By the Playbook

By the Playbook (14)

In a stereotypical movie, a typical high school party starts exactly the same way. A car pulls up to the curb, the lawn in front of the house littered with red cups and milling couples. Music can be heard from three streets away. Couples sit on the front porch, making out or just flirting their way to the bedroom. A drunken partygoer throws up into the bushes, no one paying any mind to the poor fool as he passes out in a pool of his own vomit.

Next scene: walking inside, the music only gets louder. The air in the house vibrates with the base line. One of the rooms is now a dance floor – couples grind and dance, a sea of red cups. Other rooms, people dance, but it isn't a sea of moving bodies. A table full of alcohol sits against the far wall, a seedy looking junior standing by it, watching his secret crush holding two drinks. Couples flirt by the table, some making out against the wall or on the stairs. The kitchen is full of people – some with the munchies, some simply looking for another drink. The door is open to the backyard, where half-naked girls swim in the pool and guys walk around drunken and shirtless, discussing in too-loud voices about how good some of them look. Behind the bushes emerges a giggling couple, hair messy and clothes wrinkled. They make a beeline for a bedroom, half running up the stairs, exchanging glances the entire way.

The camera zooms in by the backdoor on a bored looking blonde, running her index finger around the rim of her red cup. One hand fiddles with her phone, wondering if her boyfriend would respond to her texts, wondering where her friends had managed to disappear to, wondering why the beer tasted so cheap.

Probably because it was warm. Bleh!

A drunken boy, a freshman by the looks of him, dark haired and rather goodlooking, approaches her with a timid, almost nervous smile. "Hi," he said. She resists the urge to sigh.

This is where the movie ends, and where reality sets in. The nerd never gets the girl. It's not how it works, especially not since she's the girlfriend to the state's leading quarterback.

"Hi," I answered, plastering on a smile. His own grin widens a bit. "You look bored."

I shrugged, inspecting him. He was a tall one, taller than Ryder, maybe around 6'3, but had the look that all niners had – a little gangly, not quite sure how to operate their newly puberty-punched bodies. A little unsure, a little too confident. Awkward. Dark hair, bright green eyes. He would be a looker when he got older. "You caught me. I don't know where my friends went."

Cassie had been caught up in the charms of Mason, disappearing somewhere with him. Justin, who'd she'd dragged along with her, had been talking to an old friend, Mason's older sister, and when he'd realized she'd disappeared, had come to find Ryder. Ryder, being Ryder, freaked out the minute he realized his sister was (God forbid) alone with a guy at a party and ran off to find her, effectively leaning me alone with explicit instructions not to move. Between Ryder and Justin both mothering her, Cassie would have zero fun. She'd also be the safest one here, though.

The freshman smiled. "If you're looking for Cassie Green, I saw her running around the front yard with Mason and a football a while back."

I considered texting Ryder to tell him, then shrugged. "I'll let her have her fun. He's hot and she's single, she'll have a good time."

A grin spread over his face. "Not concerned?"

"I've seen her break a guy's hand when he grabbed at her dress in a bar. She can take of herself," I said, smiling back at him at the memory. He'd been getting a little touchy, and calm as anything, she'd turned and gripped his fingers, yanking them backwards until they'd snapped and leaving him screaming on the floor of the bar. Having older brothers who were overprotective had its perks, it seemed.