Page 18 of The Pretender

I narrow my eyes. “Yes. It also has an iconic scene where Jack and Rose are at the bow of the ship and they are ‘flying.’”

Tom, the producer nods, and scoots to the edge of his chair, captivated by my story. “Well, you see, I was singing that song, and I might have been standing, singing with my eyes closed and my arms out wide, just as Rose did, when Sebastian stumbled upon me.”

* * *

The party isin full swing, complete with girls in way less clothing than me and Aspen, who, by the way, is now wearing Bennett’s t-shirt. She finally gave in and felt bad that she was causing him stress on his birthday. I, on the other hand, am still in my bathing suit, sans any sort of cover up. I wanted to go across the courtyard and grab something from the house, but then people started arriving and I had to help Drew with drinks.

We’re two hours in to this shindig and people are still arriving. I don’t know what Fenn did to convince the complex manager to let us have the party in the courtyard, but I’m impressed. Tony usually never allows parties of any kind. Which, let’s be realistic, Fenn and Drew violate that rule all the time, but they usually don’t do it outside. Generally, they are more discreet about it.

“Gross.” I narrow my eyes at the guy walking in with a girl I don’t know. “Who invited that weasel?”

I nudge Aspen, who seems to be cracking the plastic cup in her hand. “Huh?” She asks with a frown. I follow the path where she was looking and see a girl from my chem class talking to Bennett. Well, she isn’t talking to him, just standing close in case he wants to pass out or something.

“Malcolm,” I redirect her by pointing to the sniveling waste of space several feet from us. “Did Drew invite him?” There’s excitement in my voice as I ask this question. If there was ever a time I wanted Drew to throw someone out on their ass, now was it. No way did Drew invite Malcolm to his party.

Malcolm Desantis is like the high school bully of MyView.

I know, it’s the internet. Pretty much every other person is a bully, but Malcolm… Malcolm is their king—a wretched and wicked ruler. If he was a character in a horror movie, I would want him to be the first victim who was gutted in the kitchen while he screamed for help in an empty house. But alas, Malcolm isn’t. He’s the psycho who you have to kill eight million times before he dies, and even that might not be enough.

Yeah, he’s that guy. And sadly, since the wars between Sebastian and me have stopped, he’s been the reigning MyView star of Havemeyer.

“Uh…maybe?” she says, still looking at the girl next to Bennett.

I huff. Aspen is useless when it comes to obtaining info. “I bet he bribed one of the baseball guys.” Drew and Fenn’s friends aren’t the best influences.

“Probably,” Aspen agrees, only half listening.

She’s upset. I can feel it. The queen bee of our group isn’t always as strong or as confident as she’d like everyone to think she is. Sometimes she’s just a girl in love with a boy that we can’t nut punch for being a loyal idiot.

“Come on,” I say, pulling her away. “Let’s go play. Kicking the guys’ asses always cheers us up.” It’s true. Nothing excites Aspen more than winning and well, nothing excites me more than being away from Malcolm and the nosy neighbor eyeing me from my own chair.

Aspen nods, and we make our way to the circle of insanity, also known as the kickball field. Think of a baseball field, but instead of dirt-lined base paths, they’re lined with vinyl slides with an inflatable kiddie pool as the base.

“You want to be on our team?” Baylor, a third baseman I recognize from Drew and Fenn’s baseball team, holds his hand out like he means for Aspen to take it and cross over to the dark side or something.

I smack it away. “Thanks, but we’ll take the other team.” The one without the baseball players with a death sentence. Had Bennett saw Baylor offer his hand to Asp, he would have been drinking his meals through a straw for the next two months.

Baylor eyes me with a look of disgust. “I wasn’t asking you,” he says with a sneer.

Really? How many times do I have to watch this rerun? Guys like him think they really hit girls like me where it hurts by insulting us with comments like we're somehow not as hot as the woman beside us. Well, let me give all the men in the world a little tidbit. Women come in all shapes, sizes, and attitudes. Just because we don’t look like Malibu Barbie or dress like Gigi Hadid does not make us any less likely to get a man. Not only can we get a man, but we can keep that man until the mood strikes for us to let him go. I don’t need an asshole like Baylor in my panties, and I certainly don’t need him in my damn face.

I open my mouth to tell Baylor where he can take his chauvinist ass when an unfamiliar voice stops me. “I’m sad to see that black eye Jameson gave you last semester didn’t teach you a lesson, Baylor.”

“Vance!” Aspen jumps up and down and wraps her arms around the guy who is almost as tall as Drew. “I’m so glad you could make it!”

“Anything for you,” he says, placing her down gently.

Aspen nods and sends me a wink that she does not disguise at all.

“This is Vee, my best friend and roommate. She just moved in with me this year.”

Vance’s eyes are the darkest green I think I’ve ever seen. “Hi,” I say, extending my hand and proving Baylor right that I’m not much of a lady. But what else was I supposed to do? Curtsy? I think not. Vance might be tall, dark, and pretty damn fine, but a king he is not.

A deep rumbling of laughter explodes from his chest as he takes my hand, giving it a firm shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Vee. Any friend of Aspen’s is a friend of mine.”

I’m sure it is. You’ll excuse my jaded opinion. I’ve heard this line many, many times and it goes down like this: they are my friends when Aspen is around. When she isn’t around, neither are they. This includes girls, too.

But it doesn’t bother me. One, I’m new here, considering I’m just a freshman and two, I don’t have the time to maintain many friendships given my after-school activities of annoying my neighbor and keeping up my MyView videos.

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