False Start - Jessica Ruddick
CHAPTER 1
Becca
I RAISED MY Diet Coke with a wry grin and clinked it against my friends’ glasses. The noise was barely discernible in the crowded bar.
Nicole shot me a sympathetic look. “Just a few more months, right?”
“Less than four. Not that I’m counting.” My brother and I were Irish twins, meaning his birthday was in January and mine was in December of the same year. My parents had forgotten the Irish part and raised us like we were actual twins, enrolling us in school at the same time. So I was always the last of my friends to reach new milestones, sometimes by over a year.
“Look on the bright side, Becca,” Evan said. “My twenty-first was lame because no one else could drink. You won’t have that problem.”
“Instead, people will be mourning the loss of their designated driver.” I was joking, but it was sort of true. However, the crowd I ran with wasn’t exactly wild and crazy. Case in point? It was nearly ten on a Saturday night, and Jian and Joey were already closing out their tabs. No doubt Chris would be close behind.
The six of us—Nicole, Evan, Jian, Joey, Chris, and me—were all that was left of our freshman-year engineering cohort. We’d started with fifteen, but the major was notorious for its high dropout and transfer rate. Some people referred to it as survival of the smartest, but more than likely, it was survival of the most stubborn. At least that was how I’d made it to my senior year.
A commotion toward the front of the bar caught my attention. When towering figures made of pure muscle filtered in, making the already crowded space seem instantly smaller, I cursed. I’d chosen this venue specifically to avoid this.
To avoid him.
I could turn away, but that wouldn’t make a difference. My sixth sense always knew when the guy I’d been in love with half my life was nearby.
Nicole nudged me. “Carson is over there.”
My friend had a grade-school-style crush on Carson, so I tried to keep her as far away from him as possible. She had no idea about my feelings for him, but that wasn’t why I kept her away. Nicole wasn’t his type. He preferred easy girls, ones who were satisfied with a one-night stand. If for some odd reason he did go for Nicole, he would chew her up, spit her out, and leave me to pick up the pieces. No, thank you.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone—not my friend and not myself. Carson was firmly in the friend zone. If I had any intent on keeping my already compromised heart intact, that was where he needed to stay.
“Trust me,” I told her. “You want no part of that.”
Evan shot me a puzzled look. “Isn’t he your friend from home?”
While I sometimes joined Carson’s crowd, he rarely joined mine, so Evan had only met him a few times in the past three years. I caught the gist of what he was saying, though—he was wondering why I would talk smack about a friend. Maybe it was bad form, but I called them as I saw them.
“My brother’s best friend, yeah.”
During his teen years, Carson had spent more time at our house than his own, which didn’t make sense on the surface. His house was practically a mansion, complete with a media room, swimming pool, and home gym. Though once I’d met his parents, his desire to spend his time elsewhere became understandable. They were nice enough people, but the sheer intensity they radiated was enough to make the most secure person nervous.
Nicole flipped her hair over her shoulder. “What she’s trying to say is he’s way too hot for a nerd like me.”
I gasped. “That’s not what I meant.” Nicole was on the nerdy side, but then again, so was I. It came with the territory of being in the engineering program.
She put her hand up. “Let me revise. He’s way more than a nerd like me can handle. I know he’s out of my league, but a girl can dream, can’t she?”
“He’s not out of your league,” I corrected. “He’s a player.”
“Eh.” Nicole chewed on her straw as she watched him and his friends, who were most likely all football players for Virginia Valley University. “It might be nice to be played.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. It had never occurred to me that Nicole might want to dip her toe in the water of one-night stands. To each her own. Still, I didn’t