“Holy shit, Manson? What’s up, man?” One of the guys grasped Manson’s hand, pulling him into a bear hug as he did. The others clapped his back, asking how he’d been, quickly striking up a conversation.

When they eventually moved on, distracted by someone’s shouted invitation to open a keg, I looked at Manson in surprise. “That was Rob Davis, wasn’t it? I thought he…”

“Shoved my head in a toilet freshman year?” Manson finished for me, pouring a shot of vodka into a plastic cup. “Yeah, that was him. A few of those guys were there for the toilet incident actually.” He opened a can of Sprite, emptying it into his cup. “Good times.”

“God, they’re so fake,” I hissed, ladling sangria into my own cup. I sipped it as I said, “I don’t know how you can stand it.”

“I rarely ever see those guys, so I can manage to be polite,” he said. “Besides, people change. So long as they aren’t giving me or my family a problem, then I don’t have a problem with them. We’ve all done fucked up things when we were young and dumb. You did. I definitely have.”

“What did you do that was fucked up?” I said, genuinely curious. I could remember him getting into trouble for smoking, tardiness, skateboarding on campus, and obviously, the knife incident. But otherwise, he seemed to always keep his head down.

“Murder and mayhem,” he said, putting his arm around my waist as we left the kitchen. We had a mission to accomplish, but we also needed to blend in for at least a little while so no one got suspicious. “You know, stereotypical punk rat shit.”

“Murder?” My eyes widened. “No way…”

“I’m joking. Come on, Jess.” He gave me that crooked smile that made my heart flutter. “Do I really look like I’d murder someone?”

“Well…” I let it hang, then leaned toward him and said quietly, “You look like you could murder this pussy, so yeah, you do look like a killer.”

His smile was barely restrained as he shook his head. “Damn, you’ve barely even had a drink yet. Flirting with me already?”

“I don’t need alcohol to flirt with you.” We’d entered the living room, where the large sliding glass door was open, leading to the back patio. Crowds were gathered around the beer pong table outside, and I spotted Danielle and Nate among them, subtly pointing them out to Manson. He pulled out his phone again to let the others know we had eyes on them.

Now we had to find Alex. We needed to know where they all were before the boys made their move.

“Funny, isn’t it?” Manson said as we watched the excited crowds. “The last time we were at a party together, I had to dare you to get close to me.” He laughed softly. “Now, this time…”