Seth had known. Cassie had told him enough that he understood, mostly. She’d opened up. Look where that had gotten her.
Weird homeschooling family or not, the Webbs were her saving grace. Who knew what kind of trouble Cassie would’ve gotten into without them? Mama Webb’s warning Cassandra Maureen Klein, and Mr. Ben’s quietly raised eyebrows when she and Acacia were pushing things too far, as if saying You sure you want to do this? or his heavy sigh, the physical manifestation of I’m not mad, just disappointed.
Who knew what kind of rut Cassie would get stuck in now, if Acacia didn’t drag her out of the workshop Friday night, force her into a shower, and demand she come to a party?
That was how Cassie ended up in someone’s house with way too many people, everyone drunk and loud and rowdy. She was watching beer pong when Parker came tumbling into her.
“Cassie, Cassie, Cassie,” Parker giggled. “Cassie. You need to take my phone.”
“We pregamed the same amount, princess,” Cassie said. “How are you already this drunk? Why do I need to take your phone?”
Parker ignored the first question. “You need to take my phone so I don’t do something stupid like text Sam inappropriate things I want to do to her, okay? Okay, great.”
She slipped her phone into Cassie’s pocket and headed back to the living room-slash-dance floor.
Cassie would not be joining. She’d never been one for rhythm, saw more grace in fuel injectors than in the way people in the living room were writhing against each other. Everyone was pressed together. Cassie did not need that many people touching her, thank you. Parker, meanwhile, had already disappeared in the crowd, back to Acacia’s side, likely; Kaysh had loved dances since her mom stopped homeschooling her and she’d finally been allowed to go. Cassie slid her hand into her pocket next to Parker’s phone and went looking for a bit of quiet.
The thumping bass was muffled in the backyard, at least, though there were still plenty of people around. Cassie slipped to the corner of the porch, as secluded as she could get. She kept her hand on Parker’s phone the whole time. Parker was trying to break her habit of drunk texting, so instead she’d picked up a habit of handing her phone off to Cassie or Acacia. For all the self-control that girl had while sober, get her drunk and she lost every ounce of it. Last week, playing king’s cup in Parker and Acacia’s room, Cassie hadn’t paid enough attention. Parker had pickpocketed the phone back, shot off a text to Seth before Cassie could stop her. She knew to be vigilant now.
Then Cassie had a really stupid idea.
It was a hideously stupid idea; she knew it was. There was absolutely no good reason to get Erin’s number out of Parker’s phone. She would never be able to explain to Parker why she had it if she ever found out. There was no way she would ever even use it.
That rationalized it for her, though. She wasn’t actually going to text Erin or anything. But wouldn’t it be funny if she had her number? There was nothing wrong with having it if she didn’t use it.
She saved it under MILF first, because she was drunk and that was hilarious, but it also kind of seemed like she was asking to get caught. So she switched it to Aaron, spelled wrong so if Parker saw it she wouldn’t get suspicious. Yeah, drunk Cassie could scheme with the best of them.
So now she had Erin’s phone number. Not that it mattered, because she wasn’t going to do anything with it. She totally wasn’t. That’d be ridiculous.
She headed back inside before she could come up with any other really stupid ideas.
On the way to the living room, some people she’d never met before offered her shots in the kitchen. It’s not like she was going to say no.
Her new friends poured her a tequila shot and someone procured lime slices and salt. Acacia swore tequila made Cassie do dumb things, but Cassie was pretty sure it was more the amount of tequila. A shot or two couldn’t hurt. They toasted to the basketball team that had apparently won, then threw the shots back and bit quickly into the slices of lime. It was cheap tequila—cheaper than Cassie’d had in a while, but she still liked it, liked the burn of the alcohol and the lime both. Everyone poured another, and they started arguing over what they should toast to next. Cassie lasted through maybe thirty seconds of that before taking her shot alone, to a chorus of groans.
“C’mon, dude, that’s no fun,” one of them said.
She waved them off and continued toward the living room. She’d take their booze but she wasn’t going to hang around with people who would rather fight about what to cheers to than take their fucking shots.