Lachlan's momentary shock was lost as he exchanged a glance with a guilty looking Vera who was trying and failing to hide from me behind her hands in the back corner of the hot tub. She sank low into the water until all I could see was her dark brown eyes and I couldn't help a fit of giggles that shook through my body at the absurd situation unfurling around me.

This was unprecedented. Vera knew how deep my disdain for Lachlan ran, and I could understand her inviting his sister over without asking me, but Lachlan and his date, too? That was just bordering on insanity.

"I was invited," he griped out and I finally allowed myself a good look at him while a chill erupted across my body, forcing me to arch my back and slide off of the edge of the hot tub and guide myself back in, the previous overheated sensation long gone.

His dark amber eyes never left mine as they ignited with something I couldn't quite identify as he was standing too far away for me to read his expression, the blue, red and pink changing lights flashing across his face just barely illuminating his extraordinarily tall figure, and then as if the floodgates had opened, a litany of my old classmates began streaming through the pool house doors breaking the intense stare down we'd been engaged in.

I groaned in annoyance and grabbed my drink, downing the rest of its contents and escaping the hot, chlorine tinted water in order to get myself a refill. I was going to need one if I was going to be fraternizing with these people that I hadn't prepared myself to face for at least two more days.

I caught Lachlan's gaze and tried not to stare as he whipped his long sleeved t-shirt off as well as his black ripped tight jeans, leaving him standing there in only his boxer shorts that he planned to swim in.

I detested the boy for all the awful things he used to say to me in school, but I could appreciate a body as glorious as his, and damn I really needed to stop staring.

His skin was a shade lighter than mine, his hair a shade closer to Vera's black as night tresses, and his height was unmatched by any of the other boys in our grade, but it didn't make him scrawny, his muscles filling him out as he was on the same lacrosse team as Holden.

Speaking of Holden...

I almost poured the entire bottle of vodka in my cup as I took in just how many people had filled into the pool house and were currently trying to squeeze into the hot tub. It was a large hot tub, but with damn near ten people, it was less and less roomy.

"We were all at Lachlan's when Vera invited Blythe over to the house, and when she told me she was leaving I volunteered for everyone else to come. Hope we weren't crashing your pathetic little party."

Sloane threw me a glare after her nasty tinted words as she stripped to her (almost embarrassingly modest) underwear and got inside the hot tub with Holden's bare chest pushed up against her, and I couldn't help rolling my eyes as she straddled his lap effectively shutting the both of them out from any other conversations.

Vera was wrapped up in Blythe and Lachlan was busy with Jenna on his lap as well while I stood there trying to figure out how my night had been completely hijacked.

I took my drink and gulped down its contents then filled it back up. I wasn't a lightweight, not anywhere close, as an unhealthy coping mechanism for me had clearly been to shove everything to the back of my mind and get black out drunk with my new California friends, and this was just another scenario in which I could lose myself all over again, just pretend like I wasn't a total monstrosity.

My bottom lip began to wobble and I shut it down immediately.  Focus on the anger, or would the numbness work better?  Aloofness?  Anything but the real emotions that threatened to surge through me if I didn't get a better lock on that damn vault in my mind.

"Kate! When did you get back? And since when do you drink like that?"

I smirked as Evan Roe called out to me, his arms stretched out across the back of the hot tub as his eyes drank me in. I remembered how skimpy my bikini was and realized the reason for him looking me up and down like he was.

Evan was a great mutual friend I shared with Sloane that I didn't actually detest. He also happened to get along with everyone else in the friend group, so we had become pretty close, as close as a girl and a guy can get platonically, that is.  I definitely didn't like him in that way.

His brown curly hair was piled atop his head and his almost six pack was hidden underneath the water.

"Today! What, my little sis didn't tell anyone I was back? And since I realized vodka was fun!"

I didn't keep the bite out of my voice when talking about Sloane but she didn't even seem to notice.

"No, she didn't say anything. So, did your California friends teach you that? Maybe a guy?"

A few heads flicked my way as he questioned me, but as I slowly returned with a freshly filled cup and grabbed the only open seat beside Evan the conversations around us died completely to listen to what I had to say.

"Yeah, maybe."

