I wondered if this new girl understood what she was in for, if she knew she was playing in the brush on a hot day. A pretty brunette with a smattering of freckles across her cheeks, she had deep blue—almost navy—eyes. Her shirt set off her coloring, and the style of her loose peasant top resembled her hair—ruffled sleeves falling in waves down her arms, mimicking the curls in her long tresses. She was sitting on the floor by Austin’s feet, looking up, a flower tilted to the sun. The attraction she had to him was clear as day. The way she almost willed him to turn his face to hers, to say something, anything, to her. The way her shoulders were angled toward him, pulled back to expose her long, graceful neck. She wasn’t sitting cross-legged like the others on the floor. The awkward child’s pose was not for her. She had folded one leg on top of the other, ankle to knee, and she was tilted sideways so that her legs formed an arrow pointing toward my brother. This girl was vulnerable and open. Calculating, too.

Body language could be so obvious.

Did Austin know that she was planning their first kiss, their first date?

The paper plate in his hand slipped a little and she lifted the corner for him. He looked at her, smiling, thanking her, and then she did this pouty thing with her lips, and a flippy thing with her hair. It was impressive as hell, even to me, and I wasn’t the intended target. I looked away from my brother and the girl. I’d seen this movie before.

“Mendoza seems great,” I said to Kael.

“Yeah. He is.” Kael looked at his friend, who was offering his special tequila to someone who had just come in. I thought I had seen the guy before. In the kitchen, maybe. I remembered his black-and-white checked T-shirt. From the way he reeked of cigarette smoke, it was clear that he had been outside for a smoke break. At least this group of friends was respectful enough not to smoke inside the house, unlike some Austin had had in the past.

“He’s married?” I asked.

Kael’s forehead scrunched up a little and he nodded.

“Cool.” I was about out of small talk. I could have talked about the weather or the alcohol, but that would have seemed desperate. I was buzzed from the drinks and getting paranoid about Kael’s silence, and while I may have been anxious, I wasn’t desperate. I wasn’t going to be the needy girl at a party. A party at my dad’s house, of all places.