I poke my head into the kitchen, and Emilio sticks his head out a second later, both of us peering suspiciously out at Creed Foster as he sits at my kitchen island, nibbling on my brother's chocolate chip cookies like he was a dainty little princess enjoying afternoon tea.

"What the hell is he doing?" Emilio whispers. "Why hasn't he set anything on fire yet?" 

"I don't know," I whisper back, "Maybe he's waiting for me to go talk to him." 

"Wait, Carter!" Emilio hisses when I walk past him and step into the doorway so Creed can see me. I knew there was no way in hell he'd beat me up in my own house, no matter how awful he acted in school. That wasn't how Creed worked; he and I both knew it.

"Hey, Tennyson," Creed pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth, "Your house hasn't changed since the last time I was here." 

"I guess that's the thing with houses," I say quietly, "They never change."

Creed brushes the crumbs off his hands, and then he stands up, his boots stomping on the wood floor, scattering mud from the damp earth outside. "Where's Asher?" He asks me, "We were supposed to meet up after school at the arcade. He never showed."

"I don't know," I scoff, and my arms cross. "What do I look like? His babysitter?"

"Huh, maybe... minus the ponytails and pink sweater," Creed snickers, and then he gets real close to me so that his stubbly face is inches from mine. It was hard to believe that I'd actually made out with him at one point. He actually smelled pretty clean when he hadn't been working on his beat-up old Chevy in his dad's garage and smoking like ten packs of cigarettes. 

"Just tell me where my boy Luke is and I'll be on my way," Creed continues, and then he reaches down and straightens my shirt like he was the villain in one of those cheesy movies on TV.

"Oh my God," Emilio mouths from the doorway.

"You know, Luke doesn't feel that way about you, right?" I blurt before I can help myself. "I talked to him earlier. He told me himself. "

Creed drops my shirt and he gives me this weird look where his lip is curled slightly and his nose is wrinkled up like he'd smelled something bad. But then he does something that I'm not counting on. "Yeah," he shrugs, "So?"

I look back at Emilio, who shrugs a little and then steps out from behind the doorway. He gestures for me to come over, but I don't move an inch from where I'm standing. 

"You don't know anything, Tennyson," Creed continues, "You're just a baby. You don't get to talk for Luke when you don't know anything about him or me. "

I stare up at him, studying his expression, wondering if this was the part where he punched my lights out or dragged me outside by my hair, kicking and screaming.

"I"m sorry," Creed tells me instead, "I'm sorry I grew up faster than you did."

I expected to feel a rush of anger, but instead I don't feel anything but a sense of loss and maybe relief. Because this whole time, I think I'd felt something for Creed, even if he was a piece of shit and had slept with Luke Asher. A part of me had held on to the hope that he would come back, and the other had begged him not to.

"Carter?" Luke calls from my stairwell, and we all look over when he comes down, partially wrapped in one of my mom's huge white towels and wearing nothing else. "Jesus fuck! What the hell happened? Where am I? Where the shit are my clothes? "

"Okay," Emilio sighs, "Carter? Why are so many hot boys suddenly showing up at your house? "

"Asher?" Creed steps forward, pushing me and Emilio aside. "Holy shit!"

But all I can do is stare.

Because if Luke Asher was standing naked in my house, dripping wet. Then where the fuck had he been this whole time except for my extremely full bathtub upstairs?