Free What a Boy Wants by Nyrae Dawn Page B

stiffened, immediately pulling away from Crystal. Aspen did the same with hand boy over there, turning her nose up at him in a playful way and walking away. That’s my girl.
     
    “Are you okay?” Crystal stepped back and looked at me. The girl was beautiful. There was no reason in the world I should be so distracted, but I was.
     
    “Want to just chill for a minute?” As much as I wanted to be into her, I wasn’t right now and I didn’t want to lead her on.
     
    She bit her bottom lip and then smiled. I found the quietest corner of the room that I could, but one that still gave me vision to scope out the living room in case I was needed. I stood in the corner, with Crystal in front of me. She showed a lot of skin. Way more than Aspen, but not quite as much as Alex did, which was nice. “So, I think it must have been your cousin who met this guy I work with. He’s the one who told me about the party.”
     
    Crystal ran her hands down her shirt as if she was trying to smooth it out. “Matt or something like that? Paula told me about him.”
     
    “They hooking up?” I asked, not sure why I cared. Okay, so that’s a lie, if they were hooking up, I knew he couldn’t have Aspen because she wouldn’t be down for that. Which meant she couldn’t get hurt and I could go back to being my normal self.
     
    “I don’t think so. They didn’t, yet at least. Who knows what will happen tonight though.”
     
    Great. There went that plan.
     
    We talked for a little while. She was pretty cool, liked to laugh and I found out her boyfriend dumped her when she told him she was leaving for the summer. “That sucks. Sounds like a jerk, but it’s probably better, anyway.” It was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to hook-up with this girl tonight and I was okay with that. I wasn’t feelin’ this whole thing and she seemed to still be caught up on her ex. My night of epicness was turning out to be anything but. She was pretty fun to talk to though, so I didn’t mind.
     
    “Why?” she asked.
     
    “What’s the point? Relationships never last anyway. Better to end them quick rather than drag things out.” I didn’t care how jaded I sounded, it was how I felt. Anyone who had seen what I had would feel the same.
     
    “A guy who doesn’t believe in love? Wow, I don’t run across that every day.” We’d never see eye to eye on this, so I just shrugged, scanning the room for my friends. I saw Pris standing alone in a corner, her mouth tight. She obviously wasn’t having a good time. Just as I was about to tell Crystal I needed to go check on my friend, I saw Aspen with another dude. He had this cocky smirk on his face and she was looking up at him batting her eyelashes in a way I’d never seen her do before.
     
    What was she doing? She put an arm around the guy’s shoulders and he did the same to her. They were laughing. With each passing second that they stood there, him looking at her like she was his perfect score for the night, my gut started to squeeze tighter. Was she flirting with this guy? And if she was, which was super freakin’ weird because I’d never seen Aspen flirt before, but why couldn’t I take my eyes off her?
     
    “Aw, so she’s the reason you’ve been distracted all night?”
     
    I glanced at Crystal, back over at Aspen and then at Crystal again. “I haven’t been distracted.” Yeah right.
     
    “It’s okay.” She sighed. “I think I was using you to get my mind off Will, so we’re even.”
     
    This time, my vision jerked toward her. “What? I’m not into her. She’s my B--” I groaned. Why did I keep saying BFF? I swear, it was like Paris Hilton took me over. “She’s my friend. I watch out for her. That’s all.”
     
    In the sea of people, I found Aspen again. She stood up on her tip-toes and whispered in the guy’s ear. “Dude, what’s she doing?”
     
    I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until Crystal answered me. “Flirting.” Aspen stumbled. “She