she is, anyway.”
“Excuse you,” Tori said.
“Thank you.”
“How are you straighter than me?”
“Have you or have you not kissed a woman?”
She paused. “Three times.”
Seb blinked. “The same woman?”
“No,” she replied brightly. “Three different ones. In my defense, I was drunk in college.”
“I don’t think you need a defense for that.” Josh stared at her then looked at his girlfriend.
Kinsley hit him. “Not gonna happen.”
“She’s a great kisser,” Saylor said, perusing the menu.
All three guys shared a look. “I’m sorry, what?” Colton asked.
“I said she’s a great kisser,” Saylor repeated, still not bothering to look up from the menu. “I was one of those.”
“How did we never know this?” I asked, glancing between them. “Seriously?”
Tori nodded. “Let’s see. It was my sophomore year and there was a birthday party for the head of the sorority.”
“You were in a sorority? You?” Colton raised his eyebrows.
“No, fuck that,” Tori replied. “Neither of us were, but they liked us, so they let us come to the parties. Also, I knew where to buy good pot.”
“Ah,” Seb muttered. “The key to all good parties.”
I choked back a laugh.
If I didn’t already think I was the nerd of the friend group, this just confirmed it.
Man, my college years were boring compared to the years my friends apparently enjoyed.
“Shut up,” Tori shot at him. “It was a huge blow out that almost got shut down the cops. Almost everyone left and a small group of us stayed behind to play spin the bottle, and I don’t think I need to elaborate on that.”
“Spin the bottle doesn’t count,” Kinsley said. “Everyone’s kissed a member of the same sex while playing that.”
“I haven’t,” Josh offered.
“Me either,” said Colton.
“Thirding,” added Seb.
“Fine.” Kinsley shot them all a dark look. “All girls have kissed girls during spin the bottle.”
“I think we were playing with the wrong girls,” Seb mused quietly.
I rolled my eyes. “Well, I haven’t.”
Tori wiggled her eyebrows at me. “You wanna?”
Saylor snorted. “Good luck. I spent a whole year trying to get her to party with us at college and she never did.”
“Then you dropped out.”
“Why did I need a chemistry degree? What on Earth was I going to do with that in White Peak?” She raised her eyebrows, then looked at Kinsley. “And it totally counts. It wasn’t a peck. We full-on made out.”
“You studied chemistry?” Seb asked.
“That’s what you took from that?” Saylor blinked at him. “You’re weird.”
“I don’t know what to do with all this information,” Colton said, staring between her and Tori.
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. In the shower,” Tori said dryly.
“And I’m going to find my mom to see where our drinks are.” I got up, holding up my hands. I could not listen to those two bicker their way through their sexual frustration anymore, and nor did I want to hear more about their apparently wild college years while I was actually studying for a degree I…
Used.
In my bookstore.
All that time, wasted, on the Dewey decimal system, only for my best friends to never put a book back in the alphabetical order I needed.
Sigh.
***
“That is some serious rapping.”
Slowly, I nodded, looking toward the karaoke stage where Kinsley was currently spitting Eminem like her life depended on it.
“Is that a skill she picked up during pot parties at college, too?”
I almost choked on my drink and spat it everywhere. I elbowed Seb. “No. It’s one she’s always had that only comes out when she’s drunk.”
“Oh. She’s drunk? And she can rap like that?” His eyes widened. “I know rappers who can’t rap like that.”
“Apparently my friends are full of surprises,” I replied dryly. “It seems to be a theme tonight.”
“You really didn’t know about their… adventures… in college?”
“Why would I have known? Unlike them, I actually studied.”
“I can’t believe Saylor was a chemistry major.”
“Yeah, nobody can. I can’t imagine why,” I finished dryly. “She realized that while she loved chemistry, it was a waste of money because she knew she’d never leave White Peak. So she dropped out, got a full-time job, and stayed living with us off-campus until the year was done.”
“She didn’t come home?”
“Why would she? What would she have done?”
“I sometimes forget how joined at the hip you three are.”
“We’re not joined at the hip,” I lied. “Well, not so much now Kinsley and Josh are dating. Apparently they need time together.”
“Does it get in the way of your book club?”
“I don’t like the way you said that.”
He grinned, leaning back and resting his arm over the back of my chair. His