me off for one measly competition. He didn’t need the money or the points he’d get for winning.

He went anyway, and I realized that snowboarding would always come first. I should have known, considering Ben skipped all my mother’s surgeries to attend the frickin’ X Games.

When he landed in Tokyo, he called me, hoping to make things right, but I’d been stuck at home making up for Ben’s absences for years, and I knew Adam wasn’t going to change. Maybe I should have listened, tried to work things out, but instead I got mad and gave him an ultimatum: come back and go with me to Paris or lose me forever.

He didn’t come back.

I stayed at Syd’s house for two weeks, so my mother wouldn’t see me crying. Adam got drunk and had to be dragged out of a Japanese half-pipe after he tried to complete his run wearing a Big Bird costume instead of a snowboard.

That was it. We were over.

Except that’s not really the whole story, is it?

I push that thought down deep.

Then the Years of Silence began, and we didn’t speak. Not until he showed up broken and battered at the hospital and I couldn’t stay away.

“That was a long time ago,” I say. “We were only together a year and a half. I got over it.”

“You didn’t get over it,” Syd says. “Not really. You haven’t let anyone close to your heart since. You’ve let them close to your vagina a few times, but that’s different.”

Geez. I appreciate Syd’s honesty but sometimes, like today, I wish she’d shut the hell up.

“You broke his heart too, you know,” she adds. “I was there when he came back, remember? He tried to talk to you, but you ghosted him.”

I fidget in my seat. Leave it to Syd to dig up that little gem of a thought before I even have time to bury it properly.

“Adam and I are friends,” I say firmly. “He’s been here four days and we’ve done tons of friendly stuff.”

“Like what?”

I give up on the latte and make a big fuss about cutting up my cinnamon scroll, stalling for time. Truth is, except for last night, I’ve barely seen Adam. He went out with Nat while my mom took me to my eye doctor appointment, and since then he’s spent most of his time in his room going through boxes and hauling piles of stuff to the dumpster in the parking lot.

Not that I’m spying on him or anything.

“We went out to dinner with Nat and Ben and some other people,” I finally say. “Sat at the table and talked about the Avalanche making the playoffs. It was friendly as fuck.”

Syd sculls her own goopy creation and licks her lips. The girl has an iron stomach. “You’re making that up.”

“I most certainly am not.”

“The Avalanche will need a miracle to make the playoffs this year, so you’re making it up or you’re both idiots. I’m open to either option.” She sits back in her squishy chair, smirking, and smoothes down her pink pixie cut like a smug punk rock Miss Marple.

I throw my napkin at her. “Fine, I made up the part about the Avalanche. But we did go out to dinner.”

Technically, this is true. But it was a big group and Adam and I managed to avoid each other the entire night. I talked to Nat and he talked to Ben and some other guys they know from their grommet days. Then we went home, and I curled up with Chuckles while Adam watched a stupid hobbit movie with Ben and Nat and they all talked about the symbolism of hairy feet or whatever the hell hobbit people talk about.

I love them all, I really do, but would it kill them to watch a Marvel movie every once in a while?

“You can go to all the dinners you want,” Syd says. “But that won’t make you friends. You have unfinished business with him. By which I mean you want him in your lady business. Bad. Don’t even bother to deny it.”

I don’t. Instead, I change the subject.

“What’s up with you? How was Christmas with the Clauses?”

After we finished high school Syd moved to Boulder for college and her parents bought Santa’s Village, a huge Christmas-themed compound on the side of the interstate in Nebraska. The place is internationally famous and mentioned in every American road trip guide there is. Syd visits for the holidays every year and plays an elf to her parents’ Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

“It sucked reindeer balls.” Her smug look disappears. “I spent the whole time arguing with a virgin in a Jack Frost costume.”

I choke on my cinnamon scroll. “Who was he?”

“My parents decided to take on a partner and he’s her son. She made him the manager of the toy factory and he thought that made him the boss of the elves. It didn’t.” She shoots me a dark look, and suddenly I’m afraid that poor Jack Frost is buried on the Nebraska plains, his grave marked only by a wooden gingerbread man with a snowflake carved over its heart.

“So, what did you do?”

“Oh, I won in the end. I led an elfish rebellion and we monkey-wrenched his ass. Sabotaged the Polar Express and took all the freezing components out of the frost machines. He knows who’s the boss now, believe me.”

