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“Let me see!” Ashley and Sydney jostled for the best view as I pulled up Alexis’s engagement pictures. The four of us huddled around my phone at the end of the line.
“She’s so pretty,” Ashley sighed as my sister’s beaming face filled the screen. “She’s seriously the most beautiful person I know. She’s like a Victoria’s Secret model, but better.”
“Oh my God, I love your sister.” Sydney zoomed in on the picture. Alexis had visited me a couple times at school, and all my friends had fallen for her. “She looks so happy. When did this happen?”
“A couple weeks ago.”
“A coupleweeks?”Sydney screeched. “And you didn’t tell us? This is major. Look at that rock. He must love her very, very much.”
I turned the screen off and dropped my phone in my purse.
The line to the Chi Phi entrance was moving at a crawl. Music pounded through the windows, ready to blast them out. Lights burst against the darkness in sprays of sparkles.
“Come on.” Sydney grabbed my hand. “Let’s jump the line.”
We ran across the lawn and up the steps, pushing past the line. We earned dirty looks from everyone waiting, but the guys manning the door were all smiles when they saw us.
“Three brunettes and a blonde.Nowthis party can get started,” one said, while the rest looked us up and down.
We left our coats by the door. White light sliced across the room, splintering the faces of people dancing and talking and drinking. A fog machine blurred the shards of light. The room held the heat of dozens of bodies.
Tonight, I’d dressed sexier than usual. My halter top tied at my neck and waist, leaving my back bare. When we passed the door to go to the bar, a gust of winter air tightened my skin into goosebumps. I’d skipped a bra and my nipples were hard points, poking through delicate fabric.
When I’d gotten dressed, I hadn’t thought about how I’d look at the party. I’d thought about Patrick untying my top afterward, deliberately, roughly, or maybe not at all. Fondling my nipples, or twisting them cruelly. Pulling my halter top off my body and using the soft patterned fabric to bind my wrists like he’d threatened before.
I braced myself on the drinks table as the girls went for the next round.
In one flash of the colored lights, I felt apart. Distant from my friends. Wondering if I was over this, all the Friday nights rotating from one party to the next, getting drunk, giggling about crazy shit.
I was checking my phone, counting the minutes until I went to Patrick.
Here on a Friday night, without him even in the room, he was fucking with my evening.
Through a splash of color, spinning in a dizzying swirl, I saw an unmistakable pair of shoulders across the crowd. A massive body stood still in the frenzied play of lights. I got a flash of a cocked head, an interested expression.
I was wrong. Patrick was here, and he wasn’t alone.
Red and yellow lights darted across a pretty upturned face. They stood in a quieter corner, against the wall. Purple light showed her moving mouth, her hand reaching for his shoulder. It hovered like she wasn’t sure if she should touch him.
The lights wheeled away, scattering across the dance floor. I’d seen enough. Grabbing Ashley’s plastic cup from her hand, I tossed back a gulp of schnapps-heavy cocktail.
“Come on,” I yelled to my friends. “Let’s take this party up a notch.” Stalking to the dance floor, I passed a knot of guys and beckoned to the cutest one.
His face lit up, and he muscled us out onto the floor, getting behind me and pulling me into his body. The fog machine caught us in a puff of mist.
“Are you a freshman?” he yelled drunkenly in my ear.
“Do I look that innocent?” I yelled back.
“No. Uh-uh.”
His hands wandered from my hips. I put them back, but they strayed again, gliding over my stomach and brushing the sides of my breasts. My halter top cut away to the back, showing more than a little side-boob, and his thumbs nudged my bare skin — sloppily. He grunted and pulled me closer, grinding into my ass. I moved his hands away, but his arms were two twining vines that refused to stay put.
I had, in fact, danced with too many boys like this freshman year. Vine Guy was pulling the same slimy moves. Jesus, his erection was ramming my back with no subtlety whatsoever. The vines kept crawling over me, speckled with light.
I glanced toward the corner I'd been avoiding. A swath of green illuminated two figures, one bulky, one slim.
They were still there. The girl was still talking. But Patrick was watching me.
