Except I did care a little, and we both knew it, so I poured myself another drink. And another after that. How we ended up playing spin the bottle, I don’t know. I’m not clear on how I ended up making out with Jennifer Gill, specifically, though Devi told me her cheap-seats view proved that gender was absolutely not a hurdle for me when it came to kissing. I met Jack after the game ended. He was tall, almost six foot, with olive skin, black hair and eyes as blue as the Pac-Man Inky ghost on my Atari T-shirt. The boy was hot. Hotter-than-convenience-store-nacho-cheese hot. I liked how he had a ridge in his nose that skewed the angle a bit, like he’d broken it and never gotten it properly set. It added character to his face.

I was by the pool hanging out with Devi when he approached with another guy, whose name is unimportant (but only because I can’t remember it, if we’re being perfectly honest). The friend was hitting on Devi in the most awkward way possible, opening with a line about Cheetos, but Jack was all about me. Had I been more sober, I probably would have worried that he was doing the wingman, occupy-the-other-chick-so-my-friend-can-score-the-hottie thing, but after so many Aaron-and-Samantha sightings, and walking in on them swapping spit four separate times in four separate rooms, I wanted some attention of my own.

“Hey,” I said, offering my best smile.

“Hey. I’m Jack. Cool shirt. My dad’s got a 5200 set up in the basement.”

“I’m Sara. Serendipity, but everyone calls me Sara.” I grinned at him, he grinned back. He was drinking beer in a blue cup, which I only know because I remember how he smelled in the truck—Budweiser and Old Spice and breath mints. But at that point, he was just the tall guy with one hand wedged into his jeans pocket, the other holding his drink. Devi must have noticed me making eyes at him because she led her half of the duo away to talk to him near the tents. Jack and I watched them go before he nodded at the picnic table.

“Quarters? I haven’t played that since...man. Last summer some time,” Jack said.

“I’ve never played,” I confessed, feeling shy that I hadn’t yet experienced this particular rite of passage. Jack looped his arm around my back, his fingers brushing the bottom of my curly hair, to usher me over to the game. It wasn’t complicated—you bounced quarters off the table to try to get them into the cups set up at the end—but after half a bottle of Boone’s, I had the coordination of an inbred squirrel. I ended up missing every round. Fuzzy became full-on tipsy with an obnoxious case of the giggles.