3

We arrived at Emerson Blakely's house around 7:40, and Wes and Jenna ran off to mingle and talk about The Event and ask people what they thought the first task was going to be.

So that left me and Mr. Hot Stuff standing there in the yard, in awkward silence. I cleared my throat as he lifted a cigarette to his mouth.

"Mwat?" He asked, his lips pressed together tightly to keep the tiny death stick in place.

Placing my hands on my hips, I replied, "you're not supposed to smoke around me. It was part of the deal, remember?"

He lifted an eyebrow, but lit the cigarette anyway. When he blew the first puff of suffocating smoke from his lips, I decided to invoke my right to leave.

"Bye," I said curtly, and turned on my heel, heading back to my car.

A second later he was jogging up beside me. "Alison, wait."

"Why, so you can give me lung cancer from all of your second hand smoke?" I asked, not turning to look at him but continuing to march to my vehicle. "I think not."

"I won't do it again," he said.

I scoffed, halting and turning to glare at him. "Yeah right."

"No, seriously, I need a bodyguard, so I'll agree to all of your terms and conditions," he said, grinning.

"But you skipped reading them, didn't you?" I said, hands on my hips again. "Just scrolled right through."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair, looking over the yard as other people milled around, the sound of loud bass pulsating from the huge modern-style house before us.

"Look, just stay, okay?" He said, and suddenly his eyes were fixated on mine. His gaze was penetrating, and I felt a little...flustered, I suppose.

But I held his gaze. I was the alpha here. "Why should I? I don't even know you, my friends aren't even with me, and that stupid Event is happening. There's nothing for me here, but there's a Redbox down the street with my name on it."

He looked at me in amusement for a second before I added, "figuratively of course, because I don't vandalize."

A small laugh escaped him at that, and I just shifted my weight, looking at him indifferently.

He continued to gaze into my eyes. "Please?" He asked quietly.

I rolled my eyes, exhaling loudly. "Fine."

"Yes!" He said, starting forward as if to hug me, but I pushed him away.

"No hugging, and you only have two strikes left."

"Okay," he said, rolling his eyes, "can we go inside now?"

"Do we have to?" I whined, slouching. Ugh. Just the thought of a bunch of already-drunk, sweaty, slutty, stupid nutcase teenagers rubbing all against each other while too-loud music blasted my ears to the point of making me sick in a crowded, stuffy room was enough to make me go home.

"Yeah, it's a party," he coaxed, chuckling.

"Fine, but I'm not drinking." I muttered, stalking toward the house. "And neither are you, for that matter, Mister!" I added, pointing at him accusingly.

"God, Alison, you sound like my sister," he joked as we entered the front door, the bass already rattling my bones.

"Speaking of your sister," I began, finally getting an opportunity to ask who the kid was, "who was that little girl you were carrying? Was she your sister, too?"

"No, actually she's my-"

"DUDE!!!!!" A guy from the football team came barreling toward us, spilling beer all over the floor and already staggering, "YOU'RE HERE!!!!"

"Yeah, and so are you!" Mr. Hot Stuff shouted over the music. The drunk guy grinned stupidly before stumbling away through the crowd of dancing - or shall I say writhing and jumping - people.

"Who was that?" I asked, half-yelling because of the music. Colored lights flashed from the direction of the speakers.

Mr. Hot Stuff shrugged. "I have no idea."

I smirked. "But I thought you wanted to know all of your loyal subjects by name?"

"I do," he replied easily, "but that guy isn't loyal."

I snorted, shaking my head. "Yeah, okay."

"I'm telling the truth," he insisted.

"I don't care, just tell me who the kid is," I said. She wasn't his daughter, right? Right?

"She's my niece," he replied, "she's two, and her name is Tilly." Yeah, that makes much more sense.

"Oh," I said, recalling the little girl, "she has your hair."

He laughed. "Yeah, I guess she does."

We started making our way through the crowd, trying to get to the two French doors that opened onto the back patio. There was a pool beyond that, but even if I had brought a swimming suit, there was no way I'd go swimming with so many reckless people around.

When we reached the outdoors, we discovered that there were people making out in the pool, other people jumping into the pool, and still others riding around on brightly colored floats.

"I didn't know the pool was still open," Mr. Hot Stuff remarked, "I mean, it is October."

"It's heated man!" A guy yelled, just before diving into the deep end in nothing but his boxers.

Everyone's attention suddenly seemed to be on Mr. Hot Stuff, which, in turn, meant all eyes were fixated on me as well, considering I was standing right there beside him.

Emerson Blakely stood on the other side of the pool with some of her fellow cheerleaders, all of them clad in possibly the skimpiest bikinis in existence, not that they couldn't pull them off, they were just a bit inappropriate in my opinion. Flipping her long black hair over her shoulder, she whispered something to the tall blonde next to her, and they both glared daggers at me.

I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at them by looking over at Mr. Hot Stuff. And that's when I realized he was holding his coat out to me.

