We made it through the rest of the week without any incidents. Mrs. Flores was all for keeping an eye on the younger kids after she found out what had happened at the Leighton's party. She said it was the 'Good Catholic' in her that allowed her to still let Darcy even come to the party. I half hoped that she wouldn't show.

But her attitude in the locker room said otherwise. Miri was giving me the cold shoulder more than ever as the two of them talked about their outfits for the party. Danny was going to be a priest and they were both going to be nuns. It sounded like Declan was going to be an Alter boy.

Playing with Fire.

Mrs. Flores was deeply religious. I wasn't sure how Danny thought he was going ot get away with this one. The day before Día de los Muertos too.

Fucking idiots.

But it wasn't my horse or my rodeo so I was staying out of it. I just wished they would shut up about it when Jensen was around. Ari had been a nice distraction lately for her, but it had only been two weeks since really since Declan and her had split. He had obviously started seeing Darcy before the split and that hurt. It hurt Jensen and even Ari. He felt like a pawn in her game. It hurt me to see the two of them hurting. The only silver lining I saw was that the two of them had become closer because of it.

I had to give Ari props for that one. I wasn't sure I would have been so quick to forgive if I had been slapped in front of a room full of people. I think he felt partially responsible for it, since he had brought Darcy as his date.

I prayed that they had a good time together watching movies tomorrow night. We just had to make it through today and we would be home free for the weekend and the party.

Making it out of athletics had been the hard part. Everything should be smooth sailing from here hopefully.

I walked with Jensen and Cassie until we reached my English class. Cassie walked over to say 'Hi' to James and Jensen started making her way to class. Tyler was waiting for me.

"What's up, Buttercup?" I smiled as he pulled me off to the side.

"I wanted to know, what are your dad's plans for the weekend?"

I shrugged, "I think most of the parents are taking a shift inside the party and then hanging out outside."

"How late does the party go, like one or two?"

"They usually run until midnight and then the parents go that late. You know that already."

He looked at me like he was trying to lead me to water and I was too stupid to drink. "So your house is most likely going to be unoccupied until really late at night."

I was still confused, "So?"

"So, we can hang out, without everyone else around."

I was starting to catch his drift. "Tyler, are you saying you want tomorrow night to be... the night?"

He smiled shyly, "Only if you want to."

I felt a little taken off guard. I just wasn't expecting him to finally want to go that far with me and I wasn't sure if I needed more time than that to plan. Not that I knew exactly what I needed to plan for.

"Can I think about it? Not about the hanging out alone part, that's a hell yes, but the other part."

Tyler smirked, "Take all the time you need to think. Absolutely no pressure. I just wanted to throw the idea out there."

I leaned up and kissed him, "I love you."

He kissed me back, harder, "I love you too, Alex."

I tried to focus in class. We were reading the Handmaid's Tale. The author was actually Canadian. Last week was the Buddha of Suburbia. The week before had been Absolute Beginners, and next week was A Brave New World. I could connect that Handmaids and Brave New World were dystopian novels. And the first two were British novels about coming of age. I had a feeling that we would get hit with a comparative essay soon.

I sat there taking notes and trying to pay attention. My focus though kept shifting the boy with magical fingers next to me. His sandy blond hair hung in his face. He kept trying to move it out of eyes. I silently handed him an extra ponytail.

I gulped when I saw him stretch before pulling his hair back into a messy bun.

I started to make a pro/con list in the margins of my notes about tomorrow. Pro- We had known each other for years and had really gotten to know each other over the last year. We were friends long before we were lovers. Con- We had only been officially dating for a little under two months. Neutral- We were already saying the L word. I sat there and thought about it. I mean yes, we had only had the couple title for about two months, but we had been openly into each other for almost eight months. I felt like that made it less weird.

I had wanted sex before now. Was that a pro or a con? I was afraid if I said no, something like what happened with Declan and Jensen could happen. That wasn't rational and I knew it. Tyler was a very different person than Declan. I also hadn't expected Declan to screw Jensen over the way he had. It made me nervous.

Isn't it normal to feel nervous?

I was too nervous now. I needed to talk this out but with who? Elle? Laura? Both were dating Tyler's brothers. They had to have some insights that could calm me down a bit. I had Elle the last two periods of the day. I might be able to talk to her during lunch but that was doubtful. There were way too many ears around for that.

I tried to push it to the back of my mind. Journalism was next. I walked in and saw the other Evans sister sitting there. I contemplated asking her but knew it would be too weird.

