“Oh.” She laughed. “Nothing. I’m so excited for you. I’m just bummed because I was hoping to have my first kiss with Mr. Halifax tonight. I left him a note on his desk inviting him to the party. It was actually a dual Operation First Kiss.”

“You what?”

“Don’t freak out. And I know it was a dumb idea. Obviously. I mean…he didn’t come.”

“You’re as bad as those girls that invited my dad tonight.”

Sophie gagged. “Sorry, still not over it. I’m glad he didn’t let me come over last night. Aunt Penny would have been so confused about why I was dry heaving all over the place.”

“Mhm.”

“But back to your thing. You’re really going to kiss Jacob?”

I nodded. “If I can find him. And explain the whole incest plan thing. Not that I ever really did it anyway. Everything that’s happened between me and Jacob has felt so normal.” I thought I wanted Axel to see how much I’d changed over the summer. But maybe it had been Jacob all along. And it wasn’t just me who had changed. He had too.

“I really love you two together. I’m totally Team Jacob. I mean in this case. Obviously in Twilight I was Team Edward. But where do you think Jacob is?”

“I don’t know…”

We both started looking around the stands.

“I don’t see Axel either,” Sophie said.

“Or Liam or RJ,” I added. Actually I didn’t see anyone from the football team…

“Ladies and gentlemen!” O’Reilly shouted. “May I have your attention!”

Sophie and I turned to the center ring.

There was a dinging noise and Gigi walked across the ring holding a sign that said round one.

Normally I would have been very distracted and annoyed by Gigi doing anything. But I was more curious about what “round one” meant. Round one of what?

“First up in the ring we have…Jacob Miller!”

Jacob stepped up onto the center ring wearing nothing but his boxer briefs.

Gigi looked down at the outline of his crotch in his boxers and smiled at him.

What the hell is happening?

Chapter 12 – Jacob Miller in Black Boxers

Friday

“We have Jacob Miller in black boxers,” O’Reilly shouted. “And his opponent?” He tore off his pants and chucked them into the stands.

A trapeze artist caught them before they reached anyone in the crowd.

“Me in white boxers!” O’Reilly yelled.

Another football player grabbed the megaphone from him. “The first match of the evening is Jacob Miller versus Billy O’Reilly in the center ring!” His voice did not sound as perfectly ringleadery as O’Reilly’s. But I wasn’t really worried about the aesthetic being jeopardized. I was much more worried about the words coming out of his mouth.