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“Finishing touch,” Ro murmured, as she gently placed the tiara in my bun. “An outfit fit for a princess.”
“Shall we?” I asked, linking my arm in hers. At least it couldn’t be worse than last year.
Audrey’s face lit up into a smile. And all of it—all of this—was worth it, seeing how happy she was. “Heck yeah. Let’s go!”
She tugged me out of our room, down the stairs of the sorority house, and out into the darkness of the night.
The Delta Sigs’ fraternity house was impossible to miss, with the thumping bass of the music audible even from a distance. I was glad that we didn’t live on the same street as them, knowing that the party would likely go most of the night. It’d be impossible to sleep next to any of the fraternity houses when they threw a big party.
I groaned as she dragged me inside, knowing the chaos that awaited me.
We’d been dancing and talking to friends for the last few hours, and my social battery was about empty. My sister had abandoned me in the overcrowded living room about thirty minutes before, and I was just about to text her I was leaving when something distracted me—my eyes landed on a tall guy in the kitchen, with a slightly off-skew crown on his head.
Even from a distance, I could tell that he was tall, an easy-going smile on his face as he talked to some of the other guys surrounding him. He must have been in the fraternity, though Ididn’t recognize him specifically. And why would I, when we’d never spent time around their frat before?
Maybe it was better this way. He wouldn’t know me either.
“Ella!” Audrey’s loud voice shouted, rushing over to me as I pried my eyes away from the dark-haired guy in the kitchen.
“Did you see Sutton?” I shouted over the music, speaking of our dark-haired friend who was here with her baseball boyfriend. She’d originally rushed Pi Rho with us too, but had dropped because it wasn’t really her thing.
“I did!” My sister grinned. “Her fishnets areawesome.I dig it.”
Sutton’s pale skin was perfectly accented by her bold, red lip, a look I always wished I could pull off but never quite thought it worked on me. Then again, without Ro, I would have been completely hopeless in that department, anyway.
“You’ll never guess who’s here at CU!” Audrey’s shout interrupted my thoughts of makeup, and I blinked, trying to think through a list of people we both knew, but drawing up no realistic guesses.
“Um…” I said instead, fidgeting with the strap of my dress.
“Parker! Parker Maxwell!”
Oh. “The boy who lived next door to us when we were younger?” I glanced across the room at the brunette boy she’d just been talking to. I struggled to place his face. “Wasn’t he like… your best friend until his family moved away?”
“Yes!” she gushed.
I vaguely remembered it. We used to play with all the kids in our neighborhood, and even if we were always best friends with each other, shehadspent a lot of time with the boy next door.
“He must have been, what, twelve when they moved?” I asked, and Ro nodded. “And now he’s going here?”
And of all the places to come tonight, that he was at the same party as us was crazy. It felt like more than a coincidence.If I believed in that kind of thing. And yet…
“You don’t mind if I ditch you to catch up with him, right? Am I a terrible sister?” She winced. “I’m a terrible sister.”
I shook my head. “No.” A laugh escaped from my lips. “Go.”Audrey looked hesitant, but I waved her off. “Seriously, I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll go hang out with Sutton.” She’d been in the corner chatting with another one of her friends, but I’d only said it to reassure my twin, regardless.
Midnight,I read the screen on my phone, blinking at it. How was it already so late? I looked down at my heels. They matched my costume perfectly, and they were definitely an excellent decision—I loved how long they made my legs look, but my feet were hurting.
“I think I’m gonna go grab another drink.”
And see if the hot guy I’d been sneaking glances at all night was still in there.
If fate was kind to me, maybe he would be.
CHAPTER 2
Cam
The sounds from the party were already blaring loud around me, dozens of bodies filling the bottom floor of the Delta Sigma house. We’d been planning this Halloween Party for weeks, and I wasn’t surprised at all that it had gotten out of hand. All throughout the living room were student athletes, some that I knew well, as well as dozens of girls. Most of them were dressed in skimpy outfits, despite it being fifty-something degrees outside.