One of Lachlan's friends, Lincoln, groaned and rolled his eyes.

"That wasn't an answer."

I laughed and splashed a little his way, my mood suddenly feisty. His chocolate brown eyes were filled with laughter and I knew he could tell how drunk I was.

"Yeah, I was agreeing with him!"

"So you're not single anymore?"

That came from Lincoln's twin brother Taylor, who was sat opposite from the couples. Vera was making out with Blythe in the corner, Sloane was nuzzling Holden beside them while Lachlan looked bored with Jenna on his lap, the both of them facing toward the conversations instead of each other like Sloane was doing with Holden.

"Oh no I am, I broke anything off when I left. Long distance wasn't for us."

I could feel Evan's automatic interest pique up as soon as the words left my mouth and knew I should have kept quiet.

I had always tried to friend zone all the guys in my life after Holden, knowing that it wouldn't be fair to anyone else that I still wasn't over what had happened with the guy who'd broken my heart with my sister and didn't mind flaunting it in front of my face, the trust issues running rampant in my head, plus with the place I was in mentally with my family and the way I viewed myself, I wasn't sure I could ever commit to anything serious, and my ex in California knew it was light and not long term.

"Ouch, heartbreaker, huh?" Lincoln swam a little closer to me and his skin was so dark I could only make out his features when the flashing disco lights hit his profile.

"Hah. Hardly. With Ian I said we were dating but it was more like friends with benefits if anything."

Did that really just fall out of my mouth? I was never so forthcoming with my private life with anyone besides Vera, and I hardly hung out with these people, especially Taylor and Lincoln, Taylor usually so cold and standoffish towards me when Lachlan would come over and tease me at school.

The music suddenly changed to a highly sexual song and I flushed as I realized that my Spotify was on my 'sexy time' playlist. Oh god, this night was just getting more and more embarrassing.

"Friends with benefits? Wow, I didn't know you were that kind of girl, Kate," Evan said beside me and I lightly pushed his arm.

My eyes suddenly found their way to Holden's and I couldn't deny the anger that I noticed in them. I quickly averted my eyes, but that led me to look straight ahead, which meant that I was left staring directly at Lachlan with Jenna happily on his lap.

"Well, are you?"

I tensed as I geared up for Lachlan's harsh words.

"Am I what?"

My head was swimming and my vision was blurring around the edges, but the water kept me surrounded by a protective barrier that kept anyone around me from seeing just how truly drunk I was.

"That kind of girl."

Oh.

Was I? And was that an insult?

I was so drunk I hardly remembered my own name, which then caused me to start giggling at my own inner thoughts.

"Well, I certainly am not who I used to be that's for sure," I said while chuckling, but I was pretty sure my words were so garbled, the last words came out sounding like 'fir shure'.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Sloane turned around at Lachlan's words, her eyes trained on me.

"I don't know. Maybe we should ask Sloane. I'm sure she knows. They would have told her. They actually wanted her."

"What did she just say?"

"Hon, you're really drunk, you should probably slow down..." Vera said lightly after finally disentangling herself from Blythe's mouth, her hand resting on my upper arm as Evan stared down at me in a caring way.

"I missed my friends," I said, a lopsided smile on my face as I threw my arms around Vera and Evan.

They chuckled as Lincoln made a hurt noise.

"What about me?"

"We weren't really friends before, but we can be now!"

"Friends with benefits, like your friend back in California?"

I gasped in faux shock as I placed a hand over my heart, eyes wide at Lincoln's quick retort.

"You wish!"

Wow, I was a mood swing drunk, one minute bristling with anger and the next happy go lucky. I wondered when it was time for the cry fest.

Jenna rolled her eyes at something Lachlan did and swam over to straddle Taylor's lap leaving Lachlan alone in the water, watching my interactions with everyone intently. I wondered why he had hardly spoken as that definitely wasn't like him. He would've at least thrown three more hateful comments my way by that point.

Suddenly a very sexually charged song came on that everyone knew the words to for some reason and we all started singing the lyrics, well, everyone except grumpy Lachlan, Sloane and Holden.

I was smiling again as we sang, "I'm gon' ride, I'm gon' ride..." and the rest of the song could be left to one's imagination.

