Mikan pov

Not that I cared about hanging out with jerks like Luna— yuck. But Ruka had been to many of his parties, and he never told me much about the events behind those doors. That alone sharpened my curiosity. He would go tonight for sure. The fact the Barbie Clone would be there too had my heart slipping to my pants.

I put up a nonchalant face when I actually felt like bawling and trudged over to the water cooler to get a drink larger than the fly pee Ruka had brought me after the warm-up. The afternoon dragged on with more qualifications that involved passing the ball back and forth, zigzagging over the field with short kicks, and finally a count of how often one could kick the ball without losing it.

I shot amazing two and a half. This was it. I was done with soccer. May the ball rot in hell and the players die of thirst. I didn't give a damn if I made it onto the team or not. Playing ball in the scorching sun was for morons anyway. I wiped the sweat off my face with the towel Ruka had brought, then stuffed it back into his backpack, and stomped off. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" "Home." Ruka caught up with me. "You can't. Natsume hasn't announced the new players yet."

"Like I care." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and used my speed to propel me in the opposite direction. "You don't want to know if you're on the team?" Trying to wiggle from him, I gave him a hard stare.

"Nope." "Where's your spirit gone?" "Where has your eyesight gone?" I stopped dead. "You saw what a miserable player I make." "Ah, I've seen worse. Actually, I'm pretty proud of you. This was the first time you came into skin-contact with a soccer ball and you almost hit a goal on the second try. All you need is a little training." I found that hard to believe, but the expression in his eyes told me differently. He meant it. Confused, I gave him a sideways glance. Unfortunately, Luna intruded my view as she came skipping over to us like the tooth fairy. Her perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around his biceps as she bounced up and down before him. "Come, quick. Natsume will name the players in a minute.

He already told me that I was on the team." "I'm not surprised." Ruka allowed that she dragged him away from me. "You proved in camp you're a natural at soccer." "Only at soccer?" She winked at him and skipped away.

My molars suffered from the hard grinding I did. The thing was— I needed to become a member of this team, badly. How else could I fend off this bimbo? Natsume Hyuuga held a list in his hands as he stepped in front of the expecting crowd.

"We need eleven new players. I'll call out the names of those who made it onto the team. If yours is among them, well done. If not, I'm sorry but hope you will try again next year. You've all shown great enthusiasm today." He cleared his throat and reeled off the new players."Stevenson. Jones. Summers—"

Since Barbie jumped with her friend at that name, I figured now I knew her last name. "— Smith. Jackson. Daniels. Hollister. McNeal. Miller. Sakura. And Warren." My jaw hit the dirt. I pivoted to Ruka.

"Did he just say Sakura?" "Guess he did." His silly grin made me want to slap some seriousness into his face. "I'm going to play?" "Yes," he chuckled. "Now get your things, I owe you a sundae." I really made it, and he owed me ice cream. What a freaking fantastic day. I jogged to the bench and slung my backpack over one shoulder.

Certainly, I had the most stupid grin in the world pasted on my lips. It slipped as the word owe got stuck on repeat in my mind. What if he had asked Natsume to let me onto the team even if I was a miserable player? At the thought of depending on Natsume's mercy, I felt awfully embarrassed.

I had to know, and Ruka would spill— even if it meant I had to threaten to crunch his entire six months supply of cheese crackers, which he kept hidden under his bed. Whipping around, I bumped into Natsume. "Congrats, Sakura," he cheered.

"You handled the tryout quite well." "Yeah, whatever." Pissed at something I hadn't yet proof of, I shoved past him but then stopped. "What does Ruka owe you for putting me on the team?"

For a moment, he looked confused. Then he laughed out loud. "You don't want to know." My hands fisted around the strap of my backpack. Hell, of course, I wanted to know. Turning to leave, he glanced at me over his shoulder. His eyes sparked with a glint of mischief. "See you at my house, Sakura."

Holy shit. Did he just invite me to his party?

The sundae was yummy, but so was Ruka as he licked vanilla ice-cream off his spoon. I couldn't take my eyes off his lips the entire hour we sat at Anna's. Unfortunately, the boy was like a fortress. Bolted down.

