“Nope. Ladies first. Let’s go, Madison. Me and you.”

My lips hung apart. Austin jumped with excitement. Madison took the white ball from Austin. Neither girl said anything as they took their shots. Eliza sunk hers easily in a red cup in front of Austin. Madison’s bounced off a rim from our stack, and Eliza jumped to catch it before Madison could take it back.

Madison drank from the can in her hand. Eliza, since she’d recovered Madison’s ball, got another shot. She lined it up and it splashed in.

“What?!” I shouted. “I thought you said you’d never played this before!”

“I said I didn’t want to drink.”

It took every ounce of my self-restraint to not kiss her.

Eliza and I missed a few shots through the game, though not nearly as many as Austin or Madison. I hadn’t been kidding when I said they were a good team to play against, because they were terrible.

When Eliza and I had beat them by several cups, Austin let out a low whistle. “Good game. Don’t think I’ve been creamed that bad in this game . . . ever. Those O’Connor genes, dude.” He shook his head.

“You might want to eat some food, drink some water, or sit down somewhere,” I teased them.

“That rocked,” said Eliza.

“You, uh, get a little competitive there?” I grinned. “Austin and Madison never saw that coming.”

Eliza wrinkled her nose.

We stepped to the wall to let the next group play. Eliza grabbed a soda can, and I slowly drank from my, um, not soda.

“There something going on between you and Madison I don’t know about?” I asked. We leaned against the basement wall, half watching the next game at the ping-pong table.

“Not really.”

“That’s fine,” I said, “Madison has trouble getting along with other girls.”

“Can’t imagine why,” said Eliza.

I didn’t take the bait. True, Madison could be awfully overbearing, dramatic, and rude. She was hot, though, and a lot of guys liked her. But Eliza was so much more. In every department.

The thing people didn’t really get about Madison was that she was exactly like Austin and I were, or at least I was before Eliza, kind of. She didn’t want a boyfriend, just boyfriends. Lots of them. North Cassidy could forgive bros for that lifestyle, but not Madison. Especially when she rubbed her will to do whatever she wanted in the world’s face like she was starring in a soap opera.

“She’s hard to compete with,” said Eliza.

“She’s not competition,” I murmured. Our shoulders brushed and God, did I want to pull her close to me.

We were still surrounded in a crowd, with some people trying to get closer to the game table and some people trying to join a different game. A large circle on the other side of the room formed where Carter and Hannah were sitting. I took a step towards that, but Eliza grabbed my finger.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “you probably think that’s crazy clingy. The Nick Maguire I know hates clinginess. I do too,” she spoke quickly, like she couldn’t get the words out fast enough, like she was afraid I would interrupt her. It was more babbling that I’d ever heard from her before. And I loved it.