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I sink lower into the chair.
“I think this is where I leave you,” says Josh. “Can you get up to your room safely?”
“Nooooo,” says Cam. “I need you to carry me.”
“I’m not supposed to go inside,” he says. “But I wish I could.”
“A good boy. A rule-follower.” Cam’s voice is sloppy. She’s at least a little bit drunk.
Based on the sounds, they’re kissing, and I’m suddenly more awake than I’ve been all day.
“You are one good kisser, sir,” slurs Cam, in that delicious Texas accent that promises sweaty bodies tangling on languorous afternoons.
“You’re not bad yourself,” Josh returns in a husky voice that’s all too familiar. “Hey, I had an awesome time.”
“Me, too. Don’t be a stranger, or I’ll be mad.”
“Yeah? How mad?”
“Let me break it down for you.” The sloppiness at the edges of Camila’s words only makes her more adorable. “If I don’t get you, nobody gets you. Sir.”
Josh laughs. “But how do you really feel?”
There’s more kissing. A lot more. I sit as still as I can, seeing it all as clearly as if it were playing on a screen in front of me. The moth knocks into the light, over and over, stubborn. Stupid.
When Josh finally leaves, I wait for Cam to go inside. Instead, there are steps. Headed toward me.
I peek around the chair.
“I thought someone was spying,” she says.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t even care.” Cam kicks off her shoes and sits on the poured-cement floor of the porch, her back leaned against the corner post, facing me.
“Good date?” I say, because it seems like a jerk move not to ask when she’s clearly settling in for a little chat.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” says Cam with a mysterious smile. Funny how she sounds much less drunk now that she’s talking to me. “What have you been up to all day?”
“Moping,” I confess, immediately surprised at my own honesty. But it feels good to let it out. “It sucks to be left behind.”
Cam purses her lips like she’s trying to suppress a smile.
“What?” I say.
“I wish I didn’t like you.” She dissolves in laughter. “I wish you weren’t so damn likable, Julia Walden. I swear I was going to hate you. For real.”
“Uh...” I say, batting the moth away from my face. What is she playing at? Is this an act, too?
“Can I tell you something? I’m drunk, so you know I’ll be honest.”
“Sure.”
“You—” she points a long, crimson nail at me “—are my biggest competition.”
I wait for the rest. The mean part, the stab.
“What? Nothing to say?” she challenges, then laughs again. Her laugh is loose, contagious, like floating bubbles.