I bite my lip, trying to hold in the laugh I know is coming. “Uh-huh. And how old was this evil virgin you monkey-wrenched? Like fifteen?”

“I would never stoop that low,” she says. “I don’t harass kids, Piper.”

I snort. “Sorry.”

“He’s our age.”

“And how did you know he’s a virgin?”

Her grin is pure evil. “I spiked his mom’s eggnog at the Happy Holidays Gathering and she told me.”

I can’t hold it back anymore after that, and I laugh so hard that the last sip of marshmallow latte comes out my nose.

“Is he going to be there next year?” I ask, when I can speak again.

“Probably,” Syd mutters. “But I’ll be ready for him next time.”

I might have to make a visit to Santa’s Village next Christmas, if only to save Jack Frost from catching an elfish monkey wrench to the back of his skull.

This time Syd changes the subject, which is interesting since she loves spinning tales, and sabotaging the Polar Express with tools from Santa’s workshop has the makings of a classic. This guy must’ve really gotten under her skin.

“So Ben’s send-off party is tomorrow, right?”

“Yup. You going to make it?”

“Nope. I have to head back to Boulder tonight.”

Bummer. I was really hoping she’d be there as Adam armor. Nat will be around, of course, but she’s far too likely to get dragged into a broom closet by my brother and is not a dependable wing woman.

“Sounds like a rager, though,” Syd says. “You and your ‘friend’ Adam should have a ball.”

Shit. This doesn’t sound good. “Don’t air quote at me. And who told you it’s going to be a rager?”

“Hometown boy heading off to the Olympics?” Syd does her eyebrow thing again. Honestly, it’s impressive. Why the fuck did I bother paying attention in algebra? At least she has a skill to show for all those wasted hours.

“Ben told me he only invited a few people,” I say. “I’m sure it’s going to be fine.”

* * *

Two hours into the party and it’s not fine. Honestly, at this point we’re so far from fucking fine that we’re in another country. Scratch that. Another galaxy maybe.

Our house is packed with people I’ve either never met or knew in high school and never wanted to see again. It’s loud, Nat and Ben keep disappearing and coming back with dopey grins, and Adam has been talking to a redhead in the corner for thirty-eight minutes.

Yes, I’m totally counting.

His dark head is bent close to hers and she’s doing that thing where she pretends to not be able to hear him, so she has to lean in closer and press her breasts against his arm. Which is fine. We’ve all done it, and she’s rocking that scoop-neck sweater even though she’s got to be freezing, so more power to her. I’m sure she’s perfectly nice and there’s no reason at all I should be having a violent and overwhelming desire to throw her off the balcony.

Adam is allowed to talk to whomever he wants, no matter how gorgeous and busty, and I’m going to have to learn to deal with that. Tequila will help. It’s never let me down yet.

I hid the good stuff in my room before the party, and I should probably stop torturing myself by watching Adam’s seduction technique anyway, so I tear myself away and head downstairs, stopping to talk to a few people along the way. But when I open the door to my room, I find Ben’s friend, Big Tom, about to be castrated by my cat. He’s sitting on my desk chair with his pants around his ankles, and there’s a girl on her knees in front of him bobbing her head up and down enthusiastically and moaning.

Neither one of them notices me standing in the doorway, and they’re way too busy getting busy to realize that Chuckles has crept up onto my desk and is about to launch an aerial assault on Tom’s dick.

“Chuckles,” I hiss. “Get down. Now!”

Tom and his friend are still oblivious, but Chuckles hears me all right. He doesn’t get down though, he narrows his glowing green eyes at me and twitches his fluffy orange tail faster as he prepares to pounce.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I whisper, but who am I kidding? Chuckles fights German shepherds for fun. Two drunken idiots in the middle of a blowjob won’t even make him break a sweat.

I back up, planning on crashing through the door to alert them to my presence, but Chuckles is too fast for me. He swipes the girl’s cheek and she screams and chokes on Tom’s dick. She’s not moaning anymore. She’s coughing and flailing her arms around and there are tears streaming from her eyes.

“Jesus! Teeth!” Tom yells. Then he pulls away, which is a mistake, because her teeth are nothing compared to Chuckles’s claws, and at least when his dick was in her mouth, she was providing him cover.

Now he’s exposed.

