At Joe’s house in Dunwoody, Georgia, the five of us pour out of Ethan’s huge truck, Ben shutting the door behind us girls after helping us down.

The five of us are probably the closest due to being the oldest and having gone through the same stages as each other. Emma and Ethan have a younger brother Eric who was often tagging along but he’d disappear and join the second-youngest tier as soon as they were around because he could relate to them more than us. My twin brothers were in that group.

The five oldest are staring up Joe’s escalated lawn at the darkened windows, and we might as well be looking at that old haunted house we threw rocks at when we were little. Same standing order, left to right — Ethan, Emma, Me, Sofia Sol, Ben. Boys flanking girls like two lions guarding a gate. All of us determined to cause chaos.

Emma hooks her arm through mine, knowing I’ve been nursing serious abandonment wounds for two weeks now. Protective of me she asks in a low volume, “You ready for this?”

“I can’t wait.”

Sofia Sol chuckles, “That’s my girl.”

Under his breath Ben tells us, “Gabriel is going to be jealous he wasn’t called.” He pauses and adds, “I can’t wait to tell him.”

“When I told him what Joe did, he mocked me! He doesn’t get to enjoy this. No way.”

“So three people live in there?” Ethan asks. “That’s his car?”

“Yes.” With my chest tight I inform my posse, “He has two roommates. And there are ghosts.”

Emma balks. “Ghosts? Are there really ghosts?”

“He said there were. He saw one in a baseball hat.”

Ben and Ethan snort, which turns into amused, throaty chuckles.

But Emma isn’t happy about this new piece of information. “Are you serious, Hannah? The ghost was wearing a baseball hat?”

“He didn’t say what team.”

“I dislike you right now,” she mutters.

I flash a smile. “I’m messing with you. He did say he saw that ghost, but it’s not like it can do anything.”

“No longer happy about this,” Emma mutters, eyeing the house with newfound trepidation.

Ben and Ethan lead the way up the long driveway with Sofia jogging up to meet their testosterone-filled strides. Goosebumps dash across my skin as we follow them, and Emma shoots me a look. We’re both chewing our lips to pieces. I want to turn back as much as I want to see this. I’ve never chased a guy in my life and this is going to show him that he hurt me. My pride is begging me to turn back.

This is a bad idea.

Suddenly I want to get the fuck out of here.

Ethan shouts, “Hey dickhead! You in there?”

Too late now.

Sofia Sol shouts like someone is throwing honey at their front door, “Come out, come out, wherever you are, Joe!”

Suddenly three guys walk out onto the porch, Joe last. The glint of angelic naiveté I so loved is gone as his green eyes dart a cold and careful scan of our group.

His two friends eye the pack of us, too, wondering where this is gonna go. They’re shorter than he is, but one looks like a bulldog. If a bulldog played video games and smoked bongs all day.

“Cocker Family BBQ at my place?” Joe asks with overly fake innocence.

What a peculiar thing for him to say.

How does he know about our BBQs?

He was never sweet or naïve. The whole thing was a plot, because why else would he bring up our BBQs like that?

“You played me, you sonofabitch!” I cry out, realizing the truth.

His eyebrows shoot up a little. “How’d you know about my mom?” A surly grin tugs his dimple into place. That fucking dimple. I hate it with a passion now. “Hannah, why are you here?”

An explosion of rage bursts me forward. I want to claw his lying eyes out.

But Ben scoops me up to say in my ear, “Shhh. We got this, Hannah.”

Joe laughs, “You forget something? Your virginity? Because I know you didn’t leave it with me.”

Ethan clocks Joe so fast that his head swings before his fists have a chance to.

The bulldog makes a move but Sofia gives him a front kick to the nuts and he doubles over on a dog-like yelp. She gives him a palm-strike uppercut, and his head whips back as blood spills out his mouth from where he bit his tongue. He groans in agony and flops onto the ground.

The skinnier friend stares up at Ben, considering his options. How does a gnat hurt a skyscraper?

Ben mutters, “Jeezus, Soph,” on a low chuckle.

Grey eyes flash at him over her shoulder, and her lips turn up. “What?”

“You’re a fuckin’ badass.”

“No shit,” she mutters, rolling her eyes a little like a woman who knows her worth.

Ethan asks, “Hannah, what’d you see in this guy?” Joe takes that moment to come at him, but Ethan grabs Joe’s fist without even looking, then turns and punches him three times in the head so fast and purposefully that Joe drops faster than the discarded jeans he tore off my body that night.

The gnat backs away, his face exactly like Beeker from the Muppets as he runs inside.

From the ground Joe shouts at his friend, “Get back here!”

I had sex with this bastard three times. Three times! Everything he did was an act. Cooking me that special dinner. The nervous confession — I haven’t been with many women. Probably lied about asking his friends where to take me for our first dates, too. It was all designed to make me take my wall down.

And he came so quickly that first time because he was getting off on deceiving me! What a sicko. I want to take a long, hot shower. I want to kick him in the head. I want to hurt him.

But can an evil bastard even feel pain?

He locks eyes with me, rising on his elbow. He won’t attempt standing up with Ethan looming over him. “Well this is good to know, Hannah, because I was wondering.”

With angry tears in my eyes I croak, “What?”

