Long-armed, tiny-boobed, fake-adult Reese.

Lifting the bottle to my lips, I nodded. “I believe I am.”

Fisher shifted his focus from me to Jason. “Did you give her the beer?”

Jason shrugged. “Maybe.”

Fisher nodded slowly. “She’s eighteen, which means she’s officially your responsibility.”

No he didn’t. He didn’t just call me out like a child.

Jason turned and gave me a sad smile. “Sorry. I’m not in the mood to babysit tonight.” He plucked the bottle of beer from my hand.

I was so embarrassed; I wanted to kill Fisher. Then I wanted to cry because it sucked being an adult, only not really a full adult. Jason disappeared, leaving me with an empty hand in front of Satan’s awful son and his girlfriend.

“Reese, this is Teagan. Teagan, this is Reese. She and her mom rent out my basement.”

I didn’t rent squat. But it was so generous of him to make me look grown up in front of her after calling out my age and apparent need for a babysitter.

“Nice to meet you.” She smiled instead of offering to shake my hand, probably because one of her hands held a beer and the other was still around Fisher’s waist.

The ugly jealousy felt terrible. How did I get such an extreme crush on a guy ten years older than me in a matter of weeks? It just added to all the other reasons I wasn’t a mature adult yet. I felt certain Teagan didn’t get stupid crushes on guys who were out of her league. Then again, she was a beautiful doctor with a great job, great hair, and great boobs. No guy was out of her league.

“Nice to meet you too.”

Fisher took a swig of his beer, and I wanted to knock it out of his hand.

“Well, have fun. I’m going to grab something to eat.” I wasn’t hungry. It was code for “I’m leaving.”

“You too,” Teagan said. She sounded nice. She worked with a lot of kids, giving them great smiles. Of course she was nice. He deserved her.

I sulked my way through the crowd in the house, but not rushing anything to avoid looking like I was leaving. A few people were just outside the front door vaping—and probably smoking pot too—but they ignored me when I held my phone up to my ear, pretending to talk to someone.

When I got home, I opened a bag of cheese curls and ate half the bag. Then I downloaded some new music to my phone.

Matt Maeson.

After listening to several songs, I settled on “Tribulation.” It was fitting in some ways. Tortured love.

Twenty minutes later, I knew every word.