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“Crazy fun is always so much better,” I tell him as we walk to the party house. I know Declan is inside the house somewhere.

The house belongs to someone on the lacrosse team whose parents made the catastrophic decision to go to Portugal for the week. The music hits before we're through the gate. Mason is already moving ahead of me, already absorbed, and already someone else's problem. I don’t mind having a no Mason night. If he drinks too much, I’m sure someone will call me. I’ve had a few nights where he’s had a little too much, and I’ve had a call asking for help. Let’s see how many times that will happen this year.

I find a wall. I’m not hiding, just looking around to see who’s here, and if there’s anyone I like. I know that sounds like I’m hunting for something or someone. Maybe I am. Maybe I’m hunting for her.

And there she is. She’s sexy, so fucking sexy. She’s dressed in yellow.

My eyes find her before my brain has finished looking. She's across the room, near the makeshift bar, a fold-out table doing its best. She has one hand around a red solo cup, the other gesturing mid-story. Juno is beside her in a green dress, Cara slightly behind. The three of them occupy a pocket of space that the party moves around without quite knowing why.

I don't move toward her.

I stay on my wall, and I watch.

The yellow dress has a strap that keeps threatening to slide, and it’d better not, because it looks like she has no bra on under the dress. Fuck, why is she not wearing a bra? She pushes it up without interrupting the conversation, and then it slides again twenty seconds later.

She lets it go this time.

My jaw tightens at the thought of it slipping further down and every guy getting to see something which is mine.

She doesn't scan the room, most people scan the room, and the crowd, to see who's watching them. She doesn't though. Either she's never had a reason to, or she's decided she doesn't care. I’m hoping it’s because she’s never had to; she’s too sweet to have to worry about anything.

I watch as she lifts the red cup to her lips. She takes a drink, and there’s only one thought in my head right now. How would her lips look around my dick? At the thought my dick jolts, fuck, I’m getting a hard on from just watching her drink from a fucking red solo cup. How hard have I fallen for a girl I’ve not even spoken to?

She says something over the rim that makes Juno throw her head back laughing, and Cara presses her hand to her mouth to contain her own laughter. Sadie starts laughing with them, and I glance somewhere else in the room before anyone notices I’m watching her. I can only bear to look away from her for a few seconds and then I’m watching her again.

The crowd thickens near the speakers, there’s a group moving through the room, and she moves with it, angling herself toward the far side of the bar. The trajectory brings her parallel to the wall I'm standing on. Everything in me goes very still.

She's a foot away, her strap is sliding again, and her head is turned toward Juno. Her hair is down the way it was in the dorm window, and she smells like something warm that I have no idea what it is.

She doesn't turn to look at me when she passes, but Juno smiles at me. She knows who I am. She whispers something in Sadie’s ear whilst looking at me, and I wait to see if Sadie turns. She does a small bit, but then Cara grabs her attention and the moment passes.

The yellow dress moves through my peripheral vision, and then she's past me. The warmth in the room goes with her and I'm standing, leaning against a wall, not able to move.

"You've been staring at the same corner of the room for forty minutes." Mason hands me a beer, and I take it. I need something to pull me back to the party.

"I'm thinking."

"You brought your thinking to a party? Come on Miles, a party is where you don’t think.”

I choose not to reply to him. He looks over to where I’m looking at Sadie. He turns back to me and stands in front of me with a smile.

“Go have fun, she might like it.”

Mason pulls me off the wall and pushes me to our group of friends.

“Dance?” a girl asks, and I don’t get the chance to reply before Mason pushes me toward her.

I was going to say yes, hoping it would make me stop thinking about Sadie, and how I’ve become a fucking stalker.

The girl's name is either Tasha or Tara. I know she told me, but I can’t remember.

She moves well; I'll give her that.

Outside, Sadie is losing at beer pong.

She’s losing badly, by the looks of it. Juno is covering her mouth. Cara has taken a tactical step back. Sadie herself is laughing.

Tasha-or-Tara does something with her hips. I tighten my grip on autopilot.