here. I find Summer on the couch with Audrey. Summer’s friend Daphne is curled up in the armchair, and rounding out the group is a face I haven’t seen since the morning at the diner. Rupi Miller. AKA, Hollis’s stalker-slash-girlfriend.
“Brenna!” Rupi says happily. She’s on the floor lounging on an oversized pillow and wearing a similar outfit to what she had on at the diner. A light-blue, A-line dress with a lacy collar, black tights, and two sparkly barrettes in her raven hair. She looks cute and prim, and the blue shade of her dress goes amazing with her skin tone.
“Come sit with me,” she urges. “Also, you look gorgeous! Guys, how gorgeous does she look? I can’t believe your skin—it’s so luminous. What do you use for it? On mine I use a homemade mask that my mom told me about. That’s how I get my pinkish hue. It’s—”
“I’m going to grab a drink,” I interrupt.
Rupi is still chattering as I leave the room. I don’t even know who she’s talking to anymore. Maybe herself?
Summer trails after me into the kitchen. “Holy moly, Bee, that girl can talk. And I thought I was a blabbermouth.”
“You are and so is she. Two blabbermouths can exist in the same realm, babes. It’s not like Highlander.”
“What’s Highlander? I haven’t seen it. Is that the one where the woman travels back in time?”
“No, that’s Outlander. Which, by the way, we absolutely need to watch because the leading man is smoking hot.”
“Oooh! All right. Let’s do it after the semester ends.”
“Done.”
As I pour myself a glass of water, Summer raises her eyebrows. “It’s girls’ night,” she reminds me. “We’re drinking margaritas.”
“I’m hydrating first. I’ve barely had anything to drink today. I was holed up in my room working on my final paper for Comm Theory.”
When we wander back into the living room, Rupi is still gushing about her homemade face mask. “It’s just chickpea flour and yogurt, and I swear it is the best exfoliant ever. You’ll be glowing after.”
Audrey and Daphne are hanging on her every word. “I’m officially intrigued,” Daphne says. “I’m always on the hunt for a good exfoliator. My skin is garbage lately.”
“We should do it now,” Audrey suggests. “Do you have chickpea flour and yogurt?”
Summer dons a blank look. “I have no idea.”
“Let’s go check.” Rupi races toward the kitchen with Audrey and Daphne hot on her heels.
I watch them go. “Did they just become best friends?”
“I think they did.”
“Are she and Hollis actually a thing?” I ask as I steal Daphne’s spot. I settle in the armchair and curl my legs under me.
“I have no idea. It’s the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen.” Summer lowers her voice. “She’s either screaming at him or he’s screaming at her. Otherwise, they’re making out.”
I bite my lip to keep from laughing. “If you think about it, that’s exactly the kind of relationship I would expect Hollis to be in.”
“Me too. But it’s so weird.”
“Exactly, like him.”
Summer smirks. “Says the person who made out with him.”
“So? You’ve never made out with a weirdo before?”
“You made out with Mike?” Rupi appears in the doorway, jaw agape.
Uh-oh.
For a second, I debate lying to the girl, until I realize how ridiculous that is. Who cares if I kissed Hollis? Besides, it’s not like he cheated on her with me. “I did,” I confirm. “But you don’t need to—”
“Ha!” she interrupts, her brown eyes twinkling. “I totally knew! Mike tells me everything.”
He does?
“And don’t worry, I’m not mad at you,” Rupi assures me.
“I wouldn’t have cared if you were.”
“Ha, you’re so funny.” She giggles, then asks Summer a yogurt-related question before darting into the kitchen.
“I wasn’t joking,” I tell Summer. “I wouldn’t have given a shit if she was mad.”
She snorts. “I know.”
My phone vibrates, and I commit a girls’ night faux pas by checking it.
JAKE: How’s it goin’ over there? Have you had a girl-on-girl orgasm yet?
* * *
ME: Not yet. So bummed.
* * *
JAKE: Not as bummed as I am.
Detective Di Laurentis is instantly on the case. “Who are you texting with?”
“Nobody.”
“Don’t say nobody. You literally just texted somebody.” Her green eyes light up. “Are you still secretly dating that Harvard guy?”
I almost blurt out how did you know before I realize she’s referring to McCarthy, not Jake.
“We were never dating,” I answer with a shrug. “We just hooked up a few times.” I hurry on when I see her opening her mouth. “That was Nate, okay? Relax.”
“Ugh. Say hi to him.” She looks