“Kidding. I got expelled for blowing up a tree with gunpowder, believe it or not.”

“I choose not,” I said, stifling another laugh. Somehow I couldn’t imagine the hedonistic devil in front of me doing something so wildly creative.

“You’d be right, too. It was my friend, Percy, who did it. He was named after the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, who actually did get kicked out of school for that reason. He lost a bet. But when it came down to owning up to it, I knew Percy was going to get royally screwed if he got the boot. That boarding school was the only thing his rich grandparents had agreed to pay for. His dad lost their family money gambling.”

Hunter took my hand, laced his fingers through mine, and gave me a little twirl. My body swooshed along with the movement instinctively. I watched the room spin under Hunter’s arm and felt the skirts of my dress rustling against the floor. He lowered my upper body like in the movies, and it occurred to me that people were watching us again, but for the life of me, I couldn’t give a damn.

“You got kicked out for a friend?” My eyes flared. “Why?”

When my back was level with the floor, he held me there for half a second, his face close to mine. “You know why. You’re just as loyal.”

He whisked me back up, and we began to sway again. I clung to him more tightly than before. He felt like iron and steel beneath my fingertips. I wanted to escape his touch and lean closer to his chest at the same time.

“Why did you never tell you father?”

“Because he wouldn’t have believed me. And if he had, it’d serve as more proof to him that I am stupider than a can of sweet corn.”

Hunter’s lips brushed against my ear, the tip of his elegant nose in my hair. My heart was in my throat. I wanted to march over to Gerald Fitzpatrick and flip his full plate all down his suit for making his son believe he was anything short of wonderful.

“Sailor?” Hunter asked.

“Yeah?” I cleared my throat.

“Guess what?” He breathed in my face. If only he didn’t smell as he had—of cinnamon and male and my full-blown demise. “You’re dancing.”

Mood song: “Under the Pressure” by The War on Drugs.

Did I come from watching Da watching me spinning Sailor on the dance floor, whispering sweet nothings in her ear, nuzzling her hairline?

No, I did not.

Was I close to coming, though?

…ain’t gonna lie, my balls did tingle.

She was surprisingly compliant for a girl who possessed the etiquette and cordiality of a rabid capybara (basically a giant rat—look it up. Real nasty pet choice).

Maybe she exhausted herself mid-meltdown. Like when toddlers fall asleep in the height of their tantrum. Fuck knows she looked like she was about to off herself when I tried to drag her to the dance floor.

But it wasn’t like I had many options to choose from in the camaraderie department.

Da and Cillian ignored my existence, Mom was a shitty conversationalist, and Aisling screwed off with her new friends to form a fucking girl band or whatever. Chasing tail was not in the cards for me. I had zero friends here. Hitting up Vaughn and Knight on the phone several times a day wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

I wanted to show Da I was playing nice with the guard dog he’d appointed for me. The fact it looked like I was going to plow into her later that evening sweetened the deal, especially because he could never ask her if we fucked.

See, Da? Not as brainless as you think.

When the fundraiser ended, and Sailor kissed and hugged her friends goodbye (why did chicks do that? They were going to see each other the next goddamn day, in all probability), I shoved her into the limo and spent the time scrolling through pictures of hot girls I’d fucked. I needed to clear my head. Also, to empty my dick. Our little dance had given me an unexpected hard-on. True, she wasn’t Candice Swanepoel, but damn, did she rock that dress like nobody’s business.

Sailor was sitting on the end of the crème leather seat, as far away from me as humanly possible, watching the city lights flickering to their slow, midnight death. People scurried into their homes like mice.

“Thank you,” her voice traveled between us, hoarse and smoky.

“Bet,” I mumbled, my thumb sliding over the screen. Kardashian on a cracker, I missed Cali. I had to remind myself this was going to be over in less than six months. I was going to make Da give me the dope apartment, make sure the door didn’t hit Sailor’s flat ass on her way out, and fuck until I fell into a coma.

“Aren’t you going to ask what for?” she challenged in her smart-ass voice.

Fuck. Even when she looked good (and she actually did look good in that dress with her hair up), she just had to ruin it by being so…herself.

I looked up from my phone unenthusiastically. “My bad. What for?”

“Managing the situation when I freaked out earlier…” She trailed off and frowned at my hand. It took me a second to realize why she was angry again. My screen was stuck on a thirst trap of Alice squeezing her tits together and winking at the camera with a cherry in her mouth, wearing nothing but a tiny, sunflower-patterned bikini.

“Who is this?” she asked.

I wasn’t keen on airing my shit, and I never told people who I fucked, how many times, where, and when. It seemed tacky—more so when it was to Sailor, who was probably more virginal than the punch in a pre-K after-school dance.