Since my breakup with Hannah, I’ve had a rule, you see. I point-blank refuse to get into a relationship. An important addendum to this rule, a part B if you will, is that I don’t kiss lesbians or bi girls. I’m not saying they’d all fall in love with me or they’re all looking for a relationship, but it puts the possibility out there. If I cross that line, I’m asking for trouble. But I have a perfectly good thing going. Every girl in my school who wants to see what it’s like to kiss a girl knows (1) I’m super gay and (2) I won’t try to date them afterward. We kiss, we part ways, no one gets hurt. Win-win.

Hannah—when we were friends and before we were more than friends—used to complain about girls like that, the ones who wanted to use me to see what it was like, and to be honest there was a time when I would have agreed with her. Like when I was fourteen and Gracie Belle Corban said she only did it because she wanted to be able to tell Oliver Quinn that she’d kissed a girl. I cried to Hannah for a week about that. But now, well, I have different priorities. As long as we both get what we want, no strings, just good old-fashioned girl-on-girl kissing, then what’s the problem? I still draw the line at girls who want to do it to make their boyfriends horny. But a girl who wants to satisfy her curiosity? I am all over that. Literally.

I snorted when I finally found the message. Of course it was good old Oliver Quinn’s party. It was always his party. He had an enormous house and the only reason he didn’t go to some fancy private school is because there wasn’t one anywhere near us. So if I ended up puking in his mother’s rosebushes that wouldn’t be so terrible. Not that I’m still bitter or anything.

The group text said to come any time after ten, which meant I’d be weirdly early, but if I didn’t leave now there was a possibility that Dad would intercept me and force me to have a deep and meaningful about his new fiancée.

Just kidding.

We would avoid the topic until we both grew so resentful that we’d shout terrible things at each other across the living room.

That sweet father-daughter moment could wait. I pried my bedroom door open as quietly as possible and peered downstairs. The light from the living room flickered against the back wall of the hall. Open plan was a real bitch sometimes. The window it was, then. I changed into something more suitable and laced my feet into black military boots. I felt kind of badass as I climbed out the window.