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"I'm just saying," Juno says, wrapping both hands around her mug before it's even fully on the table. "That was an excellent first party."

"The playlist was terrible," Cara says.

"The playlist was terrible," Juno agrees, completely unbothered. "And it was still excellent."

Maya tears off a piece of her croissant and points it at the ceiling. "The beer pong table. That's what did it for me. The moment Sadie sank that last cup…"

"I knew I'd sink it." I act all confident, but I wasn’t last night when I was playing for the first time.

The coffee arrives, and I wrap my hands around mine and let the warmth move through my palms and up my wrists and I think about last night. I enjoyed it and definitely plan on going to more of them.

"Those guys were good looking though," I say. "The beer pong ones. We should have got their number."

"The tall one especially," Maya says.

"The tall one was looking at you the whole time," Cara tells her, and I agree.

Maya sits up straighter. "He was not."

"He was.”

"He was," Juno and I confirm, simultaneously.

Maya picks up her coffee and takes a very long sip and says nothing, but I see the smile on her face. I’m going to get her to talk to him next time we see him.

"Can we also acknowledge," Bree says, sliding her sunglasses down her nose to look at us properly for the first time this morning. "That was the first party of the year, we are all here, nobody made any decisions we need to debrief in a crisis capacity, and collectively we looked incredible."

"We did look incredible," Juno says.

"The yellow dress," Cara says in my direction.

"I know," I say, because I do know what they mean about my dress. "I'm just upset none of us got lucky. It was the first party and nothing. That feels statistically unlikely."

"It's a long year," Juno says.

"But still. Those beer pong boys. Somebody could have made an effort." No one even tried to hit on me, actually on any of us.

"You were too busy destroying them at their own game," Maya says with a laugh. "Men don’t like that."

"Then they're the wrong men," I say to them, lifting my coffee at them. They all agree, we need to find men who want us even when we’re kicking their ass at a game.

Bree slides her sunglasses back up. "This is going in the group chat."

“Everyone in the group chat is sitting right here,” I tell her, making everyone at the table laugh.

With a laugh, Bree replies, “Yeah, so when one of us makes a stupid decision we can see in the group chat, we agreed to be with an asshole.”

None of us fight her on that, because we all know one of us will fuck up and sleep with someone who is stupid and nowhere close to good enough for us.

After ordering another coffee, because we’ll all need it today, we leave Grounds, coffees in hand, taking the long route toward the athletics building because none of us are really in the mood to do anything. I’ve a feeling Coach Pearce isn’t going to be happy with us. So, I think she’ll be pushing us a lot harder this morning.

“You would think with the amount Coach wants us to do, she would let us rest a little,” Juno is moaning about the worksheet Coach gave us. “All I’m saying is…“ Juno stops when Maya fake coughs and grabs my sleeve to get our attention.

"Okay, don't be obvious. Look on your left side, over by the science block," she whispers looking over.

Maya is as subtle as a foghorn. I look left trying hard to look like I’m not looking left.

There's a group of guys outside the science block. One of them is easy to clock. He’s tall, broad, has physical confidence that reads across a distance. He has dark hair and he's laughing at something, with his head tipped back, and completely at home in whatever moment he's in.