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around you.”
    “Right,” Ash agrees. “First Ophelia, and then he comes back here by himself last night. Maybe we should check, make sure the pod people haven’t gotten to him.” He pretends to look for a chip at the back of my neck.
    I shrug him off, wish I could shrug off his words as easily. But that’s the second time in the last twenty-four hours someone’s said I’m losing my touch. It’s annoying, because it’s not true, and because if I don’t have sex to lose myself in, what the fuck do I have?
    “Ophelia’s not important,” I tell them. “She’s nuts.”
    For some reason, Luc only grins more widely. “You remember her name.”
    “It’s Ophelia. Kind of hard to forget Hamlet’s crazy girlfriend.” But again, a picture of her, all tough and smart and sexy, forms in the front of my mind. Again I try to ignore it, to shrug it off. I can’t quite manage it, though, especially with Luc and Ash riding me about her so hard.
    “You manage to forget all the other girls pretty easily,” Luc taunts. “Guess this is what happens when a girl hands you your ass in front of everyone.”
    “She didn’t ‘hand me my ass.’ ”
    “Sure looked that way to me,” Ash said.
    “Me too,” Luc agrees. “Admit it. You got owned.”
    Cam finishes her run and comes to stand next to the rest of us. “Are you guys going to stand here gossiping all day or are we going to ride?” she demands.
    “We’re going to ride.” I pick up my board and start the hike back up to the top of the half-pipe.
    “Yeah, well, looks like that’s all you’ll be riding for a while,” Luc crows. “Since Ophelia saw right through you.”
    It’s the wording that gets to me, the idea that Ophelia could have seen anything other than what I wanted her to. I turn back around, glare at Luc. “You’re nuts. I can have that girl in bed anytime I want to.”
    “Sure you can,” Luc tells me.
    “I can,” I insist. She might have told me off, but I felt the heat between us. Shit like that doesn’t just go away if you ignore it. It gets bigger, wilder. Hotter. Until the only way to put out the flames is to give in to them. “I can have her anytime I want.”
    Luc snorts. “Dude. Way to sound like a rapist.”
    The words hit me like a blow, and before I can try to pretend they don’t matter, Cam elbows him. Hard. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she whispers. “What’s wrong with you?”
    I know she doesn’t mean for me to hear, but I do, and that just makes everything more awkward. The only thing worse than living with all that shit with my sister is having my friends tiptoe around it. Like I’m some kind of pussy who can’t deal.
    Then again, maybe I can’t, because there’s no way I’m touching this conversation. Not right now, when it’s all I can do not to throw myself off the fucking half-pipe.
    “Yeah, right,” Ash says, going in for the rescue like he always does. Usually I don’t put up with it, but today I don’t say anything as he continues, “When have you ever known Z to have to do more than crook his finger to get a girl to take her clothes off?”
    “I think you’re all delusional,” Cam snarls. “Z can’t actually have every girl he wants.” I can tell she’s thinking about those moments at the top of the half-pipe when I almost kissed her, almost used her, just because she was there. And available. And willing.
    That just makes me feel worse, though. This conversation—this whole morning—is getting way too serious. Time to lighten things up and remind them that I can deal just fine. “Maybe not,” I say with a deliberate smirk, “but I can have Ophelia.”
    I sound like a total douche, but better that than a pussy.
    Except Luc calls me on it. “Oh, yeah? You so sure about that?”
    “Absolutely.” No backing down now. A guy can only take so much sympathy before hegoes insane. “Give me a week and I’ll prove it.”
    “Are you seriously betting on whether or not you can fuck a