“You guys,” I yell three shots later. “This is it! We are halfway done with senior year. Prom and graduation and Nicaragua are so close I can practically taste them on my tongue!” I turn toward Gene and give him a big sloppy kiss. “Oh, wait, that’s Gene’s tongue,” I say, and dive-bomb his mouth again.

“Cham is drunk!” Gene shouts to the roomful of people: Marquis with two bottles of beer duct-taped to his hands, Lola doing a body shot off Mara’s stomach while she lies on the blue plaid couch, Hilary flirting with Travis against the wall beneath a banner for the Gill School’s cross-country team. They follow Gene in raising their bottles in the air and cheer for me and I toss my hair around. I feel like a pop star. I probably look like a golden retriever.

“I’m not drunk,” I laugh, letting my watery body sink into Gene’s arms. “I’m dreaming in real-life stars.”

Gene kisses me sloppily on the lips, and Abigail comes up to us, dancing. “Just a little preview of what’s coming at Senior Show,” she shouts, then proceeds to break it down, rubbing her butt against the keg like it’s the hottest thing in the room.

Gene and I goofily face each other—he’s about as gifted in the shake-your-ass department as I am, and for a few songs we’re as free as the musical notes released into the air. My head feels like it’s blasted with helium.

“We’re doing it,” I shout. “And we’re doing it together. Just wait until prom—”

The basement door opens, and we all stop rubbing up against each other because one of Gene’s moms already came down once and told us to be quiet. “Not gonna go to jail for providing minors a safe place to do all the underage drinking they’d be doing anyway,” she’d mumbled. But as I squint at the door, I realize the leather-legginged legs are not the legs of fifty-year-old Mrs. Wolf.

“Yay, you’re here!” Abigail calls as three girls on the dance team wave to her and descend the stairs. They have everything on that we’re not allowed to wear in school, mainly crop tops exposing belly button rings that remind me how much I want a belly button ring. The three of them start dancing, and it gets the whole room dancing harder.

“Hey, we should go upstairs,” I whisper in Gene’s ear the next time the song changes. I feel fuzzy and warm and a little sick—not necessarily physically sick, but sick with wanting something sick. Suddenly prom does not seem like the night to do it. Tonight does. “Come on.”

“We’ll have plenty of alone time later,” he whispers. “We don’t want to miss the party. Besides, I gotta keep an eye on things down here.”

“Of course,” I say, and pinch his butt before I make my way over to Abigail, my virginity lodged in place. Likelihood that it will move in this lifetime? You tell me.