And now I know why his nickname is Big Tom. I always thought it was because he was tall, but nope. Interesting.

Tom tries to run away, but he’s hobbled by the pants around his ankles and he goes down like a mighty sequoia, fast and heavy, with barely enough time to break his fall with his hands. He’s lying there, bare ass in the air, when Chuckles pounces.

“Motherfucker!” Tom twists around, flailing his hands and trying to hit Chuckles, but my cat digs his claws into the poor guy’s cheeks and growls.

“Release the buttocks,” I growl back. Chuckles stares at me, considering how serious I am, and I point toward the water bottle on my bedside table. “Get off or get the squirt,” I say.

Chuckles hisses, then slashes a few lines on Tom’s ass like a demented feline Zorro before leaping off and scuttling under my bed.

Tom’s girl pushes past me, sobbing, her hand cupping her cheek, and slams the door to the bathroom. Which leaves me staring at the lines of blood welling up on the full moon rising in front of me as Tom struggles to his feet.

He leaves his jeans unbuttoned, holding them loosely around his waist, and turns to me. We stare at each other for a couple minutes, letting the silence stretch, both of us ignoring the wailing coming from the bathroom.

“Hey, Piper,” Tom finally says. His tone is casual, like we’ve played out this blowjob/cat attack scene a million times before.

“Hey, Tom.”

“Nice cat.”

“Nice penis.”

His lips twitch. “Thanks. Guess I’d better…” He trails off and points toward the door.

“You’d better stay out of my room next time?” I suggest.

“Won’t be a problem,” he promises, then slides by me, still holding up his pants, and shuffles down the hall.

Right past Adam, who’s standing in the door of his room, arms crossed, not looking at all friendly. Tom nods at him but wisely doesn’t stop, just books up the stairs and away, leaving me in another staring contest.

Adam’s cheeks are flushed, and his hair is in a dark cloud around his head, like he’s been pulling it. Or maybe someone else has been pulling it for him. A picture pops into my mind of Adam on his knees in front of the girl from upstairs, his face buried between her legs, her fingers tugging on his hair as he makes her come, grinding her ass all over the cushion I fucking picked out for his desk chair.

He’s coming out of his room, after all. Maybe she’s still in there. Maybe he’s getting her a glass of water before they tumble into bed for round two.

My stomach roils at the thought and I take a step back, like putting physical distance between us can somehow cancel out the nausea and panic I’m feeling at the thought of Adam hooking up with someone else.

“You and Tom?” His voice is low and hoarse.

“You and the redhead?” I counter, waving at his closed door.

He twists around, like he’s looking for someone behind him. “What are you talking about?”

“The girl from upstairs.” I cross my own arms and stand a little straighter. “The one who was rubbing herself all over you.”

“Jessica?”

“I don’t need to know her name!” I press my hand to my stomach and clench my teeth together. How long is that girl going to be in the bathroom crying over a cat scratch? I’m going to need to puke if this conversation doesn’t end, like, now, and I’d rather not end this stunner of an evening by scrubbing vomit out of my carpet.

Syd was right. This is never going to work.

“I didn’t fuck Jessica,” Adam says. “She’s a marketer and she follows me on Instagram. She kept talking about building a brand and how I should be doing all this shit to get more followers.” He sighs. “She finally clued in that I don’t give a damn about any of that stuff. I only ever started posting because I wanted—”

He trails off and swallows hard. “Anyway, she left with her boyfriend.”

Relief floods through me and I sag against the doorjamb.

“I didn’t fuck Tom,” I say. Adam’s eyes close and he bends over, his hands on his knees. The girl in the bathroom has finally stopped sobbing, and in the sudden silence I can hear Adam’s deep exhales as he tries to get hold of himself.

“We’re not friends,” I whisper. I’m mostly talking to myself, but Adam hears me. He glances up at me, his dark eyes impossible to read behind the wild tangle of his hair and shakes his head.

“Not even close,” he agrees. “Come with me.”

He holds out his hand and I don’t hesitate. I grab on with everything I’ve got and let him drag me up the stairs and through the door to the garage. I wait while he rummages through a basket of random winter gear and hold out my arms like a little kid while he slips one of my mom’s old jackets on me and pulls a fuzzy wool hat down, so it covers my ears.

Then I follow him outside, away from the warmth of the house and sounds of the party, into the ice-bright glow of the moonlit night.