Aiden dips his head and his lips graze mine before he’s yanked away from me and we’re ripped apart. Confused, Aiden turns to see who pulled him from me, and we find a very angry-looking Noah, yelling something about “How could you cheat on Amelia?” over the music.

Cheat on Amelia? Did I hear him right?

I can’t hear what Aiden’s saying, but Noah looks over at me for the first time and stills.

“Amelia?” Noah asks.

“Yeah?” I reply.

Noah’s eyebrows draw together in confusion for a second, then he bursts out laughing.

“Oh my God, dude, you scared me,” he says to Aiden. “Sorry, but I thought.” He pauses and scans me. “From behind and in this lighting, I thought you were Kaitlyn, you know, ’cuz of the hair.”

The blood drains from my face. Oh no. Everyone’s going to think I changed my hair because I wanted to look like Kaitlyn. Maybe I should’ve gone darker instead of lighter.

Noah notices my uneasiness. “No, don’t get me wrong, you look great! Superhot, like always.”

I laugh when Aiden shoves him, and Noah turns to apologize to the guy he bumped into. He tells him it’s not a problem, then notices Aiden.

“Hey, Aiden Parker, right?”

“Yeah, do I know you?”

“Oh no,” the guy says. “But I’ve seen you all over the news. Sorry about your shitty father. But hey, recent polls have said his popularity is decreasing, so congrats.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Aiden replies before the guy is off talking to other people.

Noah continues talking to me, but Aiden retreats into his own mind. That’s not the first time someone has said something like that to him, but that’s probably the first one who’s actually old enough to vote and knows what’s going on in the polls.

“There you guys are!” Mason comes up to us. “We’ve got a problem.”

A problem? Really? A problem?! Can’t we just go to one damn party without someone telling us there’s a problem?

Automatically, I scan the place for Ryan, but stop when Mason adds, “It’s Chase.”

“Is he okay?” I ask.

“No—I don’t know. We were just drinking and having a good time when he checked his phone and saw that Charlotte uploaded a video to her S-Live Time profile, and he started freaking out.”

Aiden, Noah, and I exchange confused glances as our minds race. What could she have posted that would make Chase react like that?

Mason holds out his phone and opens the app. “He said something like ‘Really, a fucking college guy?’ and started swearing and broke a lamp and then I lost him.”

We crowd around Mason’s phone and he clicks Play on Charlotte’s latest video. It’s posted to her story profile, so it goes away in twenty-four hours. It’s her and Marcus. She’s sitting on his lap and they’re singing along with the song to the camera. She looks like she’s having fun.

Good for her. I’m glad that she’s getting out there and having fun. Then Marcus grabs her face, turns her to face him, and kisses her. The camera cuts out. Oh. I’m still proud of her, but that explains why Chase flipped. The video jumps to them singing again, but Marcus is behind her, and it looks like they’re walking up the stairs?