And Annie gave me the it-was-vacation-craziness-we-are-not-ever-ever-going-to-kiss-again look.

Crap.

I was hosed and I knew it.

I sneezed. I suddenly felt terrible. Not terrible because of how much of a loser I was, but terrible because it dawned on me exactly why I was so sweaty and my voice wasn’t working.

“Are you okay, Ryan Dean?” Annie asked. She was leaning forward in her seat, looking square at my face, so close.

“I feel like I’m getting sick,” I said.

Then, as happens in my reality, all these things occurred at once:

1. (Fight or Flight) Chas turned around and said, “If you fucking puke in my car, Pussboy, I’ll make you lick it up.” This made me feel a little queasier.

2. (Nice) Annie gave a sympathetic “aww.” She put her hand across my forehead (Bliss) to see if I had a fever and said, “Well, you shouldn’t have been running around naked in the woods in the rain this morning.”

3. (Hot) Megan’s hand warmed up considerably, her fingers played inside my back pocket, and she said, “You were running naked in the woods? That’s so incredibly sexy.”

4. (Kind of thing the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island lives to hear) Annie said, “You are really hot, Ryan Dean.”

Okay, I’ll be honest. I know she was talking about my having a fever. But with Megan cupping her hand under my butt cheek and cooing on one side of me, and Annie touching my face and looking so compassionately Florence-Nightingale-hot on the other, a guy can hallucinate, can’t he?

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

BY THE TIME WE GOT back to pine Mountain, I had been sleeping with my head on Annie’s shoulder for over an hour. I woke up when the cold air rushed in on me from the open doors.

I felt Annie let go of my hand.

“We’re back,” she said.

I felt sick.

“Make it be yesterday again.”

Annie smiled.

The others were already around back, pulling their bags out of the SUV. Chas and Megan weren’t talking to each other. Megan didn’t seem to mind. She wheeled her bag away in the direction of the girls’ dorm and said, “I hope you feel better, Ryan Dean.”

Then I knew Chas was going to do something to get even with me.

Probably something painful, but at the very least humiliating.

Annie helped me out of the car. I put my feet down in a puddle of rainwater, then realized my shoes were still sitting on the floor beneath the backseat, where I’d left them.

I am such a loser.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Ryan Dean,” Annie said. But she was laughing about it too.

Of course it was funny. I just felt like crap.

I slipped my soggy socks back into my shoes and wiped the sweat from my forehead.

“You need to take a hot shower and get into bed,” Annie said.

I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t say, “I might need some help doing that, Annie.”

“You are such a pervert.” She smiled, and those eyes almost made me feel better.

Joey put my bag over his shoulder and said, “Come on, I’ll take this back for you.”

We walked through the main gates to the campus together, and just as Annie was turning off toward her dorm, I saw Seanie and JP coming up from the lake path. I turned to Annie and grabbed her hand.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Yeah.”

I moved a little closer. I really felt like we were supposed to kiss or something, but I didn’t know. I mean, isn’t that the normal thing to do after people go away for a weekend together?

“I really did have a great time, Annie. Sorry I got mad about things this morning. You know, I just feel like . . .” I looked down at my sloshing feet and said, “Whatever.” I didn’t want her to go.

“It’s okay, Ryan Dean. Get better, okay?”

Then she let go of my hand and turned away. I sighed. I really wanted to grab her and turn her around right there in front of everyone and just kiss her, the same way we kissed in the sawmill, but I knew Annie wasn’t like that, and that no matter how I felt, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. So I slumped my shoulders and followed Joey toward O-Hall, my feet slosh-slosh-sloshing behind him as he carried both of our bags.

“Hey, Nutsack, welcome back.” Seanie jogged up to me. “How was the trip?”

Of course, JP stayed back on the path, away from me. And when I turned around to talk to Seanie, I saw that JP was saying something to Annie. And I saw her smile at him, and I wondered if we had that same kind of tired-of-each-other look that Chas and Megan did.

No. I knew we didn’t.

“Dude, did you even hear what I’ve been saying?” Seanie said.

I wasn’t really listening to him. I was watching Annie give JP a hug. And then JP looked right at me. It felt like getting kicked in the balls by both of them. I turned away. God, I hated him.

“Huh?” I said. “Oh. I had a great time, Seanie. It was great.”

He followed along as we walked to O-Hall, and we talked about things, but I wasn’t paying attention at all. I know I told him I’d gotten sick, and I know Seanie was laughing about something he’d done to someone on the Internet over the weekend, and it was probably me and probably had something to do with a Band-Aid, but it was all fogged through the filter of my sickness and how much I wanted to kill John-Paul Tureau at that moment.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

AT MIDNIGHT, SOME ASSHOLE PULLED the sheets off my head and beamed a flashlight on my face.

“Get up, Pussboy, we’re playing poker.”

Ugh.

“Let me sleep, Chas. I’m sick. I don’t mind if you guys go ahead and play.”

My throat felt like I had swallowed a handful of sewing needles. Sideways.

Sheets.

Off.

On the floor.

Gravity.

Hands grabbing my legs. Being pulled over the edge.

My feet slapped down onto the cool of the floor, and someone held me up by my armpits to stop me from recracking my head open.

Crap.

I really hate Chas Becker.

I yawned, and when the fluid cleared from my eyes, I could see Joey, Casey Palmer (of all people—why’d Chas ask that dickhead to play?), and Kevin Cantrell, standing there in front of me with his right arm folded inside a black cloth sling.

“Kevin. Wow. Are you okay?” Awkwardly, I shook his left hand.

There is something really weird about being cornered into shaking a guy’s left hand. It felt creepy and dirty. Standing there in my boxers didn’t do anything special to make it feel closer to normal either.

I picked my sheet up from the floor where Chas had thrown it and wrapped it around me. I was shivering a little, and sweating, but I wasn’t going to get dressed. I refused to.

I fully planned on going back to bed.

Chas began setting up the game, and the guys sat in a circle on the floor. I stayed on my feet.

“I’ll be okay,” Kevin said. “They have to see if there’s going to be nerve damage. The season’s over for me, though.”

“That’s fucked up,” Chas said. “I don’t know who we’re going to get to lock with me now.”

In rugby, locks came in pairs, like training wheels. Like balls. Chas and Kevin were arguably the most important guys in the forward pack.

Chas began shuffling.

“Get your twenty dollars out and sit down, Pussboy.”

I guess he’d gotten used to my new name.

It did have a lyrical sound to it.

I said, “Pussboy’s going back to bed.” I looked at Casey and started to climb back up to the top bunk. I still couldn’t believe he was there in my room.

Then Chas said, “Sit the fuck down and get your fucking foot off my bed.”