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  Jason and Emily stood in front of a blue backdrop, holding hands and smiling for the camera, their crowns and homecoming sashes lending an extra touch of elegance to their formalwear.

  “Perfect, guys,” the photographer said. He snapped a photo of them. And he was right: they looked perfect.

  The party bus was a much happier affair for Jason the second time around for two reasons: one, Emily was grinding on his lap; and two, he’d drunk six beers. (His friends were having a good time too: Eric was groping some girl—Jason couldn’t see whom—and Andy was chatting up . . . Alyson Manning? Every dog had his day, he supposed.) But for some reason, he wasn’t actually happy. Everything had gone according to plan: he had led his team to victory during the homecoming game, he had won homecoming king, and he had gotten the hottest girl in school as his queen and as his date for the homecoming dance, yet he wasn’t satisfied. He didn’t understand how that was possible. How could he have gotten everything he had wanted, but feel that there was something missing?

  Just then Emily leaned back and whispered, “My mom’s working third shift at the hospital tonight,” in his ear while rubbing his leg. Finally. After almost two weeks of dealing with Emily’s bullshit, he was going to get laid. Not a kiss. Not a hand job. Laid. He had found what was missing. What were his victories without a round (or three) of celebratory sex? Emily drew her mouth toward his, and they made out.

  “Ew!” and “Get a room, lovebirds!” were their friends’ responses to their kissing.

  The party bus dropped Jason and Emily off at Emily’s place twenty minutes later. They flew up the stairs, toward Emily’s bedroom, kissing and groping along the way. The door to Emily’s bedroom banged open. Jason and Emily stumbled over the threshold, their bodies so fused that they looked like conjoined twins. They began clawing at each other’s buttons and zippers, Jason going so fast that his hands were a blur (he was that horny!) and Emily going at a more glacial pace.

  “You know, baby, I’m really impressed with you,” Emily said in between the kissing and the undressing. “Most guys wouldn’t work as hard as you to fix their screwups, but you, you really went that extra mile to make it up to me every time you hurt me, and I really appreciate that.”

  “And I appreciate you.” Jason took off his pants and boxers as he talked to speed things along. He had already undressed Emily.

  “I love you,” Emily said.

  “I love you, too.” Jason picked Emily up and carried her over to the bed, kissing her the whole time, so she wouldn’t keep delaying his prize. He laid her on the bed and positioned himself on top of her. Her warm, naked body felt like heaven against his as they dry humped. Jason swirled his fingers inside of Emily a couple of times and then replaced his fingers with his dick. Normally, he liked to give his women more of a warm-up—for his sake and theirs—but he was so excited that he dispensed with the formalities. A dozen missionary thrusts later, and Jason had come inside Emily. She snuggled him, stroking his chest. Jason feigned snoring, so she wouldn’t try to talk to him. Their session wasn’t what he had hoped it would be (he had planned on talking Emily into doing some kinky stuff, such as oral and hair pulling), but need would do that to a guy. He still had tomorrow morning before he ended things with Emily. Maybe when they woke up, they could try some kinky stuff.

  “Jason! Jason! Jason, get up!”

  Jason awoke the next morning to find Emily shaking him and whispering his name with such urgency that it could only mean one thing: “Your mom’s home?”

  “Yeah. She’s in the shower, so you have to go now before she comes out. I can drive you home.”

  “Okay.” Jason dressed himself and followed Emily to her mom’s car. He was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to fuck Emily the way he had wanted to during their last hurrah (rough and nasty). It was the only thing marring his perfect homecoming weekend. Last night’s encounter was the sexual equivalent of Chinese food: unfulfilling, and it had left him craving more thirty minutes later. He could keep up this charade of a relationship until they got to the kinky stuff, but it wasn’t worth it. Emily was a nice girl, but she was unbelievably insipid, not to mention clingy (how had he not noticed this last year, as often as they had hung out? It was probably because her hotness had overwhelmed him and because they had always been part of a large group when they had hung out). No, Emily had served her purpose: he had wanted the hottest girl in school as his homecoming date, he had gotten her, and now that he had had her, he needed to cut her loose. He needed a new girl. Maybe Alyson Manning if Andy hadn’t hooked up with her. What was Jason thinking? Of course Andy hadn’t hooked up with her. She had probably flirted with him last night only because she had been drunk.

