“Hi there.” A voice draws my attention around, and I come face to face with this curvy redhead, her brown eyes fixated on me. “I'm Aster. I don't remember seeing you here last year …?” she trails off, and smiles wickedly at me, reaching out to play with the flop of curly hair on my forehead.

“I just started at Adamson this year. I'm a junior, third year, whatever you want to call it.” I smile, and her cheeks flush with the color. Both the twins grin and exchange a look over the top of my head.

“Chuck is single,” they both say, turning to look at Aster. “Just broke up with his girlfriend.”

“Oh, really?” Aster chirps, brightening up substantially. Uh-oh. Oh no. No, no, no.

“I'm not really looking—” I start, but she's reaching out and grabbing my hand anyway, yanking me onto the dance floor with her. She giggles a lot as she drags us into the crowd that's just formed between the fireplace and the seating area. The music thumps loudly from the speakers, and Aster starts to gyrate all over me.

“I love nerdy boys,” she tells me, grinning as she puts her arms on my shoulders and curls her fingers together behind my neck. I decide to just roll with it—what's the harm?—and besides, maybe it'll throw Ranger off my case.

After a couple dances, Church beckons me from the back door with a crooked finger, and I follow him down a path, past a boathouse, and onto a dock that stretches into the still blackness of a small lake. The twins are already out there, along with Ranger and Spencer both.

There are a few girls, too.

My mouth purses into a thin line as we head down to where they're sitting and join them on some blankets that've been laid out. There's a bottle of alcohol making its way around, as well as a joint.

I sit down between the twins, and notice that all three girls sitting opposite me are staring.

“Do you go to Everly?” one of them asks, cocking her head to the side. “I've never seen you before.”

Now Ranger's really looking at me, and I feel all choked up. To distract him, I lean forward, crawling between his outstretched legs and grabbing the whiskey bottle from his hand. He stares at me, blinking hard, and then watches as I sit back and swig some of the alcohol. It burns going down, and I almost choke.

“He goes to school with us,” Spencer says, taking a long drag on the joint, the tip glowing a pretty bright orange color. “Sure, he's effeminate and ugly, but you don't have to take it that far.”

The girls exchange looks, and then this tall blond tosses back her honeyed hair and levels a cool glare on him.

“So saying your male friend looks like a girl is an insult? How about you go all the way to hell, Spencer Hargrove.” She sniffs and turns back to me, offering up a smile. “I'm Selena, by the way.” She holds out her hand, but I know she's not offering to shake—she wants the whiskey. I pass it over and she grins before taking a huge swig. The girl with the electric blue hair on her right is leaning into Ranger, pressing her breasts against his arm.

There's this strange feeling of discomfort inside of me that I can't place, like I'm trying to hang on to all these ropes, but they keep slipping out of my hands. It's because you don't want any of the Student Council boys hooking up tonight, huh? As soon as I identify the emotion, I get weird about it.

That's what it is though, isn't it? I mean, truly, I'm paranoid about the guys finding girls to … do whatever with tonight. And I don't even like any of them. What is freaking wrong with me?

“I'm Chuck,” I tell her finally, after she passes the whiskey back to me. I drink a bit more and then hand it over to Tobias.

“It's puff-puff-pass, you shit stain,” Spencer tells Ranger when he hogs the joint for too long. They glare at each other, but eventually the weed makes it way over to me, and I take a huge drag, coughing dramatically and wondering if I've gone fucking insane.

If my dad finds us out here, I'm screwed. Like mortally screwed. Like he may very well dig me a grave and bury me in it.

“You're a cutie, Chuck,” the girl in the middle says, leaning back, her long, dark hair dipping into the lake water. She doesn't seem to care or notice, poking at my foot with one of hers. “I like feminine boys.”

Ranger makes a strange sound under his breath, but I pretend not to notice.

“This is our third year carrying on the tradition,” Church says, smiling prettily. He even crinkles up his eyes, but I see right through him. I bet he could go ninja and snap someone's neck before anyone would even notice. “Sitting out here on the lake, smoking a little pot …”

“And every year, we invite one new person to join us,” Ranger says, smirking as he looks over at me. “Our new favorite person, Chuck Carson.”

“Maybe we should skip that tradition this time?” Tobias inserts, shrugging his shoulders loosely, but Ranger is razor focused on me right now.

“Oh come on, Chuck's a tough guy. He can handle it.”

“Handle what?” I ask, but then Ranger and Spencer are both grinning and diving for me.

“Hey, fuck you guys,” Micah growls, but Church grabs him and holds him back.

Before I know it, I'm getting pushed off the dock and into the icy water.

The scream that tries to break out of me is swallowed up as I bob under for a brief second, hit the bottom with my feet and kick up to the surface, gasping and cursing.

“You fuckers!” I scream, paddling over to the shore and climbing out in my soggy clothes. Spencer, Ranger, and both the blue-haired and black-haired girl are all howling with wild laughter while Tobias sneers at them, and Micah watches me with a tight expression. Church is impossible to read, as usual, but Selena looks like she feels sorry for me.

“You guys are jerks,” she snaps, standing up and grabbing one of the blankets from the dock. She throws it over my shoulders as my teeth chatter like crazy. “Come on. We'll find you some dry clothes.”

“We've got some in the bag!” Spencer calls out, pointing to the duffel bag he was leaning on that I hadn't noticed before. “Get back here, Chuck. We've all gone through the dunk. It's no big deal.”

But Selena is herding me away, and leading me up a small incline to the brightly glowing windows of a cabin. She lets me in, and I flush when I see a few girls in bras and panties, doing their makeup and shimmying into dresses.

“I shouldn't be in here,” I say, but then Selena gives me a look.

“I know who you are. Took one look at you and I knew you weren't a boy.” She reaches out to cup the side of my face, brown eyes sparkling. “You're way too pretty. And besides, my mother's on the board for Adamson. My brother goes there, and she told me they’re trying to integrate the campus. She said Headmaster Carson's daughter, Charlotte, was going to be the first.”

“Except for Jenica,” I say, and Selena's face pales. She turns away abruptly and moves over to a suitcase, digging around inside and coming up with a stack of clothes. She passes them over to me and forces a smile. Based on her reaction, I guess she's not going to talk to me about Jenica either.

“Do you want to rinse off? I can show you to the showers.”

“No, thank you,” I tell her, peeling apart the clothes. There's a pair of panties with the tags still on them, a beautiful dress, and a bra that looks to be about my size. Apparently, Selena and I have the same sized-boobs. “I can't wear any of this though.” I try to hand the clothing back, and she gives me a look.