Page 50 of Come As You Are

Yeah, I’ll go ahead and look at it that way.

Jenna’s smile takes on a cruel slant, and I wait for the next bullet to shoot from her mouth, but she’s already moved on, wrapping an arm around Priya’s shoulders. “How about you, Pri? Truth or dare?”

It’s tempting to speak up and remind her that it’s my turn, but I don’t think there are any answers here that I actually want. So I wait to see how Priya responds instead, but she just laughs. “As if I have any secrets you don’t know.”

“I swear,” Jenna says with a quick, cutting look at me, “none of you are any fun anymore. Take the dare, then.”

Priya grabs the flask from her hand and takes a swig. “Fine. Dare.”

Jenna grins. “Go to every guy here and ask him how big his dick is.”

“But you already know so many of the answers,” Priya says sweetly, and I can’t help snorting a laugh. Thankfully, Isabel barks one even louder, and Jenna misses mine entirely. “Are you having me do your research so you can figure out your next victim? Is the current one not satisfying?”

I expect a scathing response from Jenna, but instead, Priya receives a languid smile I’d love to twist off Jenna’s face. “The current one is deeply,deeplysatisfying. Some might say enormously so.”

Isabel rolls her eyes. “Jenna would say enormously so. I have, in fact, heard her do so on way too many occasions.”

Okay, cool, I am definitely out. Even picking up a used condom beats listening to a discussion of Salem’s anatomical gifts. I scan the ground for another piece of trash, and promptly find a gum wrapper I’m 90 percent sure is Jenna’s.

I stab it with the point of my picker and move on, the girls’ laughter ringing in my ears.

I take the same van seat on the way back, but when a body slides in next to mine, it’s Isabel’s, not Salem’s. “You can go take my seat,” she tells him dismissively, as if she’s calling the shots here and not literally sending him to fool around with his girlfriend in the back.

So much for community service helping him learn how to do “good.”

“You okay?” she asks me in a low voice once the ride starts. “Jenna can be a little… Jenna.”

“She really can,” I confirm. “But it’s fine.”It’s not fine.“Anyway, we got the forest clean, and that’s the point, right?”

Her lips twitch in a smile. “Right.”

She pivots to chat with Priya for the rest of the ride while I pull out my earbuds and settle in with Blackpink. After a few minutes, Isabel nudges me to ask what I’m listening to, and I hand her one of the buds. We listen in silence the rest of the way home.

As soon as we get off the van, though, I leave Isabel and the others in my dust, not caring how glaringly obvious itis that I don’t want to be near Jenna another minute. I’m most of the way back to Rumson when I feel a hand at my elbow.

“Where are you running?” Salem asks. “We’re literally walking to the same building.”

“Are we? I thought you might have plans at Hillman House.” Okay, my tone sounds way colder than he deserves, but in fairness, his girlfriend is way colder than I deserve.

Doesn’t matter; he’s barely listening anyway, engrossed in his phone. I can only assume he’s exchanging filthy texts with Jenna, which makes me want to pry it from his hands and toss it back into the woods we just came from.

“Brent and Jason are up for a quick game if you are,” he says, slipping it back in his pocket. “Pretty sure they think you were having beginner’s luck that first time.”

“How do you know I wasn’t?”

He shoots me a knowing look. “Come up in ten. And bring snacks.”

“Who says I have snacks?” I mutter as I head toward my room while he dashes up the stairs.

“You have snacks,” he calls back down.

He’s right, I do, but I don’t want the human trash receptacle that is Jason Hammond devouring my precious Skittles stash, so when I take a quick shower and throw on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, I grab a couple of bags of chips I lifted from the Beast instead.

The other guys aren’t there when I arrive, but Salem and Matt are, and Matt gives me a big bear hug when I enter,nearly smushing the chip bags. “What was that for?” I ask when I can finally breathe again.

He cracks a grin. “Izzy said you might need it after the woods.”

“What happened in the woods?” Salem asks.

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