New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,38
could do nothing more to prolong the moment. I walked up the stairs and away from him.
That was all I could have done. Max and I had barely spoken. And all I’d gotten were reasons to avoid him.
When I arrived at my room, my heart still in my throat, I found my door locked. I hoped that meant Dana wasn’t in the room. No such luck, however. She was there, looking as morbid as usual.
“Only five minutes after nine,” she said, looking at her alarm clock. “Hmm.”
“What?”
She sighed and set down her book. “Becca was never back this early. She used to stay out until the wee hours of the morning with Max.”
“What makes you think I was with Max?” I thought of our brief encounter.
She laughed, and it did not suit her. “I just meant that she was always with Max. But I guess you can see now how you misunderstood.”
I flushed pink. Dana stood and drifted into the bathroom. I wanted to smack her. My eyes scanned the wall of pictures, landing on one of Becca in a royal-blue shirt, her golden-blond hair in curls. She leaned back as Max kissed her. My heart fell.
I kicked off my shoes, and immediately stubbed my toe on that stupid Louis Vuitton suitcase. The pain that shot up my foot sent some kind of wave through me. I walked over to the bathroom and threw open the door. She had just tossed her shirt on the ground, and covered herself up as I walked in.
“I’ve had enough. You cannot talk to me like that and just expect me to take it. You don’t know me, you just hate me because you miss your fucking friend. And I have told you that I understand, and that I sympathize. But you are just—”
“Oh, shut up, you’re turning an ugly shade of red.”
She smiled smugly at me and rolled her eyes, and I almost lost it. I envisioned slapping her hard and tossing an easy, “Who’s red now, bitch?” over my shoulder as I left her to cry.
But instead I just steadied my breathing and stalked out.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BECCA COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT Johnny. How was that possible? What was drawing her to him? At first he had seemed so predictable and uninteresting. But now he was intriguing and desirable.
It had been three weeks since it happened, and time had only made her yearn for more of Johnny’s touch, breath and whatever that strange power was that he had over her. Her wanting had made it nearly impossible to be with Max. She felt stone-cold. Nothing he did could rattle her. But every time she wanted something more with Johnny, she’d convince herself not to go toward him. After all, if she liked him, he could hurt her.
Then she’d stay with Max a little longer. At least until she really had Johnny.
But that didn’t mean it was easy to stop talking to him in the meantime, or hooking a finger through his belt loop when they talked. She was doing that now, while the party surrounded them. As soon as she caught a glimpse of Max, she jumped away from Johnny as if he’d scalded her.
“Hey, baby,” she said to Max, running over to him and then winding an arm around him. “You wanna do a body shot?”
He gave her a look. “No. Thanks though.”
“But I do! Please, babe?” He said nothing, but laughed, and she smiled. She jumped onto a table next to her, shouted over the music to get the attention of the room. “Hey! Who wants to do a body shot off me?”
She pulled up her shirt to show her flat stomach, and smiled wider as her subjects cheered. She chose a random guy she didn’t even know, and pulled him over to the beer pong table. She lay down, and laughed at the crowd around her. Someone poured a shot of tequila onto her stomach, sprinkled some salt on her chest, and then put a slice of lime from the dining hall into her mouth. The guy took the shot, and everyone clamored to be next. Becca looked at Max, who smiled and shook his head. He didn’t look jealous enough. She glanced at Johnny, who did.
In short order, Becca had downed three shots and, finally, the room had begun to spin a little. She found that this was about how drunk she needed to be in order to feel affectionate toward Max and to forget about Johnny. Usually. But