  Emily pulled up in front of Jason’s house. “Call me, okay?” she pleaded.

  “I will,” Jason lied.

  She kissed him. “I love you.”

  “Same.” He got out of the car and trudged to his house. He was still feeling sleepy, so he went back to bed when he went inside. He stayed in bed until three in the afternoon. That was when his phone started ringing.

  “Yeah?” he yawned.

  “It’s me, man!” uttered Andy, his voice dripping with excitement. “You just waking up, dude?”

  “Yup. Had a bit of a long night.”

  “Me too! Guess who I fucked last night?”

  Please don’t let it be Alyson Manning. He wanted to fuck her, and he didn’t want Andy’s—of all people’s—sloppy seconds. “I don’t know, who?” Jason asked, doing his best to sound nonchalant.

  “Alyson Manning! Man, it was so fucking sweet!”

  Damn! “Congrats, buddy,” Jason said, trying to sound happy for his friend when he was actually jealous that Andy had gotten to Alyson first. Amazing Jason Pruitt jealous of weirdo Andy Abbott—who would have thought it?

  “Thanks,” Andy said. He sounded genuinely appreciative of the approval Jason had sent his way. “I guess I should be saying the same to you. Your little performance must’ve finally convinced Emily to take you off probation, huh?”

  “Oh yeah. It definitely did, man.”

  “I bet it was even better this time than it was the first time you guys did it, wasn’t it?”

  Jason took advantage of Andy’s assumptions: “Uh-huh. She let me do some really kinky shit.”

  “What did she let you do? Wait, let me try and call Eric, so he can hear, too.”

  Andy called Eric.

  “What up?” Eric answered.

  “Me and Jason got laid last night. What about you?”

  “Yeah, I got laid, too. I popped Penny Simmons’s cherry.”

  “A virgin, very nice,” Jason said.

  “Very nice and tight. So who did you losers fuck?”

  “Well, I slept with Emily again, and Andy bagged Alyson Manning.”

  “No fucking way!”

  “Yes fucking way!” Andy asserted, his voice a mixture of umbrage and pride. “Jealous?”

  “Hell yeah! How did a chump like you get Alyson Manning?”

  That’s what Jason wanted to know, too.

  “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

  “Oh, I get it. It was a pity fuck.”

  They all laughed.

  “So, J, how was Emily: the sequel? Was she worth the drought?”

  “Yeah, she was,” Jason said, going into raconteur mode.

  “Well, don’t be stingy, bro. Share.”

  “I don’t know if you guys can handle it.” He was stalling to give himself time to concoct a lie. He had never lied to his friends about sex before; he had never needed to, but this time he would. And it’s not as though he had a choice: it was either lie, and tell them he’d had the best sex ever with Emily; or be honest, and tell them that the sex with Emily had been lackluster, letting Eric and Andy upstage him. Eric was one thing, but Andy? Not a chance in hell.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When Sara walked into Tallis High on Monday morning, no hideous posters were littering the walls,
no one was wearing only school-colored clothing, and no one was sporting a blue-and-white face. The school had finally gone back to normal after homecoming, and Sara couldn’t have been happier. She hated all of that football shit, and how it made most of the town act like raging idiots. She simply did not get it. So a bunch of steroided-to-hell-and-back morons hit one another over a ball while wearing tacky nylon uniforms. Big fucking whoop. Call her when they cured cancer or did anything that actually required some brain cells. And what really pissed her off about homecoming was how every year everybody would bend over backward to kiss the football players’ asses and give them special treatment: they would get a parade and a pep rally, and they would get free meals at every restaurant in town. She was surprised no one had yet offered to give them a kidney, too. Even her dad would join in on the lunacy, and he would try to get her to join in as well. As if she would ever deign to attend a football game. She shuddered to think about how her dad would react if he knew she was tutoring Jason Pruitt, the big football star. Well, she had been tutoring the idiot, but he had taken last week off for homecoming (apparently football is so much more important than an education), and tomorrow she would start tutoring the idiot again. At least it counted toward her National Honor Society community-service requirements, and it looked good on college applications, so tutoring him wouldn’t be a total waste of time.

