Honeytrap by CRYSTAL GREEN

second . . . and so on. Some friends back at school had told me that sex wouldn’t always be like that with other people, and I wanted to believe them. But I wasn’t all that enthused about test-driving more guys.
    So why was my belly pulling with strange need after this bet revelation? Why did it feel like something had been tied into a knot that throbbed and wouldn’t let up?
    Evie smiled. “I’m simpatico, Shel. The last thing you want is to be a boy-pleaser. And you want to keep a low profile away from the cheerdevils and Rex’s friends, but Micah’s putting you in high-profile territory. But does that necessarily mean you’re going to be a massive blob in every other way this summer?”
    She made me sound like no fun at all. Blobs sat on palettes like the ones Evie used for her paints. Blobs quivered and bled color and had no lives.
    And even a few days into the summer, I was headed in such a blobby direction.
    Evie spun around in the desk chair, then eased to her feet. “We’re on
vacation
, here, my friend. No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers’ dirty looks. So even if you want to avoid the Rexes and Micahs of the world, you can’t hole up in this room or the café for the next couple of months. Am I right?”
    God, I’d missed her. And she
was
right—I shouldn’t care about the bummers of the world. So I smiled, nodding.
    â€œYes!” She clapped her hands together. “Then, listen—there’s this party out at Jimmy Holland’s ranch. His dad is at some agricultural business conference and his mom went to visit a sick aunt, so they left him alone. He’s got a keg, and things should be in full swing right now . . .” She looked at my sudden frown. “What? Too soon?”
    â€œWon’t the others be there?”
    â€œNo. Lindsey Windsor is having a birthday pool party tonight, and all the cheerdevils and Rex and his boys will be over there. Jimmy’s will be a devil-free zone.”
    I couldn’t imagine that Micah would be present, either. He probably had better things to do than hang with Jimmy Holland, who’d been in my grade. Plus, there were a lot of women in town the player hadn’t
oo-lah-lah
ed yet, and the night was still young.
    But since Jimmy’s ranch was on the ’neck side of town, odds were that Lindsey Windsor’s party would be keeping all the upper-class asshats busy, too.
    â€œI’ll even be the DD,” Evie said, sweetening the pot. “Don’t be a blob, Shel.”
    Who was a blob?
    My body had forgotten it was tired. “I’ll drive. You deserve a drink after putting all that energy into such effective speechifying.”
    â€œThanks for appreciating my efforts.”
    I spruced up, then changed from my Angel’s Seat T-shirt into a red-and-white blouse that tied up high, baring my midriff. Evie waited by the empty pool while I shut the sliding door behind me. I led her through the side yard and was just texting Mom so she wouldn’t freak out about my location change when Evie brought up Micah again.
    â€œYou know what the best way ever is to make Rex grind his teeth, though?”
    I put away my phone, then opened my pickup’s door. “I’m not having sex with Micah Wyatt.”
    â€œGot it.”
    As we climbed in, I was thankful my cab light was broken, because if she saw how much I was flushing now, she’d never let me forget it.
    ***
    Parties definitely didn’t get ’neckier than this.
    A full moon washed over a wide field as we pulled off the dirt lane that stretched from the main road to the Hollands’ one-story ranch house. A bonfire burned nearby, and there was a keg in the flatbed of Jimmy’s red GM truck, where a circle of guys gathered.
    That’s not where the rest of the crowd was, though.
    As Evie and I walked from my parked pickup toward the Blake Shelton music that