To Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Julia Quinn, Mom, Pat, and Colleen
&
To anyone who brings a paperback to a party
This one’s for you
Did all frat houses smell like beer, sweat and regret?
Tonight was my first—and hopefully last—college party, so I didn’t know. Could’ve been that guys of Omega Beta thought everyone in the room was just too drunk to notice. And maybe they were. Earsplitting bass pumped through the walls, rattling my bones, as I took in the room. I was pretty sure that guy in the corner was peeing in a potted plant, two girls were grinding on a human banana (no lie, someone came dressed like a banana), and one girl just nearly puked on my (borrowed) red shoes as she made a mad dash to the bathroom.
I shook my head. This was so not my scene.
“Honor, you’ve gotta relax.”
I raised a brow. “Who says I’m not?”
Charlie, my roommate and best friend since birth, rolled her ice blue eyes. “First, you’ve been hugging that stretch of wall since the moment we got here. Second, you’ve got this deer-in-headlights look that I recognize from grade school. It means you’re about to bolt.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
“Yeah, right,” Charlie said. “I see you gripping your copy of Jane Eyre.”
I instantly eased my grip on the paperback.
“Chill out, girl. As far as college parties go, this one’s pretty tame.”
I looked over to the makeshift dance floor and the writhing mass of bodies. The level of grinding was escalating by the second. Where did girls learn to move like that? I wondered. Had I missed some required course called Pole Dancing 101?
“Tame?” I asked. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said, “which you’d know if you hadn’t waited until now to break out of your hermit’s cave.”
“That’s not fair. I go out sometimes.”
She gave me a look. “The library doesn’t count.”
“How could it not count?” I asked. “It’s one of my favorite places, and I get to spend time with all of my favorite people. Besides you and Rose, of course.”
“Fictional friends.” Charlie shook her head. “Don’t lump us in with them.”
“And?” I said back. “Fictional people are awesome. Real people often suck. It’s an indisputable fact.”
Charlie’s sigh seemed to rise up from her feet. “And that right there is proof you have no social life.”
I frowned, looking down. My eyelids felt heavy with all the mascara I was sporting, my lips slick with gloss. Charlie had straightened my hair to within an inch of its life. The glossy dark brown strands falling against my face looked like they belonged to someone else. I felt like an impostor in my own body.
“Honor, I thought tonight was supposed to be about busting out, taking chances.”
“It was,” I said. This night had a lot riding on it. “It is…but you know how I get nervous in strange, new places.”
Charlie nodded, fluttering her lashes at a rocker-type who’d been surreptitiously eyeing her since we’d arrived almost an hour ago. Jet black hair, brooding expression, beer in one hand, acoustic guitar in the other, he was staring at Charlie like he was starving. For her. But he hadn’t come over yet, which was enough to pique her interest.
“Seriously, Charlie? Not another musician,” I said.
“See how he’s pretending like he hasn’t noticed me?” She tilted her head. “That’s so cute.”
“Didn’t you get enough self-absorbed, gloomy poetry from the last guy?”
She smiled as Rocker Guy finally rose to cross the room. “The last one was lead singer,” she said. “This one might actually be good with his hands.”
I groaned.
“And what do you care anyway? I thought you were here for one reason and one reason only. You should be over there getting cozy with Baylor O’Brien, not here salting my game.”
True enough. O’Brien was the sole reason I had come tonight. After hearing so many stories about the legendary playboy—and his many, many conquests—I figured he was the one guy guaranteed to solve my little issue.
If only I could work up the lady balls to approach him.
As if she’d read my mind, Charlie said, “Just take him by the hand, lead him upstairs, and say: I’m a twenty-one-year-old virgin, and I need you to have sex with me. Immediately.”
Good grief.
Eyes wide, voice low, I said, “Charlie, not everyone here needs to know about The Plan. Try to keep it down, okay?”
Pushing her long dirty blonde hair over one shoulder, Charlie laughed. “He’s a sure thing, honey. Baylor O’Brien is God’s walking, talking gift to women. Far as I know, he never says no and always leaves