  “Smile, Ms. Krason,” said Mr. Franklin, who was sauntering down the hall. “It’s a beautiful Monday morning, we have nice fall weather, and we’re well on our way to winning our second state championship in a row.”

  Sara stared daggers at him as he passed her. Idiot. This school, this entire town was filled with nothing but idiots.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was the last week in September, and Jason hadn’t gotten any closer to winning the bet than when he had first started running game on Sara. Granted, he had taken a week off for homecoming, but still, it had never taken him this long to get a girl in the sack. Puppy-dog eyes, shy smiles, accidental touching—nothing in his bag of tricks had worked on her. He liked a challenge, but this girl was proving to be so insurmountable that he was starting to wonder whether she was a muff diver (she did kind of have a Rosie O’Donnell thing going on, however, Sara wasn’t as ugly as she was). He was getting desperate. And that’s when he asked, “Who’s that woman in that picture over there?” He was talking about the picture of the smoking-hot redhead he had seen when he had first come to Sara’s house.

  “Why?” Sara asked, suspicious.

  “I was just trying to make conversation, maybe get to know you a little better, that’s all. We’ve been at this for a few weeks now, and we’re still basically strangers.”

  Sara eyed him for a moment, her facial expression chary, and then said, “That’s my mother.”

  “She’s pretty. Is it just you and her, or is your dad still around?”

  “Can we just get back to work?” Sara snapped.

  “I’m sorry if I said something to offend you.”

  Sara turned to him, exasperated: “My mother passed away about three years ago. It’s not something I like talking about, okay?”

  Jason smiled on the inside: A dead mother. He could definitely work that. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up such a painful topic. Were you guys close?”

  “Jason, calculus!” she said, tapping on his textbook. “You do remember calculus, don’t you? That subject you need to pass in order to get into SCU?”

  “Jeez, you don’t have to take my head off. I was just trying to be friendly. You looked like you could really use someone to talk to.” He pretended to focus on his calculus book as he waited for Sara to give him the response he desired.

  “Yes, we were close,” Sara shared, after a brief moment of silence. “Very close. She was my best friend. She always believed in me and told me I had the power and the ability to be whatever I wanted to be.”

  “That’s horrible. I can’t imagine losing my best friend. How did she pass, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Cancer. She had a rare form of cancer called B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia. It’s very difficult to treat.”

  “God, Sara, I’m so sorry.” He tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder . . .

  “Don’t,” she said before he could touch her.

  Jason put his hand back down. (Does this girl ever flip the bitch switch to off ?) “Sorry. Are you close with your dad, too?”

  She looked down for a second before responding. “Yeah.”

  “Your parents sound hella cool. I wish mine were like that,” Jason said without thinking.

  “Oh yeah, I’m sure your parents are real horrible,” Sara said sarcastically.

  “Look, you don’t know me. You don’t know the first thing about my parents or my life.”

  “You’re right, I don’t. So tell me why your parents are so bad. Do they only give you fifty dollars a week for allowance instead of a hundred? Make you drive a used car instead of buying you a top-of-the-line Hummer? Forget to give you a standing ovation after every touchdown?”

  “My father calls me pathetic and stupid, and he beats me, and my mom usually takes his side!” He got up and punched the wall, he was so angry.