I swayed my hips flirtatiously in the water and suddenly Evan's hands were on my hips and I just threw him a playful glare.

"You need to keep your hands to yourself," I said while pointing at him and then started laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world, his faux hurt face more than comical.

"Hey, you can't blame a guy when you're looking like that."

"Not my fault, I just thought it would be me and Vera tonight, how was I supposed to know a bunch of people were just going to show up?"

"Sorry," Vera piped up, her hands still tangled in Blythe's gorgeous blonde hair.

Holden excused himself from the hot tub and got out to grab something and my drunk ass decided that it was time for a refill, because, drunk brain wanted to tell off Holden for cheating on me and never properly apologizing or breaking things off between us at all, and said brain decided that the best time to do that was when I was drunk off of my entire ass.

I wobbled as I stood, Evan's hand steadying me, hissing as the cold air hit my body, and I double checked to make sure any body parts weren't falling out before having to use the ladder directly by Lachlan.

I didn't realize, however, that he was going to follow right behind me as I got out, everyone's eyes on Lincoln as he launched into a dramatic tale of a girl that drowned in a hot tub.

I was almost to the little table to the left of the hot tub when Lachlan's grip fell down upon my arm, but it wasn't until a few seconds later that I registered it was only because I was about to fall head first into the table I was aiming for.

"Whoa. Thanks."

"Maybe you shouldn't have anymore," he said with a bite to his tone and that was when I finally turned around and faced him, realizing too late that he was far too close for comfort, and it was then that my body flared in recognition of his prior touch, the spot his hand had previously occupied tingling with the remnants of his presence.

Double whoa.

Up close, his light brown eyes glowed in the night, illuminated by the milky brightness gleaned from the moon hung high in the black sky. When had he gotten so close? And why?

"What? Come to tell me off for old time's sake?"

His eyes narrowed and I prepared myself for it, but found myself instead inspecting his features up close. Sharp cheekbones and crystal clear skin, his chiseled face segued into a sharp jawline that led my eyes leading down, to his collarbone that held a few tattoos that I never knew he had. They were fucking sexy.

I almost made it to his deeply defined abs before I swayed on my feet and had to reach out to steady myself and wound up gripping onto his arms, the touch not lost on either of us.

I pulled back as if I'd been burned. That was weird.

"I came to tell you to leave Holden alone. I saw you going after him, and quite honestly it's a little pathetic."

"Excuse me?"

I took a step back, almost unsuccessfully, but did so nevertheless.

"You heard me. He's with your sister now, and while that was a little fucked how that happened, he's happy. So don't screw with his head, which you will do looking like that."

He seemed almost pained to finish that sentence and I gripped the table behind me, my hearing clouded and muffled from the staunch racing of my heart and rapid pumping of blood in my veins.

"You have no right to speak to me like this, like its even any of your business!  My drink was empty, so therefore I came to get a new drink.  And so what if I was going to tell him off, that's my right as the one who was cheated on!  What is your problem anyway?  You're always such a dick to me, and I never even knew why!"

"I'm not talking to you while you're this drunk."

He made a move to leave but my inhibitions were lowered so of course I just did something without thinking.

My arm shot out and grabbed his, that previous feeling of being burned by his touch reoccurring but this time I didn't pull away immediately and the sensation slithered up my arm until it reached my core and I shivered, almost in...pleasure?

"What?"

His tone was sharpened into steel, his words cold, but his eyes were shimmering in that murky blue moonlight, asking me a different, unspoken question. Did I even know what I wanted to ask him?

"I'm drunk, so drunk I likely won't remember this.  Why don't you tell me why you've tried to make my life hell now?"

He was so close, I could smell his cologne that hadn't been wiped clean from the chlorine filled hot tub.  He had never been this close to me, always teasing me from a distance though I'd known him my whole life, had even hung out with him as a 'friend' at one point before everything with Holden.

"Oh, don't act like you don't know what caused this, Kate.  You know all too well what secrets will do to a person."

My entire body locked up as my eyes widened in fear, my form eliciting a visceral and very traumatic response to his words.

Did he know?

"D-do you know?  How do you know?"