"Hang onto this for me, will you?" He said, shoving the thing in my arms before I could protest or even ask why. He started toward the pool, first kicking off his boots, then pulling his shirt off over his head.

This action brought forth cheers from the surrounding fools, and the pale bluish lights from the pool illuminated his toned muscles. Looking over his shoulder at me with a teasing smirk, he dropped his pants, the cheering growing louder as they fell around his ankles. He stepped out of them and dove into the pool, everyone screaming and jumping in after him.

While I just stood there, holding his coat, and looking at his crumpled shirt and jeans on the concrete, along with his boots. On the less dim side, however, he did at least keep his underwear on.

I sank onto a poolside chair, still clutching that coat, just watching the lunacy unfold before me. I have no idea how long he was in the pool, but eventually he returned to land, and me, but wasn't courteous enough to put his shirt back on. Instead, he decided to dry his hair with it, and just put his coat on, leaving it open, of course.

 Ugh. I don't know why but I just can't stand it when guys leave their shirts open or off, showing their muscles and what not with every movement. I guess I'm weird, because I really don't like it.

"Are you quite finished?" I asked irritably as he sat down next to me.

"Aw, come on, that was fun," he said, nudging me with his elbow.

I shoved him. "No touching!"

He held up his hands slightly in mock surrender. "Okay, okay. God, you're moody."

"Well, when one is forced to spend their time in the company of complete imbeciles, it is to be expected for them to become vexed," I replied haughtily.

He just laughed at me. Before I could scold him, a very drunk girl practically fell onto his lap, shrieking, "Oh, I've been a bad girl and I need you to punish me!"

I was appalled, and disgusted, but Mr. Hot Stuff just laughed, gently moving her off of him. "No punishment for you tonight, Gina, now go away."

Giggling, she staggered to her feet and stumbled away, yelling something unintelligible as she departed.

I looked at him. "You really do know your loyal subjects' names."

"I told you," he said, returning my gaze.

The music suddenly stopped, and then Emerson Blakely appeared in the doorway, announcing in great volume, "the drawing for The Event is starting now!"

There was a rush for the house, but I stayed still. Mr. Hot Stuff studied me curiously.

"Don't you want to see who gets picked this year?" He asked.

"Nope," I said firmly, "that infernal 'tradition' is beneath me."

He shook his head, sighing, "Alison, you're coming inside and watching." And with that, he grabbed my arm and led me inside, much to my displeasure, which I made very animatedly clear.

Emerson Blakely and a football player she was dating at the time, I think his name was Jason, stood on the staircase, looking down over the restless group of teens that stared up at them. In her arms, Emerson held a bowl.

Knowing her, she probably secretly put her name and Mr. Hot Stuff's name in there about fifty times to guarantee they'd wind up together.

"Okay, so since we drew girls' names first last year, this year, we're gonna pick the guy first!" Jason explained with great enthusiasm, and everyone around us whooped and hollered like the primitive beings they were.

Jason turned to Emerson, who was still wearing her bikini, though she had had the decency to put a jacket over it, and he said, "Emerson, will you do the honors?"

She giggled "of course," and stuck a hand down deep in the bowl. She sifted papers through her manicured fingers for a few minutes before people started heckling her to hurry up.

At long last, she whipped a single slip of paper out of the bowl, and setting the dish down on the stairs, slowly opened the paper. With a totally fake surprised face, she exclaimed, "Flynn Tyler!"

Everyone started screaming and slapping Mr. Hot Stuff on the back and shoulders, and girls grabbed at him, and one even attempted to kiss him as he made his way toward the stairs. All I thought was, so that's his name. Cool.

He finally made it to the stairs, and Emerson offered him a very seductive congratulations, much to the annoyance of Jason the football player.

"And now for the girls!" Jason bellowed, and once again, the room fell silent.

As Emerson bent down to retrieve the second bowl(and so doing gave everyone a good view of her practically naked behind)Jenna appeared beside me.

"Hey girlfriend," she said, grinning.

"Hey," I said, "where's Wes?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. But he's a big boy, he can take care of himself."

"What if somebody's giving him some trouble though?" I asked. "I'm gonna go find him."

"Okay," Jenna replied, "I'll tell you who gets picked, not that you care."

I shoved my way through the throng, softly calling Wes's name. I found him in the kitchen, which was closed off from the living room where everyone was gathered, talking to some guy I'd never seen before.

"Oh, hey Ali," he said cheerfully, "this is Chase, he's just transferred here, I don't know if you've met."

"We haven't," I said, just standing there, not offering to shake his hand or even say hello. I'm not that great at introductions, or pretty much any other social thing, either.

"It's nice to meet you," Chase said cautiously after a moment of weird silence, and my "gaydar" went off immediately. Well good for Wes.

"A pleasure I'm sure," I mumbled, "bye." And with that, I returned to the living room.

The atmosphere was much different than when I'd left. Everyone was quiet, kind of looking around like they were searching for something or someone.

I reached Jenna and immediately asked her what was going on.

She whispered to me, "Your name was drawn."