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I look at Nate, who’s shaking his head in amusement. It’s not lost on me that my most interesting stories are not of my life at all.
“Anyway, my dad can’t go back to Poland. He likes to tell people they put an Interpol warrant out for him, but that’s just a rumor.”
Jamie comes back in time for another wave of laughter. He sets several drinks on the table. “What’d I miss?”
“Abbey’s dad is an international fugitive,” Lee explains.
Jamie waves that off, as if to say,I can top that. “Did I tell you about the time my mate brings this girl back from Ibiza on his plane to find a bunch of massive blokes in suits and black SUVs waiting at the airport? He’d practically kidnapped a crown prince’s daughter.”
The group soon tears through the fresh round of drinks and dives right into another. I don’t try to keep up, though the more I run a distant second, the more the wine calms my brain. Until there’s just the warm embrace of gentle inebriation.
At some point, we migrate to the dartboards. Turns out Jack and Jamie are bitter rivals where pub games are concerned.
“What strategy is that then?” Jack says, collecting the darts Jamie just flung at the board. “Going to hit everything but the money spaces?”
“Keep it up, ya twat.” I’m discovering that Jamie loses control of his tongue after a few drinks. I sort of love it.
They go at it to a draw. Neither are satisfied, and the skirmish soon becomes a battle of attrition in the war of trash-talking.
“As enthralling as this is,” Lee says, sliding up to me, “I’m dipping out. Don’t let these fools kill each other.”
I give him a coy smile. “Tell Mustache George I said hi.”
He winks in response, then kisses his sister goodbye on his way out.
“Face it, yeah? There is no world in which you beat me.” Jamie’s on one now. I don’t know what he’s been drinking, but he’s consumed a lot of it, the belief in his invincibility now total.
“You’re welcome to put down those darts and put your elbow on the table.” Jack cracks his knuckles and then flexes his biceps, as he apparently challenges Jamie to an arm-wrestling competition.
“Bring the darts and I’ll take that action,” I mutter to myself.
I don’t realize until I hear a muffled chuckle that Nate has come up behind me. I glance at him over my shoulder. Bad idea. In hisamused gaze, I become stuck. There’s a flicker of, I don’t know, awareness of sorts. Then it vanishes with Jack’s bellow of victory at throwing a bull’s-eye to end the game.
I’m drafted by Jack onto a doubles team against Jamie and Celeste, leaving Nate and Yvonne to cozy up undisturbed. At some point, they duck out together, and that’s how I met and lost the crush of a lifetime in a single night.
I think I love London.
I think I hate it.
SEPTEMBER
7
MY HEAD’S TAKEN A GOOD POUNDING, ANDIMIGHT HURL IFISITup too fast. Last night’s makeup is smudged on my pillow. Sharpie doodles cover my hand after Lee got hold of a marker somehow and we took turns drawing on each other over a plate of bacon when we all stumbled in from the pub last night. I smile as I remember us sitting in the kitchen listening to the walls creak from Jamie’s latest conquest upstairs.
Which is to say I’m finding my place here.
My first week of classes are over, and aside from several reminders to adopt British spelling conventions, I’m keeping up. A part of me was worried I wouldn’t make it a week. That pessimistic little bitch sitting in the shadowed corner of my psyche said I couldn’t cope outside the protective confines of Daddy’s house, that I’d wither and crumble out on my own. Hated by my roommates, resented by classmates, and shunned by professors.
Despite any reports to the contrary, I am not, in fact, a complete disaster.
Hell, I’m practically a functional adult.
Slowly, I peel myself out of bed, throw on a pair of sweatpants and slippers. I hesitate at my door, remembering I’m not wearing a bra beneath my loose tank top. I debate putting one on before heading downstairs, then remind myself this is my homenow and I need to get comfortable with going braless. Because bras suck.
The house is quiet when I make my way to the kitchen. We left a mess last night. Most of which I blame on Jamie trying to make pancakes at 3 a.m.
I feel the ground rumble beneath my feet as I fix myself a bowl of cereal, signaling Jack coming down the stairs. He’s shirtless, as usual. His perpetual Gold Coast tan and undulating abs obliterate the remnants of sleep from the corners of my eyes. I promptly grow distracted by the way Jack’s sweatpants cling to his ass as he saunters toward the sink.
