But a party full of the type of people popular at Willowgrove is not Chloe’s idea of fun, especially when it’s hosted by Dixon Wells. Dixon is a particular variety of affable jerk prevalent in Alabama: the type who insists it’s okay for him to make offensive jokes because he’s not actually racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic/whatever so he doesn’t actually mean them, but aren’t the jokes so funny? Dark humor. Of course, the student body voted him prom king over Smith, who seems boring but at least decent.
Dixon’s house has one of those curved driveways out front like it should have valet service. Cars Chloe recognizes from the school parking lot line the street: Jeep, Jeep, Jeep, Range Rover, Jeep, jacked-up truck, jacked-up truck, jacked-up truck. She slots her hand-me-down Camry in behind an F-150 with a lift kit that belongs in the Australian outback.
I’m here, she texts Smith.
She waits five minutes, then another five, but Smith doesn’t text back. Fantastic. She can hear the party raging in the backyard, but she doesn’t want to walk in alone.
She can do this. She’s wearing her heaviest ankle boots, the black ones with the big rubber treads and the three-inch heels. Benjy calls them her mankiller boots. She can do anything in her mankiller boots.
She closes her eyes and reels through a dozen alternate, fearless versions of Chloe, landing on an image of herself as a ruthless queen with a million yards of bloodred velvet pooling around her, stomping around a palace with a vial of poison and incredible hair. That’ll do.
She opens the door, plants her mankiller boots in the Wellses’ impeccably groomed front lawn, and immediately gets her heel trapped in a patch of mud.
She yanks herself loose and, only slightly pink in the face, stomps off.
The backyard is enormous, with a massive trampoline and a redbrick outdoor kitchen with a marble island and a gas grill that probably cost more than a semester at Willowgrove, which isn’t cheap. Even the grass looks expensive. Nobody seems to be wearing actual clothing, only soggy T-shirts or swimsuits or cut-off shorts. She feels overdressed by having shoes on.
She peers across the wide pool full of screaming girls in bikinis on linebacker shoulders, trying to pick Smith out of the crowd.
Every person she passes stops what they’re doing to watch her walk by. She straightens her shoulders and stares ahead, same as when she stood on stage in front of the whole school and put her heart into singing “Think of Me.” Eyes up, chin out, pretend that nobody is taking out their phone to do a mean Snapchat story about it.
“Chloe Green!” someone yells, and God, she hopes it’s Smith. She whips her head around—
Nope, it’s Ace Torres, shaggy dark hair dripping chlorine everywhere and that disconcertingly wide grin. Her jaw clenches automatically.
He reaches her in two enormous strides, looming like a wet bear with a slice of pizza. “Chloe! You’re here! That’s so crazy!”
Technically, Ace is harmless, and she wouldn’t have any reason to hate him more than the average meathead Willowgrove boy if he hadn’t imposed upon the most important spring musical of her high school career. She always thought Mr. Truman was above stunt-casting a football bro, but he practically had a stroke when Ace managed to sing four bars at tryouts.
“Yeah, I’m as surprised as you are,” she says, dodging a drop of pool water.
Ace laughs. “Dude, I miss seeing you guys at rehearsal.”
“You could still hang out with us,” Chloe points out.
“I kinda get the feeling you don’t actually want that,” Ace says. Chloe blinks at him. “But it’s cool! You’re here now! Dope! Are you here with somebody?”
There’s no easy answer to that, but she goes with, “Smith invited me.”
“That’s what’s up,” Ace says. “He needs more friends!”
She glances around the party, which seems to include more than a quarter of their grade and sizable delegations of the sophomore and junior classes. There are so many bodies in the pool, it’s impossible to tell where one naked trapezius ends and another begins. “Is this not enough friends?”
Before Ace can answer, he catches sight of someone over her shoulder. “Hey, Smith, look who’s here!”
And there’s Smith, emerging from the snack table. As soon as his eyes land on Chloe’s face, they dart guiltily to his pocket, where his phone must be.
“Hey, Chloe, uh, glad—glad you made it,” Smith says.
She sighs, not wasting any more time. “Hi. Can you show me where to get some water?” She glares at him pointedly until he takes the hint.