  “I . . . I . . . I didn’t—”

  “Didn’t know?” He finished her sentence for her. “Yeah, I know you didn’t know. You’re too busy being angry and judging me to want to know. You opened up to me, you shared with me, and I was trying to do the same but no. I’m just a dumb, spoiled jock, right? I can’t possibly have any real problems. My life must be fucking perfect, right? Well, guess what? It’s fucking not!” He punched the wall again.

  “Stop punching my fucking wall!” She took a breath. “Look, I’m sorry. I really, really am. I did misjudge you and think you were nothing but a dumb, spoiled jock. I was wrong, and I’m sorry. Now let’s get back to work. No more personal stuff.”

  Jason took his seat. “But don’t you feel better now that you’ve gotten all that stuff off your chest? I know I do. I’ve never told anyone what I just told you, and now that I have, I feel like a huge weight’s been lifted. And besides, isn’t it better when we’re like this, you know, being nice and friendly toward each other instead of that weird cold-war thing we had going on?” Jason was still trying to win the bet, but nothing he had said to Sara was a lie. He had never told anyone how abusive his father was, and he had never intended to tell Sara, but he had forgotten himself for a moment. He had opened up when he was supposed to be getting Sara to open up, and he figured he might as well use the information he had divulged to his advantage. And it did feel good to get the stuff about his father off his chest. Really good. It felt better than all the times everyone had cheered for him when he had scored a touchdown or made an impossible pass. It felt better than impressing his friends by scoring with the hottest girls in school. Hell, it even felt better than sex (well, maybe better than masturbating. And the occasional bad lay. Nothing was better than good sex). Jason was just happy it had been Sara he had shared with and not anyone else: she didn’t have any friends, and no one paid her any attention, so Jason didn’t have to worry about her blabbing his secrets all over school.

  “What cold-war thing? We don’t have a cold-war thing.”

  “You walk around with a chip on your shoulder, and I walk around on eggshells just so I don’t say or do anything to piss you off.”

  “That’s not really a cold-war type of thing. And I don’t walk around with a chip on my shoulder.”

  “How many times have you assumed I was a spoiled, dumb jock?”

  “Okay, fine. You’re right,” she conceded, after several moments. “And we can do the nice-and-friendly thing.” She gave a little chortle.

  Score! Four hundred dollars, here I come!

  Thursday’s tutoring session went as well as Tuesday’s: Sara opened up more, and they spent more time getting to know each other than studying.

  “No way! Your dad really owns three gun ranges?”
Jason said. They were sitting next to each other on the couch in the living room. Their calculus books sat on the coffee table, closed.

  “He does. He taught me how to shoot and lets me come to the range here in town. We even go hunting for a turkey every Thanksgiving.”

  “Wow. I just never pictured you as a hunter. Or any girl. I still can’t. That’s so cool.” He took a sip of the Sprite that Sara had given him.

  “Why? You think all girls are weak and silly and only into frilly stuff?”

  Jason did in fact think that, but he knew better than to confirm it. “It’s just that girls, or at least the ones I know, are always into clothes and makeup and those really lame romance films, and not cool, badass stuff like sports and horror movies and—”

  “I love horror movies!” Her face brightened.

  “You do?”

  “Mm-hmm. That’s why October is my favorite month. It’s nothing but horror movies, thanks to my favorite holiday.”

  “Columbus Day’s your favorite holiday?”

  She shot him a look.

  “I’m kidding. I know you mean Halloween.”

  “Yes, Halloween. I love everything about it. The scary-movie marathons, the costumes, the ca—” She refrained from finishing her sentence and looked down, but Jason wasn’t sure why. “And yeah, I just love it.”

  “I don’t consider any day we don’t get off from school a real holiday. Halloween’s great for partying though.”

  “Halloween is amazing and you will deal.”

  Jason couldn’t help but smile at how adorable and fun Sara was being. If she acted like this at school, people would like her. “What’s your favorite horror movie?”

  “Scream, hands down. I could watch it all day, every day. And, unlike most horror-movie franchises, the sequels are really good, too. What’s your favorite?”