Free Surviving High School by M. Doty Page B

to a row of cars in a grassy field behind the house.
    “Better get to work on that platinum record,” said Marcus, smiling.
    “I wish,” said Phil. “This place probably costs triple-platinum money.” He looked at Emily and added, “You can let go of the handle now. We’re here.”
    Emily uncurled her hand and shook it in the air as the blood slowly returned to her fingers. The four of them got out of the car, and Phil walked around back to pop the trunk. He pulled out a large pan covered in tinfoil, lifted it to check the contents, and smiled.
    “What’s that?” asked Emily.
    “A pony,” said Phil. “What do you think it is? Ben’s birthday cake. German chocolate. I baked it myself, with the help of a little lady named Betty Crocker.”
    “It’s—it’s his birthday?” asked Emily.
    “Uh, yeah,” said Marcus, pulling a carefully wrapped gift box out of the trunk. “Hence the birthday
party
. Now come on. Let’s get in there.”
    As the four of them walked toward the brightly lit house, Emily looked jealously at Phil’s cake and Marcus’s gift.
    “Great,” she whispered to Kimi. “I finally start liking a guy and I don’t even bring him a birthday present. Did I accidentally steal Cupid’s diaper in a previous life or something so he totally hates me, or am I just really, really bad at this?”
    “Do you really want me to answer that?” asked Kimi. She put an arm around Emily’s waist and pulled her in for a side hug as they walked toward the massive house. “Don’t sweat it. Ben obviously has plenty of
stuff
already. You just be you.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    The imposing oak doors of Ben’s house stood slightly ajar, and Phil pushed through them without knocking.
    They opened to a large central room bookended by two curling staircases headed off in opposite directions. A hundred-piece crystal chandelier hung above a huge expanse of black-and-white-checkered tiles going for almost a hundred feet—all the way to a glass wall through which Emily saw a huge infinity pool, the kind whose edges stretch all the way to the side of a terrace, creating the appearance of water hanging in space.
    There must have been a hundred and fifty people there. Emily recognized some of them from the cafeteria’s center table and the few that surrounded it, but there were a few surprises: Deependu Mahajan and Eric Erickson were sitting bythe pool with red cups in their hands, their jeans rolled up and their feet in the water. And Samantha Hill sat in the center of the room, leading a round of Never Have I Ever. The chandelier shone brightly off her freshly shaved head.
    Emily breathed a sigh of relief: Nick Brown was nowhere to be seen.
    When Phil noticed Samantha’s new look, he set the cake down on a long table filled with desserts and approached her from behind.
    “Now that’s what I’m talking about, S-Dawg,” he said. “Can I touch it?”
    Samantha turned to him, her eyes blazing.
    “You put a hand on me, and you’ll lose it,” she said. She turned back to the circle of players, and Phil took a step away. The group looked expectantly at Samantha. Emily had heard about this game but had never participated: You started by holding up ten fingers, then lowered one and sipped your drink every time you’d done the naughty thing that someone else mentioned.
    “Never have I ever… kissed more than one person in a single night,” Samantha said, and several guys in the group groaned and lowered their fingers. Spencer, who had just lowered his last finger, raised his red cup to the circle and downed it in a few gulps.
    “We should get a drink,” said Kimi.
    “You mean, like, a
drink
?” asked Emily.
    Spencer belched loudly and crushed the red cup in his hand.
    “Maybe a root beer?” asked Kimi. “As long as it’s in a red cup, no one has to know what’s inside.”
    The girls walked over to a table filled with bottles Emily didn’t recognize. Finally, she was able to track down a half-empty jug of