He refused to tell me what he had to give Natsume for letting me play in the team. Well, he said he didn't owe Hunter anything, but I didn't buy it. At eight thirty that evening, Ruka picked me up at my door and drove us to Natsume's house in his mother's car.

I had no idea what people wore to those parties, but since it was still over ninety degrees in the evening— not unusual for Northern California in August— I chose a dark gray tank top and black hot pants.

Judging by the smirk I earned from Ruka, I supposed I had settled on the right clothes. As we entered the lane of Natsume's mansion, a long queue of cars told me just how big this party was.

Ruka appeared unimpressed and maneuvered into a spot at the corner, but I had a hard time closing my mouth. "How many guests is he expecting?" "Can't say. Usually, there are one hundred to a hundred and fifty. If his parents are gone, the number might as well get up to three hundred."

Heck, I didn't even know that many people if I counted all my friends, family, and their pets together. We walked up the drive then climbed the marble steps to the door with the bowed top. The music blasted through the wood so we figured we didn't need to ring.

Ruka jiggled the handle, and it opened easily. Jean Paul's She doesn't mind was blaring from the the many speakers as we entered. Bodies bumped and ground against each other in salacious moves I only knew from films. Several boys shouted a conversation over the noise and drank beer from bottles while groping the butts of the girls with them.

Some people kissed in the dim light. I clung to Ruka's comforting biceps. "Oh my God, don't leave me alone in this place." He laughed, or so I thought when his ribcage shook slightly, because I couldn't really hear him. But his arm pressed my hands tighter to his body as he pulled me into the mass of people. Not all of them were kids. It seemed Natsume had a lot of older friends, too, ranging from sixteen to about twenty-five.

A small group of girls from my History class gathered in the middle of the room. Nonoko grabbed my arm when we passed them. I had to lip-read to understand that she wanted me to join them. "I'll get you something to drink," Ruka shouted in my ear.

I nodded and watched him walk away with a weird quiver in my stomach. What if he never found his way back to me in this blasted place? The distance he put between us was quickly filled with throngs of strangers. Shit, I shouldn't have let him go.

Turning back to my friends, I tried to join in the conversation, but mostly I just stood there and nodded, pretending to understand what they said. Nonoko handed me a bottle of Corona when Ruka hadn't come back after ten minutes. Parched by the heat in the room, anything cool was welcome. I wet my lips with the beer then licked it off. Okay, this stuff wasn't half bad. I took a real sip. A little acerbic, but quite palatable. I had downed half of the bottle when my head started to feel dizzy.

Across the room I thought I'd spotted Ruka. I waved goodbye at my friends and headed off toward the back. The crowd thinned a little there, and I could actually move without rubbing against other people's sweat. But Ruka was nowhere in sight.

A high arch in the wall connected this room to the kitchen. I headed there and found Ryan standing in the doorway, leaning one shoulder against the wall. The sleeves of his black shirt were rolled up to his elbows, and the jeans he wore were ripped at the hems. Black was a color I loathed on Ruka.

It made him look way too demonic. With Natsume it was different. The top buttons undone, he looked mysterious. Kind of sexy. Him looking like the devil was cool. His gaze flickered my way then stayed as he sipped his beer, watching as I drew closer.

It would have been plain impolite not to say hello to the host, so I stopped before him and lifted my hand in greeting. The music wasn't as loud back here, and I actually caught his hi.

"You have a nice place. So full of… people," I said, feeling awkward and a little stupid for not knowing how to start a cool conversation. "Yeah, thanks." He moved away from the wall and leaned closer to me so I could hear him. "It was about time Nogi brought you here. He kept you away from this place long enough."

Huh? I frowned. Ruka was the reason why I hadn't been invited to any of Natsume's parties yet? That bloody wretch. But then he probably figured I wouldn't feel comfortable among this drinking lot and with all the noise.

I, idiot, proved his point the second we came here by clinging to his arm like a frightened cat. "Do you know where he is?" I said into Natsume's ear, thankful that I didn't need to shout and damage my vocal cords even more.