I'm on my third plastic cup of beer, sitting in a lawn chair by the pool, listening to the thump-thump of the bass pouring out of the speakers inside the house and thinking that I really have a massive fucking headache.

And another five or six beers might start to take it away. Another twelve might make me forget all about this bullshit with Cassie.

Pretty much the entire team is here for a post-finals blowout. Every hot, slutty girl on campus is going to roll through here, too.

Speaking of which…

A girl with bleached blonde hair and enormous tits pouring out of her tiny yellow bikini materializes right in front of me. "Colton King," she says.

"Yep." I look past her at the lawn, my eyes scanning the crowd for whatever. A small part of me is hoping that Cassie will just show up here, that she'll push through the bodies in one of her skirts and high heels, far too overdressed for a pool party, glasses perched on the end of her nose. And then she'll look at me and say –

"Do you need to blow off a little post-finals steam?" the blonde asks, and I blink for a second, somehow surprised that I'm hearing the sound of her voice and not Cassie's. "Because I really, really like to blow… off steam."

"I'm all set," I say, hardly able to hide the disgust in my tone. "Thanks anyway."

"There's the offending document." A ream of papers lands in my lap, and I look up to see my mother standing beside the chair giving me a murderous glare. She turns her attention to the blonde. "And you are?"

"Trixie," she says. Then she wraps a lock of blonde hair around her finger and gives my mother a vacant look.

If I wasn't so generally irritated, I'd be amused by the fact that my mother is going to eat this girl alive.

My mother looks back and forth from me to the girl. "This is how you're choosing to console yourself?"

"Hey!" the blonde sputters.

"Bless your heart, honey," my mother says to her. "I'm sure you're very smart and quite the catch. What are you studying?"

The blonde looks at her. "Um… maybe fashion?"

"Of course you are," my mother murmurs. "Walk away, please."

The blonde's mouth falls open and she huffs as she retreats.

"Are you finished here, mom?" I ask, irritated.

Emmett passes us, and my mother grabs his arm. "You like the bimbos, don't you, Emmett?"

"Hells yeah, Mrs. K."

"There's one right over there who's up your alley."

Emmett holds up his hand and my mother hi-fives him. "You rock, Mrs. K."

"Don't mention it." My mother turns her attention back to me. "Now, you."

"I'm sitting here enjoying my beer, ma," I say, holding up my cup. "And then I'm going to enjoy another one."

"I read that thesis, the one sitting in your lap," she says. "All of it. There's not one thing in there for you to get all butt-hurt about, so either you're just as pigheaded as you were when you were three and refused to wear clothes outside the house, or you're in love with her and terrified so you're picking a fight so you can screw up the entire thing. Either way, find your balls and go fix things with that girl."

"Damn it, mom," I groan. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know exactly what I'm talking about. You know who was stubborn just like you? Your father."

"Yeah, well you never lied to dad and pretended to be something you weren't," I say bitterly.

"That girl didn't pretend to not know you just so she could get with some football star," my mother says. "If that's not obvious as daylight to you, then I don't know what to do with you."

I cross my arms over my chest, the papers piled every which way underneath. "Then I guess you don't know what to do with me."

"You know what's sad?" my mother asks.

I grunt a response, looking behind her at the people walking around the lawn. She doesn't know what she's talking about. She has no idea about what's between me and Cassie.

"What's sad is that you're going to have everything," she says. "I've known that since you were ten years old. Your father knew it too. You've always been great at football. It was written all over you the day you picked up a ball. But you're going to get everything you want and then realize it's really damn lonely at the top."

I sit there in silence, her words ringing in my head.

It's lonely at the top.

I don't have a response for her.

She doesn't wait for one. She kisses the top of my head. "I'm going to get out of here. I've seen more breasts at this party in the past fifteen minutes than I care to for one evening. I hope you figure things out, because I love you, Colt."

"I know, ma," I say. "I love you, too."

It takes me twenty minutes and another beer before I look at the thesis.