Way too damn weird.

We made eye contact and she acknowledged me standing there, "You okay, Alex?"

"Yeah, I'm good. Just needing to talk to your sister. Boy stuff."

Brenna smirked, "You know I used to date your boy stuff? What's Tyler done now?"

"Wouldn't it be weird, me talking to you about it?"

"Weirder than you trying to hook you ex, my brother, up with your friend Jensen?"

She had me there. I guess that was weird too. This whole clique was weird. Why stop it now?

"I am just weighing my options about tomorrow. There might be an opportunity for us to do some things we haven't yet and I am debating doing it or not."

"It. Like it, it?"

I nodded meekly. "I get it if you don't want to discuss that."

Brenna shrugged, "He's good at it. Like really good. And he's not the kind of guy to sail and bail. He messed up with me. Didn't do his full homework so our first time wasn't great. Once he knew he was my first it got a lot better. He also won't pull a Declan on you if you say no. I can tell you that much."

How the fuck did she read my mind so much? She was checking off every column of my pro/con list without even trying.

"Thank you."

Brenna smirked, "Any time. And thank you."

"For what?"

"Getting Ari back out there again and away from Darcy. He's been a lot more himself the last couple of weeks. It's been refreshing."

I smiled at that.

Nixon walked in and looked at us both, "Are you two friends now?"

Brenna shrugged, "We don't hate each other."

I smiled, "She's my best friend's big sister. I'll give her that much."

Nixon rolled his eyes, "Makes my life a hell of a lot easier. Lex, do you have the Día de los Muertos story ready to be posted?"

I nodded. I had been working on a story about the history of Día de los Muertos and what traditions are still practiced today.

Brenna looked at Nixon, "I still can't believe you gave her that topic."

He looked confused, "What's wrong with it."

I answered for her, "It's a celebration of the dead and my mother died last month."

The realization hit Nixon and he looked horrified at me, "Oh fuck, I didn't even think about that. Fuck, why didn't anyone say anything until now?"

I shrugged, "I just do my job. And I wanted to see how long until someone said something. It's been two weeks. Nice job."

Brenna giggled at the dark humor and I went back to sending my article over to be published. When the bell rang I headed to Physics. Jensen kept me entertained but I was looking forward to lunch at this point. We were learning about something called Centripetal acceleration and it was making my mind melt.

I looked down at my notes.

'The acceleration is directed radially toward the center of the circle. The centripetal acceleration ac has a magnitude equal to the square of the body's speed v along the curve divided by the distance r from the center of the circle to the moving body; that is, ac = v2/r.'

I might as well have written it in Chinese. I had no clue what any of it actually meant.

When the fuck would I need to know this?

When my dad was grounding me for bad grades. I already knew the answer to that one. I had to use all of my energy to focus on Mr. Pierre's lesson.

The bell rang and I sprinted out of there. Jensen was on my heels. "Alex, did you understand a word he just said?"

"Not if my life depended on it."

"Who do we know that is good with Science?"

"Beats me. Most of my friends are drama nerds and jocks."

Jensen rolled her eyes, "I do not want to have to sit through tutoring with that old fart."

We headed to the parking lot and saw Elle on the way, "Elle who is good with Science? Jensen and I are dying in Pierre's class."

She made a gagging sound, "I have him next period. What's it about today?"

"Centripetal acceleration", we answered in unison.

"Uh, what?"

"Exactly," I answered. Tyler and Ari were waiting with Aaron for us.

Elle asked out loud as we walked up, "What the fuck is Centripetal acceleration?"

Aaron looked like she had just sneezed in his face, Ari looked confused, and Tyler answered, "It's the force you feel when you take a curve in your car. You feel yourself move with the car sideways because you're going at a constant rate in a circular motion."

We all looked at him like he had two heads. I responded, "How did you know that?"

"I had Mr. Pierre last year. Had to find a way to make that crap make sense. I like cars. I could relate it to cars. So I did."

"Do you still have your notes?"

"Probably. I'll look."

I gave him a hug, "So you're pretty and smart?"

Tyler laughed, "I have my moments."

He leaned down and kissed my forehead. We headed to lunch. Tyler took a curve with extra force to make us go in our seats a little harder.

Ari responded, "So this is it?"

Tyler laughed, "Yup, that's it."

I still felt like I was never going to understand a damn thing about my physics class but at least I could check this topic off my list. I looked at Tyler and smiled. He was perfectly at ease and looked sexy as hell.

Yep. The pros win.