Best friends Sydney, Kelly, Alexia and Raven have seen each other through everything...until three of the girls are dumped by their respective boyfriends...on the same night! Reeling from this, the girls decide to create a list of rules to help them avoid future heartache. But soon they find out that while breaking up is hard to do, sometimes staying broken up is even harder!

Sydney Howard picked at her nail while she waited outside the locker rooms after a Friday night basketball game. Her thumbnail had caught on the zipper of her jacket and tore off, leaving it jagged. She flipped open her purse and dug inside, except the nail clipper she always carried wasn’t there. Probably because her boyfriend Drew took it and left it somewhere that was obviously not her purse. He never put things back where he found them.

The girls’ locker room door opened and cheerleaders started filing out. A few said hi to Sydney as they passed until Nicole, the head cheerleader, came out, her makeup reapplied in a thick mask on her face.

Nicole glanced over at Sydney and whispered something to her three friends, which made them all laugh.

Sydney rolled her eyes as they left. Whatever.

A few minutes later Drew emerged from the locker room in jeans and a sweatshirt, his black hair still wet from the shower.

“Hey,” he said, readjusting the bag strap on his shoulder.

“Hi.” She fell in step beside him as they left the school through the back doors. The freshly fallen snow crunched beneath their feet. Sydney pulled the collar of her jacket up around her neck when the cool air hit her skin.

“You should have worn a thicker jacket,” Drew said.

She glanced over at him. “I didn’t think it was going to be this cold.” Even in the half-darkness of the night, Sydney could still see the blue of his eyes. Although every inch of him was good, she always thought of his eyes as his best quality. They were such a bright blue they were almost neon. She always teased him saying if they were ever stuck in a cave his eyes would probably glow and light the way out.

Together they followed the sidewalk down to the parking lot.

“I was wondering,” Sydney started. “So listen—” said Drew.

Sydney tipped her head. “You first.”

“Well, there’s this party tonight,” Drew began, flipping the zipper on his bag up and down, up and down, “over at Craig’s. It’s to celebrate the end of the semester and getting through exams. He really wants us to come.”

“I don’t know. I was thinking we could just go hang out at your house.”

He groaned. “We do that every night, Syd.”

A car stereo thumped bass beats somewhere in the parking lot. Sydney looked out and saw several football players and cheerleaders in a group around a few parked cars. She didn’t fit in with them. Not that she tried or even wanted to. She was the junior class president, and in the Honor Society. Going to a “kegger” wasn’t her idea of fun.

“But do you really want to drive out there?” she said. Craig’s house was on the outside of Birch Falls, a good thirty minutes away. She was hoping that would sway Drew. He hated driving and she certainly wasn’t going to drive out there.

“Yeah. Totally,” he said.

Okay. Maybe not.

“I don’t think I want to go.”

He hung his head to the side. “Come on, Syd—”

A squeal sounded behind Sydney. She turned just in time to see a flash of blonde hair as Nicole ran up to Drew and threw her arms around his neck.

“Awesome game!” she yelled, pulling away to touch Drew’s chest.

Sydney knew every line of that chest, like the tiny crescent scar on his left pec where his older brother chucked a rock at him when they were little. It didn’t seem right that Nicole Robinson should be able to touch his chest so freely.

In the last year, Drew had gone from skinny, unknown basketball player, to the insanely hot starting forward on the team. It did not escape Sydney that her shy, somewhat dorky boyfriend had transformed into the It Guy at Birch Falls High.

Or that every other girl in school wanted him now. Two years ago, when he and Sydney started going out, no one really knew he existed.

Drew smiled, clearly glowing with Nicole’s attention. “We couldn’t have won without the cheerleaders.”

“Oh you,” Nicole cooed, giving his bicep a playful thump, “stop.”

Sydney tapped her foot on the sidewalk. Come on, Drew, catch the hint.

“So,” he said, after making quick eye contact with Sydney, “I’ll see you at the party.”

Nicole nodded. “Sure. See ya there.” She waggled her fingers in a wave, ignoring Sydney, and headed off toward the parking lot.

“What,” Sydney put her hands on her hips, “was that all about?”

Drew cast his gaze aside, pulling his dark brows together. “She was congratulating me on the game.”

“I think it was more than that.” Sydney took in a long breath and shifted from one foot to the other. She trusted Drew, but it was hard pretending that she didn’t notice the other girls flirting with him. Or that the other girls looked at Sydney as merely an obstacle standing in their way.

Sometimes Sydney wished Drew was still the dorky Drew. The one that thought doing homework on a Friday night was fun and that keggers were for morons.

“I think Nicole has a thing for you,” Sydney said.

Drew grabbed his bag strap and shrugged. “So what if she does?”

Sydney didn’t want to admit that she was afraid of losing him, but she was. Drew was really all she knew. The thought of being without him made her chest feel hollow. At the same time, she felt powerless to defend her relationship. Really, what was she supposed to do to stop the other girls from liking Drew? That was something out of her control and it frustrated her.

Finally she sighed and shook her head. “Whatever. Let’s just go. Did you take my nail clipper? I can’t find it.”

“What about the party?”

She was hoping he’d forgotten about the party. “Can we talk about it in the truck? I’m freezing out here.”