Brazen Tricks - Ali Dean Page 0,70

over with began to fidget and then stopped walking forward altogether. Being the focus didn’t faze me though, and I strode toward the basketball player.

“You clean up nice yourself,” I told him with a wink, going in for hugs with the others he was standing around. After Cruz Donovan, Isaiah Cross was one of the best athletes to come out of Defiance Falls, Massachusetts.

People quickly returned to whatever they were doing and I felt the weight of the eyes leave me. I knew Cruz and his guys weren’t here yet. Everything was heightened when he was around. Right now, the air was easy to breathe and the vibe was mellow. No, that wasn’t right exactly. There was still a zing of energy pulsing around the bonfire. Anticipation.

This was Cruz Donovan’s party. His family’s property. He’d get here soon, and everything would turn up a notch.

Isaiah threw an arm around my shoulder. “Haven’t seen you all summer, Haze. Were you hanging with Blake?” He’d managed to tone down his voice from the initial greeting, but everyone in our circle stopped talking, waiting for my answer.

I’d started dating Blake Carmen after Christmas break, knowing he was graduating a few months later, and club soccer season would keep me busy. It was safe. There was an easy out.

“Nah, we split at the beginning of the summer.”

Hanna, another senior soccer player, didn’t hide her surprise. “Seriously? Man, I thought you guys were together this whole time. Will he be here tonight?”

I couldn’t hide my grin. There was the inner bitch coming out. I hadn’t seen it from Hanna yet, not really, but she was now looking at me with eager eyes. My teammate, a girl I played on not one, not two, but three different soccer teams with, wanted to bang my ex-boyfriend. Wasn’t even trying to be subtle about it.

I shrugged. “Maybe. He might have left for Harvard already.”

She pulled at her bottom lip. “Do you think I should text him to see if he wants to come?”

She was really asking me this. “Uh, yeah. Sure. Why not?”

I started to turn around, and then remembered Isaiah’s arm was still on my shoulder. And that he had been the one to ask the question. Oh, ah, I got it now. I looked up at Isaiah, deciding how to play this smooth, when I heard the roar of an engine. My head spun toward the noise and I spotted a green Hummer coming toward us, veering off the dirt driveway.

Its horn blared a few times, and then it parked inches away from a group of people. Spike Matlock leaned his head out the open window. “The kegs have arrived!” he shouted. The announcement was followed by hoots and hollers and everyone moved in that direction.

I stood rooted in place, waiting for Cruz to get out. But it wasn’t Cruz who stepped out of the passenger seat. It was Peter Moody. Tall, lanky, and the poster boy for cool geek, I found myself doing a double-take every time I saw him these past few months. He’d grown at least half a foot and filled out some too. The boy was no longer awkward and gangly. He was kind of a hunk actually. Moody was used to being the least attractive of this group when it came to the ladies, but I didn’t know if that was true anymore. He had swagger, he just didn’t know it yet.

Next, my cousins got out of the backseat.

Bodhi and Emmett Boyd were only two months younger than me, born a week before Christmas. They weren’t identical, but the resemblance was unmistakable. Dark hair, blue eyes, soccer player builds, I knew they’d be the hottest guys in school if Cruz had remained at Mayflower Academy. They had mischief written all over them from day one. Mimi – our grandma – sometimes still referred to them as Trouble and Double Trouble. Tonight was no different. There was a glint in their eyes as they looked around the bonfire, searching. I sighed, remembering Dad texted them I’d be here.

I’d grown up with these two since birth, Moody and Spike since kindergarten. The five of us had been best friends through elementary. In middle school, the four guys began to hang out more without me, and I lost my footing. It wasn’t intentional, not exactly. All of us played soccer with the same club, on ODP, and at school. That was where we spent all of our time. By age twelve they kicked me