My face paled as my drunken words escaped me, realizing a little too late that I'd chosen the wrong ones to say in that moment.

"I know enough about the secrets we have to keep for our families, and yours disgust me. Especially considering the fact that you know and you don't even care, you just act like everything is fine when..."

"When what?"

"Nothing.  Forget it.  You keep living in your fantasy land with your friends and leave Holden alone."

"How dare you.  You have no idea what I feel inside while pretending everything is fine on the outside.  Why do you think I'd even be this drunk?  I obviously never did this before.  Maybe you should use your brain for once instead of always making up assumptions."

His face grew dangerously close to mine and I gulped at our nearness, not forgetting that the both of us were hardly clothed and that my hand was still on his arm, the searing temperature from his touch burning me from the inside out.

"Leave him alone, Kate, I mean it.  This conversation is over, you're drunk and pathetic right now anyway, but only one of those qualities is new."

And then he left me staring after him in complete and utter rage, my hands balled into fists at my sides.  I wobbled again as Holden came around the corner again with his phone charger in his hand and I wondered just how much of that he'd heard. 

His blue eyes met mine, concerned, but then Lachlan's words echoed in my ears and I brushed past him quickly, going back to join the others back in the hot tub, sans drink.

Lachlan obviously didn't know the secret I thought he had been alluding to, then, not if he was that angry with me. No, he was referring to something else entirely, something that would make him disgusted with my family, and I was more confused than ever. I thought I was the only one who could reserve that right at the moment, but where there's one rat, there's always likely to be more. My family clearly had more reprehensible secrets than the one I'd already uncovered.

I sat on the edge of the hot tub beside Evan and joked with him and Vera and the twins the rest of the night, Blythe sometimes chiming in though I could tell it was hard for her considering how shy she was.

Pretty soon it was coming up on three in the morning and after I almost fell haphazardly across Evan's lap, he laughed and picked me up bridal style and I squealed while trying to cover my ass, much to everyone's amusement.  Well, almost everyone.

Evan wrapped me up in a towel and gave me his fluffy puffer jacket to wear back into the main house.  He was such a good friend, I made a mental note to double friend zone him again so he for sure got the picture.

Vera was going home with Blythe and I smiled, glad that she had finally found someone that she really liked.

Lachlan's angry eyes met mine as everyone else was getting out and I stuck my tongue out at him for good measure, at which he simply raised a single eyebrow in disinterest.

Ugh.

Why was he so hot?  It'd be a lot easier to despise his very presence if he wasn't much to look at...

Instead I found myself almost obsessively roaming his chest with my eyes.  Nope, cut it out Katrina!  I could do better than this...

My eyes wandered to Holden's again before I quickly shut that down. I hugged mostly everyone goodbye, the obvious holdouts being my sister, her boyfriend, and my arch nemesis.  Okay, arch nemesis was a bit much, but hey, I was drunk after all.

Evan helped me up the stairs to the main house after everyone was gone and my mother was preoccupied in her room so she didn't bother us.  I pretty much had free rein around these parts since returning home, a stark difference than before the divorce.

I kept giggling as Evan would continuously trip on his feet as he was a bit drunk as well, and somehow we finally made it to my bedroom.

"Are you going to make it home alright?"

"Wait, I thought I was staying here?"

I plopped down on my bed and pulled my covers around me, too tired to get up and change.

"Okay, grab a blanket and move those boxes off the futon."

"Oh, I thought I could sleep with you," he said and suddenly his face was inches from mine, his breath fanning across my face.

My eyes popped wide open in surprise and alarm but before I could tell him yet again that we were just friends, his lips descended on mine.

It took a second for my brain to register what was happening before I put my hands to his chest to get him to stop.

He pulled up immediately and looked down at me with concern in his blue eyes.

"Evan, I'm sorry if I gave you the wrong impression.  I was really drunk tonight and maybe extra flirty, but I don't-"

"Oh, I just thought since you...no it's okay I totally get it.  Taking the futon.  I'm sorry."

"It's okay, really."

I groaned into my pillow as I realized the early start I had to get the next day.

"Goodnight, Evan."  Friend, I wanted to add, but figured that'd be a little bit of overkill.

God, tomorrow was going to be awkward.