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Jennifer Moore threw an epic house party. All four grades were invited, and laws were broken in every room. Mariella arrived with Giovanni but quickly ditched him to find her friends. Guests crowded every room, and while her friends were there, they weren’t who she’d come to see.
The house was hotter than a sauna as bodies gyrated to the pounding music. Elbows jostled and red cups sloshed, dousing the carpets and furniture, as she tried to squeeze by, searching for an empty crevice where she could watch the front door and main rooms.
The stench of pungent beer mingled with cheap drugstore perfume. Some couples made out in shadows while others cared nothing about discretion.
“Where’re your friends?” Giovanni handed her a red cup, and she chugged down the liquid courage. “Whoa, slow down, Mar.”
She caught her breath, and scanned the crowd. “At ten bucks for a cup, why not get my money’s worth.” Her attention snagged on the girls lined up along the stairs. They waited like beauty queens trying to impress judges.
“So you’re going to get wasted because it’s an investment? Didn’t realize you were such a capitalist.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not getting wasted, and I don’t need a babysitter.” Finishing her beer, she headed toward the steps. “I think I see my friends.”
Ditching her brother, she wedged her way through the crowd and moved to the second floor. There was a traffic jam at the landing where the line to the bathroom stretched down the staircase. She didn’t want to lose sight of the first floor, so she inched behind a tall blonde and watched the front door.
She’d almost lost hope. The bathroom line snaked down the steps with several new faces and still no sign of him. She needed a refill and—there he was.
Harrison Montgomery. A shiver chased under her clothes as every inch of her body went on sensory overload.
He entered the house alone, his letterman jacket matching his teammates’. He didn’t bother with a cup or the keg and looked distracted when someone greeted him with a high five. In a sea of smiling, flirty faces, he wore the only grimace.
Skulking past the throng clogging the foyer, he worked his way up the stairs. Mariella sucked in a breath as he passed the landing where she stood with the beauty queens, glad he ignored the other girls as much as he ignored her presence.
She set down her cup and followed him to the second floor.
“The line to the bathroom starts back there,” a girl she recognized from her lunch period informed.
Mariella smiled, ignoring her, and looked for Harrison, who was already several steps ahead and swallowed by the crowd. She tugged on the eyelet hem of her tank top and pushed after him, trying her best to avoid the sloshing cups.
That night, she’d carefully chosen her outfit with one intention. Her tight denim miniskirt hugged her thighs as she climbed the last step, the tiny frayed stitching tickling her bare thighs.
A couple stumbled out of the restroom, smirking and giggling, and she lost sight of Harrison. Mariella slipped past them and came face-to-face with the end of the hall, two closed doors and no Harrison.
She bit her lip, a sick thought curdling her stomach. He was definitely behind one of those doors. What if he was with someone? He could have been meeting a girl…
She hadn’t come this far to turn back. She tapped the first door and waited, but the music was too loud to hear if anyone answered. Turning the nob, she peeked inside.
“Hello?”
“Get out!” A flash of flesh and blonde hair burned into her retinas. That was definitely not Harrison. Jesus, how did people even bend that way?
Her heart ricocheted in her chest as her gaze shot to the other door.
Two girls stumbled through the crowd in her direction, giggling and falling over each other as they sloshed their beers. “Hey, you’re Giovanni’s sister, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, cool. He’s in my chem class. Is your brother here?”
“Downstairs.”
“Thanks.” The girl asking about Giovanni tugged her friend back toward the staircase.
“Wait,” her friend said, staring at the door behind Mariella. “Did you see Harrison Montgomery come up here?”
Mariella reached for the door knob at her back. “He went downstairs. You just missed him.”
“Cool.” Arm in arm, they stumbled back the way they came.
Mariella twisted the knob and slipped through the door, shutting out the party and wondering what the next step of her plan might be.
The music muffled. “You lost?”
A chill raced up her spine. His voice cut through her like a hot knife slices through butter on an August day. Please be alone. She slowly turned and came face-to-face with the most devastating blue eyes she’d ever seen.
“No, not lost.” She pressed her back into the cool wood of the door, her fingers gliding over the knob and clicking the lock into place.
