Page 15 of Caught Up

“Refills?” Ryan asked.

Taylor and I slugged back our drinks and handed over our empty glasses.

“There were fireworks that night,” I continued while Ryan padded toward the kitchen. They’d already heard this story; I was telling it mostly for Taylor. “I was sitting on a blanket, watching them with Kelly, when I saw Junior hanging out near the back of the church. He motioned me over, and I made some excuse and got up and went to him. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t for him to drag me into the shadows and kiss me.”

Taylor’s eyes widened. “Hot.”

“Understatement,” I said. “I still can’t smell cotton candy without getting turned on.”

“Then what happened?” she asked.

“Junior spun me around, slipped his hand into my shorts, and got me off while the fireworks exploded overhead. Anyone could have seen us if they’d looked in the right spot, but they were all too busy watching the display.”

Ryan returned with our drinks, their grin wicked as they handed mine over. “And you’ve liked it kinky ever since.”

I clinked my glass against theirs. “Guilty.”

Taylor frowned. “But that sounds awesome?”

My smile faltered. “It was. And so were the next few weeks. We fooled around every chance we got. I used to slip him notes of where to meet and what I wanted to do with him, and this is where my fanfic obsession comes into play.”

Taylor cringed. “Tell me a parent or grandparent or teacher didn’t find one.”

“They didn’t,” Ryan said.

Relief swept over Taylor’s face.

I crushed it with a single sentence. “My friend Kelly did.”

“Okay, and?” Taylor asked, looking wary.

“Well, she was obsessed with Junior, too,” I explained. “I didn’t tell her about hooking up with him because I knew she’d be upset—we’d always had this weirdly competitive edge to our friendship, and she would have seen it as losing to me, which she couldn’t stand. One night during a sleepover, I think she got bored or something while I was showering and started snooping through my room. She found my diary, read the entries about everything I’d done with Junior, and confronted me about it. I apologized for not telling her, but she wouldn’t hear it. She actually refused to believe it was real. Said I was lying and it was all some freaky fan fiction I’d written about him like a total stalker. She stormed out of my house afterward, and I didn’t realize until she was gone that she’d taken the diary with her.”

Taylor gasped. “No.”

I nodded. “She took pictures of all the entries and posted them to Instagram, and they took off like wildfire from there because no one could believe that shy little Lauren Marchetti was secretly such a slut.”

Taylor covered her mouth, her eyes wide. “Oh my god.”

“Yup,” I said, taking a swig of my drink.

Her hand fell. “That’s like something out of a nightmare.”

“Oh, it was,” I told her. “I think Kelly must have regretted it pretty quickly, because she took the posts down, but it was too late. People were already sending screenshots to their friends. It was all over school by the time Monday rolled around.”

“What did you do?” Taylor asked.

“Pretended to be sick so I didn’t have to go,” I said.

“Nonna Bianchi must have known something was up,” Ryan said, having met my grandmother enough times to get a good read on her.

“I’ve never asked,” I said. “But she let me stay home all that week, and that wasn’t like her at all. If my sister wasn’t the one to tell her, one of the neighborhood moms must have.” I turned back to Taylor. “I tried going in the following Monday, but someone had printed copies of the posts and stuck them up all over school.”

Taylor looked like she might puke. “Did the principal do anything to shut it down?”

“No,” I told her. “In our neighborhood, everyone grew up knowing that snitches get stitches, so no one ever ratted anyone else out. Plus, our principal was one of thosehands-offadministrators who let way more shit go than he should have.”

“Bastard,” Taylor muttered.

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