I nearly dropped my drink. “I, um, what? I wasn’t looking at anything, Mrs. P.”
She nodded across the patio. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing, either. Erica, my daughter, invited aboyover! What do you know about him?”
Oh thank God, she doesn’t know I was eye-fucking her daughter. “I don’t think I know this guy.”
“He’s on the soccer team,” Brad said. “His name is Lance something.”
“Lance Barber,” Mrs. Porter said. “When Erica introduced him to us, he asked if I was hersister!What a hoot.”
Katie giggled. “Oh, that’s so funny!”
Lance was a stupid name. I hated him immediately.
Mrs. Porter patted my arm. “They’re coming over here. I’ll leave you kids alone.” She smiled widely at Lance while returning to the grill.
“Do you guys know Lance?” Erica asked. “He’s a junior, like me.”
“Technically we’re seniors now,” Lance said with a big, stupid grin.
Technically nobody gives a fuck.
Brad introduced himself, and then Erica’s date extended his hand to me. “Lance Barber. I play center-forward on the soccer team.”
Who the hell introduces themselves like that?
“Hunter Cade.” I shook his hand with as strong a grip as I could without seeming like I was trying too hard. “I played short-stick defender for the lacrosse team.”
“Defender?” Lance’s too-friendly grin deepened. “Couldn’t cut it as a forward, huh?”
Yeah. I hated this fucking guy already.
“We don’t have forwards in lacrosse,” I said. “We have attackers. And short-stick defender is actually the most important position. I led the team in assists.”
“I led our team ingoals,” Lance said. “Assists are good too, though. Hey, I heard about your parents. That really sucks, man.”
The last thing I wanted was this douchenozzle’s pity. “You can’t control what happens in life. Can only control how you react to it.”
“True that,” Lance said.
“Lance and I had biology together,” Erica explained. She glanced at me. “He saved my butt so many times by sharing his notes.”
She was definitely doing this to get under my skin, as payback for Katie. I couldn’t blame her. Turnabout was fair play.
But I also didn’t want to get shown up by this asshole.
I turned to Katie and asked, “Do you have your phone on you?”
She frowned. “No, why?”
“No reason,” I said casually. “I just wanted to make sure before doingthis.”
I grabbed Katie by the waist and tossed her backwards into the pool. She squealed with surprise before hitting the water.
“You’re mean!” she said when she surfaced, giggling and smiling.
“That’s for last summer, when you shovedmein the lake,” I said while pulling my shirt off. “Except I was nice enough to make sure your phone wasn’t in your pocket.”
Before she could respond, I leaped into the air, tucked my knees up to my chest, and did a cannonball next to her. She squealed some more, playfully slapping at me in the water while laughing.