Who Laughs Last (Clearwater University, #2)

by Eva Ashwood

I won’t let him drag me into

emerge from our rooms, ready for people to start arriving. Trent wears ripped jeans and a white v-neck shirt, and a beer dangles from his fingertips as he brushes a hand through his dark hair. “Rocking the rebel without a cause look tonight,” I say, not in the nicest tone. Yeah, I’m still pissed at him and he’s still pissed at me. But we’re going to get through this. “How many people coming to this thing?” West asks, coming into the living room as well. “Like, fifty,” Trent says. “Shit,” West replies, not sounding impressed by that number so much as annoyed. I’ve been on the fence about this party, but West definitely isn’t. He picked a side a long time ago, and that side was anti-party. “Hell, yeah. It’s gonna be epic.” The manic glint is back in Trent’s eyes, and he either doesn’t notice the tone of West’s voice or just chooses to ignore it. The three of us sit down on the couch, drinking beer and waiting for people to arrive. For a while, the only sound is the music coming through the speakers, but after a while, we start to talk and joke amongst ourselves a little. The beer doesn’t hurt, and I’m sure either Trent or West—or maybe both—have been smoking weed too. It relaxes a bit of the tension between all of us, and gradually, things start to feel a bit more like old times. Goddamn. How did everything get so fucked up in just a single semester? Emma exploded into our lives like a bomb, and there’s basically nothing left at the epicenter of the blast. I know she’s still...