I don’t check Shannon’s Instagram once. Or even Chase’s.

The party house isn’t as impressive as the Killarys’, but it’s decked out by someone who seriously knows how to host. We go right around to the beach, where flames from a fire pit lick the sky, dance music fills the air, and coolers of ice, soda, and beer dot the grass. There’s a table full of little dishes of shrimp cocktail and crackers with speckled, cheesy spreads, and though every single chaise and beach chair in the entire Outer Banks seem to be in this one yard, every single one has a butt in it—in some cases, two butts attached to intertwined couples.

“Whose house is this?” I ask as we pick our way over to the drinks and I dutifully take a can of Diet Dr Pepper in adherence to my designated driver promise.

“Carter Thomas,” she says, plucking the can from my hand and pressing a bottle of Corona into it instead. “I’ve thought about it and have come to the conclusion that making you DD on the night of your very first OBX party is too cruel, so just this once, I got it.” She cracks open the can and takes a long, defiant drink, as if that ends the matter. And I suppose it does, because next thing I know I’m sipping from my beer and Jasmine is introducing me around.

It takes a while to find Carter, but until we do, I meet Owen, a red-faced white kid with a shock of carrot-colored hair and an easygoing, slightly gap-toothed smile; Keisha, Carter’s cousin, whose dark skin shimmers with coconut-scented body glitter, a pleasant smell I pick up when she throws her arms around me in a warm hug that envelops me in her Minecraft T-shirt; Brea, who’s maybe white or maybe Latina or maybe both and has long blond braids that whip in the wind and the kind of laugh that occasionally devolves into snorting, a.k.a. the best kind of laugh; and Derek, who’s hot, East Asian, and would definitely be an interesting summer prospect if he weren’t immediately joined by Jack, a dead ringer for Dax Shepard, who intertwines his fingers with Derek’s and doesn’t let go the entire night.