Chapter 5

Jenna Ramos, Wednesday, June 18, 2008.

Steve Kelley's parents were out of town for the week, so he was throwing a big party. My boyfriend, Jake, picked me up.

"You look hot tonight," he said as I got into the car.

"Thanks, it's a new dress."

"I like it."

"So who all's coming tonight?"

"Marissa and Alex, Katie Fisher, Nick Caldwell, Emily, Grace, oh, and her family's exchange student."

"They have an exchange student?"

"Yeah, he's an Israelian or something."

"Cool."

"And there will be some new guys that Steve plays poker with, and Pat Rosario."

"Ew. Why'd they invite him?"

"I think he's friends with the guys Steve plays poker with."

"What's so special about them?"

"I dunno, apparently they're like, professional poker players or something. They cleaned Steve out."

"Then why does he want to hang out with them?"

"I dunno. They're cool, I guess."

We pulled up to Steve's house. Steve was on the porch smoking with Alex and some guys I didn't know. Grace was chatting with one of them.

Steve handed us hard lemonade as we walked up to his house and high-fived Jake.

"Hey bro, this is David and Jack. Don't play poker with them." David and Jack both laughed. David shook my hand.

"Hi, I'm Jenna."

"David, nice to meet you." He had a deep voice, and seductive eyes. If I wasn't careful, Jake was going to be pissed by the end of the night.

"and this is Dov," Steve said, "he's an Israeli exchange student."

I don't speak Israeli, so I wasn't sure what to say. Fortunately, Dov apparently spoke English, and he introduced himself. He wasn't bad looking either, and his accent was kind of sexy. Jake was definitely not going to be happy.

"Oh," Steve said, "Jack invited Pat Rosario. He should be coming soon. Do you know him?"

"Not really," Jake said. "Isn't he kind of a loser?"

I decided to speak up. Even if these guys were hot I didn't want people thinking I was suddenly friends with Pat Rosario. "Yeah, why the hell did you guys invite him?"

"It's sort of a business thing," David explained. "We heard his dad has a gambling addiction, so we wanted to use Pat to get closer to him."

"You're wasting your time. They don't have any money, if the clothes he wears are any indication. Half the time he doesn't even wear shoes."

"Yeah, but if the dad's a gambling addict we might be able to win his house or his car off him."

That made a lot more sense to me. "Oh, smart. You guys must be, like, geniuses or something."

"That's how I won that." He coughed and nodded towards his car, which was parked in the driveway. Neither Jake nor I had noticed it before, but it was a bright red convertible, apparently a Ferrari. The boys went over to check it out.

I walked over to Grace. "Your new exchange student looks hot."

She giggled. "Wait till you see him without his clothes on."