In there, people had begun cleaning up. I tried to make myself useful, ignoring their curious stares, but couldn’t shake off the jittery feeling that had settled beneath my skin when I had been alone with Jasper. It wasn’t long until I decided to go back to my room as well.

As I crossed the cel ar, I passed the skeleton again. Someone had draped a string of fairy lights around its rib cage while cleaning, the battery pack dangling inside it like a wiry plastic heart. The glow of the lights extended from deep inside its chest to its skull, the dark behind its eyes lit up, almost looking alive as the skull grinned back at me. “Fuck you looking at?” I murmured under my breath before I abruptly turned around, feeling its stare following me all the way to the door.

Once I was back in the boys’ wing, I got out my phone to see if there was any text from Evelyn I had missed. Instead, all that pinged were notifications for a new update on The Chitter Chatter.

To my surprise, it wasn’t on Jasper’s public panic attack.

Instead, it was titled Tonight’s Most Noteworthy Hookups, starting with a paragraph on Noelle and Evelyn.

I didn’t think I would witness the day that Noelle Daniels would pass on a hookup.

As unbelievable as it sounds, Noelle did not make out with Evelyn Greene when the two of them got thrown together for a steamy round of Seven Minutes in Heaven.

Honestly, this must’ve been the tamest any round involving Noelle has ever been.

After all, we have proof that every other time she got picked in the last years, the game ended with more than a few hickeys and some pretty . . . flustered male partners.

The reason seemed to be that Evelyn was drunk, which is why Noelle refused to do anything with her.

A surprisingly honorable move for her, if you ask me.

Shaking my head, I pocketed my phone again. Maybe I would try to deduce something about The Watcher’s identity from this tomorrow; now all I wanted was to go to sleep, to get the memory of Jasper’s panicked pulse beneath my fingertips and Sammy’s accusatory glare and the skeleton’s knowing gaze out of my head.

Tonight sure had been one hell of a party.

8

Evelyn

The day after the party, I woke up with a distinct feeling of regret.

The first reason was the pounding headache that only increased when I sat up.

The second was the realization that I was still in last night’s clothes and makeup, some of which had left an imprint on the pristine white pillow beneath my cheek.

The third and biggest reason was the recollection of those seven minutes in the closet. One glance at Noelle’s bed—empty, thankfully, but with rumpled sheets that proved she had spent the night here—was enough to set off an avalanche of memories from last night: the furious look on her face when she had punched Lance; the sound of her laughter echoing from the closet wal s; the weight of her hand on my hip. In broad daylight, all of it seemed impossible, despite the fact that I could still feel the phantom touch of her lips against my cheek, as soft as it had been unexpected.