Piper, and I have become fast friends ever since the beginning of the school year, and we’ve had no problem accepting one another’s differences.
“I’m hitting the dance floor, girls.” Daisy knocks her hip hard into mine. “I’ll see you back at the ranch.” The ranch is her little nickname for our dorm. Trust me, there is not one animalistic thing going on at that place. It’s so chaste and sterile you could slurp a glass of water from the carpet if you had to. Neither Daisy nor I have yet to introduce the male species to the inside of our dormitory or our sheets. “Have fun at the lake with Sexy Rexy.”
“I’m not spending the weekend at the lake,” I reiterate to Cassidy who’s still busy giving me the playful stink eye. And I’m definitely not spending the weekend with that moron whom I refuse to gift with the sexed-up moniker.
She gives a deep-throated cackle as her hips sway to the music long before she hits the dance floor. “Oh, hon, Sexy Rexy is gonna need somebody to warm his bed tonight. You know that boy is dripping with all kinds of come-hither glances each time you’re around. Go on and get yourself some Whitney Briggs Mustang grade A beef.” She offers up a playful sock to my arm, and now it’s me involuntarily swaying to the music.
“It’s a thousand degrees out tonight. If I warm anybody’s bed, we’re both liable to go up in flames.”
Piper’s eyes expand with glee. “What’s this I hear? You want to go up in flames with Rex Toberman?” She doesn’t mean it. Once Cassidy gets going, she riles up the other two against me just for kicks.
“Would you be quiet?” A trio of beefy boys head in this direction, and I give my good friend a stink eye of my own. “They’re coming. Knock it off.” The last thing on this planet I need is “Sexy Rexy’s” ego to blow his head right off his shoulders. I’d rather stab my eyes out with a fork and bypass the butter sauté than have Rex Toberman think I was the least bit interested in him.
The boys appear in an instant with Owen wrapping his arms around Piper from behind and Cade claiming Cassidy by way of a ballerina spin. My stomach does its own revolution, not because I’m sick, because I’m actually a tad bit jealous of all this Valentine’s-worthy affection streaming from the four of them. I admit that it would be pretty nice to have someone wrap their arms around me that way. Lord knows I wouldn’t mind a romantic ballerina spin or two in my lifetime.
Rex steps up. His smile quickly defuses as he looks past my shoulder. I follow his gaze, and my body floods with relief at the sight of Colin Bale and his neon green shirt, the boy who will, unbeknownst to him, spare me of a family weekend with Satan and her spawn—spawn as in singular. Rex’s siblings, Knox and Trixie, are totally nice and undeserving of my quasi-hormonal wrath.
“Colin!” I give him a quick squeeze of a hug. I’ve never actually done more than nod at Colin Bale before, but in an effort to keep Sexy Rexy’s ego in check, I thought I’d indulge in the physicality while I can. Colin is a sandy-haired surfer type with gangly limbs and a permanently lewd grin plastered to his face. He’s friendly enough—a little too friendly if you ask me—but I’m desperate, and desperate family times call for desperate horny surfer measures.
“What’s up? You ready to hit Avalanche?” He tweaks his brows when he says that last part because, well, I may have led him to believe our little getaway involved a nice roomy cabin where just about anything could and will happen. I hate that my father’s poor choices in the dating world have made me out to be a lying, quarterback-despising cock tease.
Rex steps in, positioning his body between my ticket out of our parental nightmare of a weekend and me. “You’re going to Avalanche?” His chest puffs up, and his words come across more like a threat than they do a question. Something about the aggressive male reaction makes my thighs quiver on cue. But for all the thigh quivering I do around Rex, I’ve deduced that it’s simply an affliction of biology. I’m stronger than all of those cheerleaders that bounce onto his mattress. I can see right through his pretentious, I’ve-got-the-biggest-dick-on-campus routine. More like he