Honeytrap by CRYSTAL GREEN Page A

was coming from Jimmy’s truck, we hesitated at a strange sight across the field: a black Impala that resembled a stock car had some dinglehead sitting on top of the roof, his legs spread and his boots hooked into the opened windows like he was in a saddle.
    Everyone was cheering him on right before someone shouted, “Bust that bronc!”
    The car revved its engine and . . . holy shit. It took off in a spray of dust while the fool gave a yell.
    â€œThat’s Zachary Lowe!” Evie said.
    I was trying not to let my jaw hit the ground because, somehow, our valedictorian had ended up doing rodeo tricks on a car. This wasn’t like any party I’d ever been to in town. Not that I’d been a high school party girl, but . . . Wow.
    When the Impala slammed on its breaks, Zachary went flying into a bunch of hay that’d been set out, and a collective
“Ooo!”
drowned out the music. No one moved.
    â€œShit!” Evie whispered.
    Was the smartest guy in our class dead? Paralyzed?
    â€œZach!” Jimmy Holland, with his ranch-boy shoulders and plaid shirt, dove toward the idiot in the hay.
    But when Zachary bounded up like a jack-in-the-box, his hands above his head in a victory cheer, everyone pumped their fists and drank their beer.
    Evie pulled me toward the keg. “Good God. I’ve gotta get drunk.”
    â€œYou think beer’s going to top that?”
    â€œIt’ll ease the surreal nature of our surroundings, that’s a guarantee.”
    As we approached the keg, we were spotted by a bunch of kids I knew but didn’t really know. They’d eaten at the tables on the opposite side of the high school cafeteria. They’d gone to parties after the football games—the ones that standoffish girls like me and Evie never knew about until the next day at school, when gossip made its rounds. They’d worked after school on their family’s ranches or farms while Evie and I had stuck around town, doing chores in our homes or parents’ businesses.
    â€œLook here—the brain squad!” shouted a guy I recognized from the football team who’d graduated a few years ago. He’d been a receiver, one of Rex’s favorite targets when my ex was a boy-wonder freshman who’d made second-string varsity. Jefferson Mayes, with his short, curly black hair covered by a Stetson.
    The moonlight danced over his dark skin. “First came Zachary, then you two. Is there a message on some nerd web page about making up for lost party time?”
    â€œNo,” Evie said, accepting a Solo cup from a kid in a Texas Rangers cap who’d been on the baseball team and sat in the back of my English class—Reese Darnell. “We nerds have a hive mind, so we know one another’s thoughts.”
    Blank looks from the ’necks.
    â€œNo one watches
Star Trek
?” Evie asked.
    Some of them coughed, saying “nerd” at the same time, but they did it teasingly, not cruelly.
    Reese Darnell smiled shyly at me, like he kind-of-sort-of recognized me. No surprise, since I was taller, slimmer, and curvier now. My hair was longer and swimming pool–blonder than it’d been senior year, too, since I’d taken a swimming class last semester. He started to fill a cup from the keg, but I asked for water from a nearby container instead. In the background, another rider was all set to go on the Impala, which revved its engine, gearing up for a second drunk to go flying.
    Jefferson shook his head and hopped onto the truck’s tailgate. “How long before someone gets himself killed over there?”
    â€œJimmy’ll stop it from happening,” another farm boy said. I didn’t know who he was but I was pretty sure he was older than we were, based on his scruffy beard and an air of not really belonging. As a matter of fact, the more I looked around, it seemed that this was a more “mature” party that had landed