But would she know the rules? I doubted it.
“I bet you a Benjamin you can’t get her,” Owen said with confidence, and my friends nodded with him.
“You’re all betting against me?” I asked as I straightened. When they nodded, I smiled.
“We throwing money away?” Cooper asked as he joined us. “On what?”
As I pointed across the room, he laughed out loud. “I’ll take your bets; my money’s on my boy.” His arm rested across my shoulders, and I grinned at him.
The three of them considered it, and then they agreed. “But it has to be tonight,” Jer warned.
“Obviously,” I agreed. “I’m hardly buying her dinner first.”
“But will you eat out?” Charlie laughed as he watched Angel, who was now talking to one of the basketball team.
“Fuck, even watching her flirt is awkward,” Jer muttered. “You think you can do this?” he asked me quietly.
“Easy.”
“Alrighty then,” Owen crowed with glee. “Let’s get this party started!”
Pulling Cooper to the side, I whispered to him. “Need a distraction, a big one.” His laughter was wild as he headed off into the party, and I knew he wouldn’t let me down.
When the lights went out, the party quietened momentarily, and then Mayhem erupted all around them in the dark. I had my bandana on as I moved through the crowd. I had no intention of catching Angel during Mayhem; the girl was suspicious of everyone since that night a few weeks ago. She was also nervous tonight, uncomfortable in her clothes, and the girl really wasn’t the type to be caught in Mayhem.
I knew the rest of the Devils were creating havoc, and I slipped down the stairs to the basement to flip the fuses for the house, to turn the lights back on. Working quickly, I jogged back up the stairs and already had my bandana off. I stepped back as I saw Angel had moved over to the wall and was looking around wide-eyed at the chaos.
“Hey, is it safe to come out?” I asked her.
Jumping in surprise, she turned to me, but just as she did, two guys barreled toward her, and thinking quickly, I reached out and grabbed her wrist, hauling her into the stairwell with me. I immediately let her go, and she thanked me as we both peered through the crack in the door.
“This is madness,” she told me as we watched the scene unfold in the main room.
I knew Cooper was the reason a table just got thrown, and I fought back my laughter as Angel watched in fascination as the main party room turned into one giant fight.
“They’re going to wreck this house,” I said to her as I looked over her head at the brawl that had happened.
“How do we get out?” Angel asked me as she turned to look at me fully, assuming I was taking refuge like she was.
“We may be safer in here for a while,” I admitted just as someone landed heavily across the door, shutting us in completely. Which was not part of the plan, because I knew the fucking lock only opened from the outside.
“Are we trapped?” she asked me breathlessly.
“There will be a way out,” I told her confidently as I banged on the door for effect, knowing no one was opening it anytime soon. “You got your phone? My battery died,” I lied.
“No! I left it in my dorm.” Angel looked at me with alarm.
Result. “Okay, let’s go see if there’s a way out of here,” I told her as I brushed past her to head back down the stairs again. I didn’t miss the slight gasp as I did so, but I pretended I didn’t hear it as I went down the stairs, fighting my smile.
This was going to be the easiest three hundred bucks I ever made.
And she was.
After I slept with her, I really had no other interest in her. I’d proved my point to my friends, and they had shut up and paid up. I saw her a few times on campus and in the class we shared, but Angel was never in my circle of friends; she avoided parties where the Devils were likely to be, and that suited us all fine.
All we’d ever really been interested in with her was if she would talk about the night when we first met, and she didn’t, which was all we needed from her.
And then she made it personal. I was in some advanced classes because I was intelligent enough to be in them, a fact that she seemed to take offense to. And in the class we shared, she tried to beat me. Whether it was a higher test score, a debate, anything, she seemed to want to prove to me, or fuck, maybe even herself, that she was better than me. I’m a competitive man; I like to win, so I played her game. It passed the time if nothing else.
