Shutout (Rules of the Game, #2)(15)

Damn. Even I’d forgotten about that. How did he remember? Chase can barely run his own life.

“Not till later in the morning.”

He works his jaw. “Uh-huh.”

“Come on, Sera.” Abby’s cold hand wraps around mine, tugging. “Rob’s waiting in the car.”

Guilt overtakes me, and I hesitate with my feet frozen to the kitchen floor.

“I can stay,” I tell Chase. “I don’t have to go.”

“Do what you need to do, Sera.” He waves me off, but I can tell he’s pissed.

It’s a rock and a hard place for me because no matter what I do right now, someone is going to be unhappy with me. When I made these plans, I didn’t think Chase would care; clearly, I was wrong. But I promised Abby I would go out with her, and I hate breaking my word.

A fully preventable predicament—and also completely my fault.

I came to his birthday for a couple hours, at least. That should count for something, right? Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even be here. I’d still be back in Arizona.

Abby looks down at her phone, then up at me expectantly. “Are you coming or not?”

When I hesitate again, she drags me away, and I let her lead me to the door. She takes shotgun while I climb into the backseat of Rob’s red Mercedes, greeted by new car scent mingled with his cologne. It smells good in a generic sort of way—you can tell it’s likely expensive—but it doesn’t affect me on a visceral level the way Tyler’s did earlier in the kitchen.

Rob’s dark blue eyes meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Glad you decided to come.”

“Abby wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Literally.

Half an hour later, I’m standing in the middle of XS clutching a vodka seven. I’m strangely disheartened knowing there’s no chance of bumping into Hades.

“Isn’t this amazing?” Abby yells in my ear to be heard over the music, dancing on the spot to the beat.

“It’s great!” If I weren’t being polite, I might point out it’s so crowded inside the fire marshal would have a stroke, the music is so loud it’s hurting my ears, and it’s oppressively humid. Normally, I’d never notice any of these things, and I’d be dancing on the spot right along with her. This should be fun. Why isn’t it fun?

Abby steers me over to a group of guys, immediately latching onto the hottest one and leaving me to act as her wingwoman. I have the unfortunate luck of getting stuck talking to the most obnoxious guy imaginable. He keeps calling me Sierra, and he tells me about his Tesla five times in the span of a ten-minute conversation. The real cherry on top is when he asks me if I want to see it, as if that’s not obvious code for trying to fuck me in the parking lot.

I’m more than a little relieved when Rob appears from out of nowhere and rescues me from Todd. Or Tadd. Or maybe it’s Brad. Not only could I not hear, but I also didn’t care.

“Thank you,” I tell Rob, leaning against a tall table we snagged near the dance floor.

“No prob.” He shifts his weight, moving a little closer to me. Blue and green strobe lights flash in the background, illuminating his features. Everything about him is polished, from his haircut to his perfectly tailored outfit. He looks like he walked straight out of the pages of GQ. Girls have been staring at him all evening, and I can understand why.

“Circumstances aside, I’m really glad you’re back, Sera.”

“Me too.” I’m not certain that’s true; it just seems like the right thing to say. I can’t objectively evaluate the situation when it hinges so heavily on my mother’s cancer.

“You should let me take you out to dinner sometime,” Rob adds.

Sixteen-year-old Seraphina would kill to be in my shoes right now. When I was younger, I had a massive crush on him. You know, the typical lusting after your friend’s hot older brother scenario. Because of our sizable age gap, this went unrequited for a long time on my end—as it rightfully should have.

Things started to shift between us as I got older. Incidental touches, lingering glances, that kind of thing. It continued to escalate until he sweet talked me into losing my virginity to him on prom night at Abby’s after-party at their parents’ place. I freaked out the next day because I didn’t want to hurt my friendship with her. When I made him promise not to tell, he was relieved; likely because of our age difference of sixteen and twenty-three.

Having my first time play out that way wasn’t the worst thing in the world. It taught me to separate sex from emotion, and that’s a highly useful skill.

Now Rob and I are just friends, and I don’t see him as anything more.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend?” I ask, confused. “Abby told me about her. Isabel?”

He shakes his head. “We’re not committed. Plus, it’s different with you.”

An uneasy feeling forms in my gut. This sounds like Male BS 101. Does Isabel know they’re not committed? And “different” with me how, exactly?

Before I can ask what he means by that, Abby butts in between us and sets a fresh drink in front of me that I didn’t ask for. She’s got Lana and Destiny in tow, two of her sorority friends from Kappa. Both are fine in that they’ve been perfectly nice to me, but I can’t escape the feeling there’s some thinly veiled resentment going on.