Nadia is standing behind me while I look in the mirror and I can feel her eyes on my back before she says anything.
"That top is doing you a favor," she says.
Her fingers find the hem and tug it down where it's riding up. Her knuckles brush the skin above my jeans. I reach down and fix it myself.
"Thanks."
"You should wear stuff like this more often. You've got the body for it, Bella. Like seriously." Her eyes move down and back up in the mirror. Kira glances over from the bed but doesn't say anything.
"So are y'all coming tonight?" I ask, pulling my hair to one side.
Nadia looks at Kira. Something passes between them that I'm not part of.
"We're staying in tonight," Kira says. "Just us."
"Date night," Nadia adds, wrapping her arms around Kira from behind and pressing her chin into her shoulder. Kira smiles and tilts her head against Nadia's and they look soft together in a way that makes me feel like I'm intruding by standing in my own room.
Ethan picks me up outside the building. He's with two of his boys and they walk ahead while we fall into step the way we always do. The bonfire is at the south end of campus near the athletic fields. I can smell it before I see it — woodsmoke and charcoal and something sweet someone is grilling. There's maybe fifty people spread out on blankets and lawn chairs and the ground. Someone brought a speaker. The fire is big enough that I can feel the heat from twenty feet away.
I see Derek before I see anyone else. He's standing near the drinks table with a cup in his hand talking to a girl I don't recognize. He spots me at the same time and his face opens up.
"Bella! Come here, I need your opinion on something."
I walk over. He's arguing with the girl about whether a marketing campaign they saw in class was genius or manipulative. I give my answer. He agrees with me loudly and the girl rolls her eyes and walks away and he turns to me grinning like we just won something together.
"You look good tonight," he says, leaning back against the table.
"Thanks."
"Different from class good. Like actually trying good."
"Are you saying I don't try in class?"
"I'm saying whatever you're doing tonight, keep doing it."
I shake my head and take a cup from the table and walk away from him toward where Ethan is setting up near the fire. He's found a spot on the grass, pulled a blanket from somewhere, and his boys are already spreading out. I drop down next to him and he shifts to make room without thinking about it, his knee pressing against mine.
"Who was that?" he asks. Not looking at me. Looking at Derek across the fire.
"Derek. My project partner."
"The marketing guy?"
"Yeah."
"He always stand that close to you?"
"He stands that close to everyone."
Ethan doesn't say anything else about it but he doesn't stop looking at Derek for another few seconds. When he finally turns back to the group someone is already suggesting never have I ever and everyone is groaning but also reaching for their drinks.
We play. It starts easy. Never have I ever been to jail. Never have I ever failed a class. Never have I ever kissed someone in this circle — three people drink to that one and the questions start flying about who and when and the fire is warm on my face and Ethan's arm finds my shoulder.
He does it without thinking. He's leaned back on one hand and the other arm is draped across my shoulders and his thumb is tapping against my upper arm while he laughs at someone's answer. His body is warm against my side and I can feel his chest move when he talks and this is the closest I've been to him since the slow dance at the fresher's party and he has absolutely no idea what it's doing to me.
Derek sits down on my other side. Tips his cup at me. "Room for one more?"
"Never have I ever," someone starts, "hooked up with someone and forgot their name."
Derek drinks. Doesn't even hesitate. Catches me looking and shrugs. "College."
"Never have I ever," one of Ethan's boys says, "cried during a movie."
Ethan drinks. I look at him.
"What?" he says. "The Lion King is traumatic."
I drink too. He points at me. "See?"
"Mine wasn't The Lion King."
"What was yours?"
"None of your business."
"Never have I ever," someone else says, "had a crush on someone in this circle."
The fire crackles. I feel Ethan's arm heavy on my shoulders. Derek is close enough on my left that his elbow is touching mine. I lift my cup to my mouth and pretend to sip my drink and someone whistles and says "who?" and I say "I was just drinking" and Ethan laughs and his arm tightens around me for a second, a squeeze, casual, the kind of thing that stops my lungs for a beat.
Someone says "birthday boy" when Ethan takes his next turn and a few people start asking about plans for tomorrow and Ethan says "nothing crazy, just the apartment" and looks at me. "You're coming right?"
"Obviously."
"Bring food."
"I'm bringing you a gift."
"Food IS a gift."
"You're getting what you're getting."
He grins. The fire catches it. Tomorrow I'm going to hand him a bag with a jersey in it that cost me two weeks of tips and I want to see that grin turn into something he can't control.
Then I feel Ethan shift next to me. His arm is still on my shoulders but his attention isn't. It's somewhere past the fire, past the circle, past everyone sitting here. I follow his eyes.
A girl walking past with two friends. She's not heading toward us. She's cutting across the field toward another group, cup in hand, laughing at something one of her friends said. She passes through the glow of the bonfire and for three seconds she's lit up and Ethan is watching her like the fire doesn't exist.
"You know her?" I ask.
His arm drops from my shoulders. He sits up slightly. "Yeah. She's in my econ class. Stella."
Stella.
Stella was the one in The bathroom at the fresher's party, whose ex boyfriend was cheating.
I look at Ethan's face. At the way his eyes are still following her across the field.
Then movement on my left. Derek is standing up. His cup is empty and his face is different. The easy grin is gone. He's looking in the same direction Ethan is looking but what's on his face isn't interest. It's something darker and messier and his jaw is working and his hand is crushing the empty cup.
He starts walking. Not toward the drinks table. Toward her.
"Derek," I say.
He doesn't hear me. Or he does and he doesn't care. He's moving through people, cutting across the grass, and his walk has that stiff uneven energy of someone who's been drinking more than I thought he was.
He reaches Stella before I can process what's happening. She turns around. Sees him. Her whole body changes — shoulders up, chin down, hands tight around her cup. He's talking. I can't hear the words from here but I can see them landing. She steps back. He steps forward. Her friends are frozen. People are starting to look.
Ethan stands up beside me. "What the hell?"
I watch Derek's mouth move. I watch Stella's face crumple. I watch the charming project partner who drew a gravestone in my notebook and made me laugh so hard the girl in front of us turned around — I watch him stand over a girl half his size and spit words at her that make her flinch.
The girl from the bathroom. The ex-boyfriend who cheated. The one she gave a whole year to.
Derek.
My project partner is Stella's ex.