Waking Up to Boys Read Online Free

parties in clubs—why would she even want to go to an island party in the first place?
    Chelsea continued down the hall and sneaked down the stairs to the front door, relieved that she didn’t have to bring Sara along—just in case Sara might have told her parents. Chelsea had always wondered if her parents secretly knew about the island parties and had just decided to turn a blind eye as long as the staff didn’t trash the island and nobody got hurt—but just in casethey really didn’t know, Chelsea didn’t want to do anything to risk them finding out.
     
    Down on the dock, Leo was directing a small crew as they loaded coolers full of beer onto the boats, guided by the beams of their mountaineering headlamps. Chelsea switched on her Petzl and grabbed an armful of firewood. She had just heaved it into the back of one of the boats when she saw Sara walking toward her, holding a bag of marshmallows and whispering with Sienna.
    “What are you doing here?” Chelsea asked. She must have sounded harsher than she meant to, because both girls gave her funny looks.
    “I was just hanging out at the barracks,” Sara said. “I came with everyone else.”
    “Oh,” Chelsea said. “Cool.” Her cheeks flushed. Sara had been invited to the party, too? The same party Chelsea had been waiting her entire pathetic life so far to get invited to? Not only that, but Chelsea had been to the staff barracks only a handful of times. It had always felt to her like a secret clubhouse that she could never really belong to. Apparently Sara could.
    “Everyone ready to go?” Leo asked. He grinned as Chelsea hopped easily into the driver’s seat, and he then stopped to extend his hand to help Sara.
    “Let’s go,” Chelsea whispered once the backseat was full. Mel, Sienna, Leo, and Sara all huddled together. They began to glide slowly out of the dock, and Chelsea waited until they were a good distance from shore before pushing the boat full-throttle. Cheers and giggles came from the back as a white wake sprayed up behind them, and soon the boat was skimming quickly over the water as a strong headwind whipped wisps of hair across her face.
    Although she was concentrating on driving, Chelsea could hear snippets of the conversation behind her. Leo was telling a story about running into a bear on one of his backcountry skiing excursions, and everyone was alternately gasping and laughing at his comedic delivery. But then Leo did something he almost never did: He stopped in the middle of a sentence.
    “Hey,” he said to Sara. “You’re shivering—are you cold?”
    “A little,” Sara admitted. “But it’s my own fault…. I didn’t realize how cold it gets in the mountains at night.” Chelsea smirked. She had wondered why Sara hadn’t changed out of her white sundress from earlier. Now, seeing the easy way that she flirted with Leo, Chelsea realized it was probably all part of Sara’s scheme to have every guy on the planet fawn over her.
    “That’s why a mountain man like me always dresses in layers,” Leo joked. He was already unsnapping hisblack-and-red-checked wool hunting jacket to reveal a thermal hoodie. “Rule number one about partying at high elevation: No matter how hot it is during the day, it still gets really cold when the sun goes down. Here, put this on.” He handed the jacket to Sara, who gratefully slid her arms into its sleeves. She looked predictably cute.
    Once he’d made sure that Sara was all right, Leo continued with his story, and Chelsea tuned out, wondering for the millionth time what the party would be like. Was that cute Sebastian guy going to be there…or—she couldn’t suppress the thought—Todd? Would she be able to say the right thing without coming across as annoying?
    She cut the motor and let the boat drift the last few feet to the island’s rickety dock. There were already several other small motorboats docked there, some of which she knew didn’t belong to Glitterlake. Word of the party