Wow.
I’m looking. I know I’m looking. I try to make myself stop and I can’t, not entirely, because something is happening that’s happened before. It’s the thing that doesn’t happen when I’m with Mason.
The thing Mason’s mouth on mine is supposed to start and doesn’t, the warmth his hand on my thigh is supposed to create and can’t — it’s here, uninvited, because a boy I’m not dating is wearing a bedsheet badly.
But before I can think too hard about it, a hand finds my hip from behind.
“Found you,” Mason says, into my hair.
I let him kiss my temple. “Hi.”
“You look—” He pulls back to take me in, eyes a touch too slow.
He doesn’t finish the sentence, because I can tell he’s disappointed. It’s like whatever he was expecting from me tonight hasn’t been delivered, although he hasn’t gone to much trouble either. His “toga” is an oversized white T-shirt that somehow still works on him.
Because most things work on Mason.
I get only a moment of his attention, and then he flashes a grin at someone across the room and steers me into a conversation with two of his Pi Sigma brothers, a tall blond named Whit and a shorter guy whose name I immediately forget.
“This is Sloane Avery,” Mason announces.
“Hi, Sloane,” Whit says.
“Hi,” I say.
Whit is doing the math. “Wait. Avery. Like Owen Avery?”
“That’s the one,” I say, forcing a smile, and knowing where this is going.
“He worked on my dad’s Senate run,” Whit smirks. “Has he still got that dorky haircut?”
“You bet.”
Whit laughs and produces three more follow-ups about my brother that I have answered before in the exact same order, because every Halden boy with a father in finance or politics —and that’s most of them — has met Owen at some point and wants me to know all about it.
As Mason’s hand settles at my waist, the boys move on and talk about the upcoming game and whether the new defensive pairing will hold. Mason holds court, and I contribute where I can, doing the small pleased tilt of the head that my mom drilled into me.
The one that says I’m warm and attentive and please continue.
While the boys talk, I sip a wine that Mason puts into my hand. It is not the Barolo, it is not anything with a name, and it was probably poured from a box. I barely touch it, but Mason gets drunker than he should be this early.
And when his eyes lock onto something, I follow his gaze.
“Uh oh,” I say.
Across the room, Ivy is climbing onto the coffee table. She’s still mostly clothed, which is something, but when she raises both arms and starts making a speech, her slit starts doing what it was always going to do.
But before there’s a scandal, she wobbles, and Seb reaches up with one big hand and lifts her down. Ivy spills half her drink down the front of his toga in the process, and he doesn’t flinch — he just sets her on her feet and turns back to his conversation.
For once, it’s Ivy who gets flustered, which is new.
Because Ivy doesn’t do flustered.
I want to be Ivy. I want to be on a coffee table laughing with my hands in the air, not caring that the slit has gone past where it should go. But I’m not, because a boy named Harrison nearly ruined my life, and now I’m Sloane Avery, the Halden Girl.
As Whit changes the topic to his uncle’s Porsche, I let my eyes scan the room.
And see that Rowan is watching me.