His eyes slowly scan my cousin’s faces. Under his breath he starts to laugh this terrible sound I will never forget. “If I got in. Hannah Cocker. Ice queen. Tore through half the guys at Georgia Tech. And I’m the one who made her cry.”

I start for him but my cousin won’t let me go. “Ben, stop it! I’m not a fucking weakling.”

His fingers release me.

I walk up to Joe.

Ethan stands guard and points at him. “Don’t try anything funny you piece of shit.”

From over my chin I stare down at the bastard. “All that stuff you did.”

He cuts me off, rage in his eyes. “You privileged Cockers. Walking around with your fuckin’ noses in the air. I wanted to see if that wall of perfection could be penetrated. And I did penetrate it.” He chuckles, touching the blood dripping from his wounded cheek. “Three times in fact.”

When I don’t make a move Sofia asks, “You want me to kick him, Hannah?”

I’m so angry I’m frozen.

My brain is spinning with images of him grunting on top of me. Him asking if the salmon tasted good. Him chopping wood like a boy scout. Us kissing in the forest under the stars. “Propose to me.”

His eyes flicker.

Ethan’s voice drifts into my ears, “Hannah…”

But I ignore him and repeat in a trembling voice, “Ask me to marry you, Joe.”

“What?” he chuckles, not sure what my angle is. “What the fuck?”

“Do it.”

Sofia Sol takes a step closer to him, a smirk in her voice. “I’d do what Hannah says if I were you, Blondie.”

Emma’s been quiet this whole time, until now. “Be a gentleman and give my cousin back her honor.”

Joe flits a quick, agitated glance around. “Will you—”

“Take a knee and say my whole name.”

He’s blinking like crazy as Ethan and Ben step up.

He takes a knee, blinking like crazy with fury behind his eyes. He swallows hard and locks on me. “Hannah Cocker…will you marry me?”

I whisper, “Now that I see what you really are, I have the ability to reject you, and anything you have to offer.”

I punch him right in the face.

I’ve never hit anyone.

Turns out it hurts like hell.

Joe’s head doesn’t swing to the side like it did with Ethan’s mightier fist, but it does bobble a little. I’m pretty proud of that little bit of movement.

“I’m ready to leave.”

My cousins start backing away, the guys and Sofia watching to make sure Joe and Bulldog don’t try anything funny. His mocking tone stops me. “Are you practicing? Because the only way a guy would marry a slut like you is if you forced him to.”

“Holy shit,” Sofia Sol growls. She rushes at him. He rises up, but her leg swings with a roundhouse-kick, knocking him to the ground with a gross thud as he lands.

The gnat jumps out from the front door, swinging a gun around.

Emma screams, “Sofia!”

“Hey, you fuck!” Ben growls.

The gnat glances over at him, which makes the gun wave and point at Ben. But Ethan is coming up from the side.

I duck, terrified.

So does Emma, muttering, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

This has brought things to a terrifying level.

A neighbor behind us shouts something and we all cut a look over to see them disappear into their home next door.

Sofia takes the distraction and uses it to her advantage. She lunges forward and, with all of the self-defense training she’s had since she was a little girl, disarms the guy.

She points his own gun at him, turning the tables in a heartbeat. “You’re no killer,” she says, her voice smooth and steady. “Go be who you are.”

Like she’s his gorgeous oracle, he asks, “Who am I?”

“You’re a cog in the wheel.”

He runs in the house, looking confused.

“You too!” she shouts at Bulldog. He crawls inside. Then she stares at Joe who’s unconscious. “Jeezus, Hannah, really? Such a cliché.”

“What?”

“Tall, lanky, blonde haired, light green eyes. Even has a J-name. Remind you of anyone? I’m taking this, by the way,” she adds, stuffing the gun in the back of her jeans.

“Let’s get out of here,” Emma warns. “That neighbor is calling the cops.”

We all head back to the car with Ethan and Ben walking backwards. Sofia throws her arm around my waist. “Hey, don’t look so mortified.”

“You’re grossing me out.”

“It had to be pointed out. How did you not see he looks like your dad when he was younger?”

“Stop. Please stop.”

“We all have daddy issues,” Sofia chuckles.

Emma says, “I don’t,” because her dad, Uncle Jake, is pretty much flawless. Nothing to go to therapy for there.

“Shut up,” Sofia and I both say at the same time.

The sound of sirens in the distance turns our heads.

Ethan hits the key fob as we all run to get in. “Come on!”

Sofia wipes the gun of her prints and tosses it onto the lawn. “Can’t get caught with that!” As everyone climbs in like there are red ants dancing up our legs, she informs us, “Okay, Listen up! If they catch us and ask about the gun, everyone sticks to the same story.” We’re all listening, doors slamming and car screeching away from the curb. “The kid pulled a gun so we had to kick the shit out of all of them! It was self-defense. Got it?”

Ben laughs, “I fucking love you, Sofia!”

Ethan bellows, “Woohoooooo!!!” as we take the corner at a speed that nearly topples his truck, all of us laughing.

Especially Emma. She’s got the fear-giggles.

Two smoky-blue police cars screech to a halt, forming a blockade at the end of the street.

“Oh shit,” Ben mutters. “Looks like we’re goin’ to jail.”

Emma groans, “Again?”