“Wait. Gin?”
“What?”
“That woman. Her name was Gin.”
“Her name was what?” Lauren scoffed as she said it.
“I don’t know her,” Will said. “She sat down next to me and started talking to me, and wait—is this why you bailed on the Christmas dance?”
She looked away.
“Lauren,” he took a step toward her. “I was waiting for you. I told her that the second she sat down.”
“She must not have heard you,” Lauren said. “I saw you and you said something and she laughed and she had her hand on your arm and—ugh—it doesn’t even matter! I have no right to be upset. If you want to go out with some stranger in a hotel, that’s your prerogative.”
“I didn’t want to go out with some stranger in a hotel. I wanted to go out with you!” He took her by the shoulders and forced her gaze. “I’ve always had a thing for you. Always wondered what it would be like if something happened between us.”
She flinched, as if physically hit, and pulled away.
“What’s wrong?”
She glared. “That’s exactly what you said to me that night.”
“What night?” His eyes searched hers.
“Word for word, Will. Word for word!” She turned a circle, feeling trapped in a city that wasn’t her own.
“Lauren, what night?” He looked desperate for answers only she had.
She looked away, then directly in his eyes. “The night you kissed me.”
Will’s brows pulled downward in a tight V. “What are you talking about?” He paused, a look of horror on his face, then turned serious. “Lauren, you have to explain this to me. What are you talking about?”
She shoved her hands through her hair. “You were drunk!” She crossed her arms over her chest. “The party? I saw you at a party, and you asked me to drive you home. . .” Her vulnerability made her shake.
He took a step away from her. He put his head down, and softly said, “But there’s more.”
She’d never considered this might be as hard for him to hear as it was for her to say.
She closed her eyes.
So, they were doing this. She was going to tell him everything—finally—words she swore she’d never say out loud. Words she couldn’t keep inside any longer.
Chapter 26
In a flash, she was on holiday break from college her freshman year. Lauren hadn’t stayed close to home—why would she? She wanted to study film. And she’d taken to Berkeley almost instantly. A lot of her friends had trouble adjusting, off at school in a different state, but she took to being away like Andy Dufresne spreading his arms wide in the rain after crawling through the sewer pipe at the end of The Shawshank Redemption.
Free.
She’d only gone home because everyone else was going home. The dorms were closing, and what was she going to do on campus alone for an entire month?
It was her second night back when she was invited to a holiday party at Annabelle DeVore’s house. She wanted her classmates to see how well she was doing, that she’d blossomed （finally） and become more than just the bookish valedictorian they all thought they knew.
She walked in and spotted her friend Mai Li, who had also thrived being away, but who apparently was a lot more into partying than she had been when they were in high school.
Lauren was used to being the only sober person by the end of a night out with her friends, and she took her designated driver job very seriously. She supposed it shouldn’t be any different now—she really didn’t have any desire to make a complete fool of herself.
But when she walked in and saw Will standing next to the keg, she almost—almost—changed her mind.
He appeared to be a lot farther along in his alcohol consumption than just about everyone else in the room, and when he spotted her, he lifted both arms, spilling his drink. “Richmond!”
She waved back, and heard him say, “It’s Spencer’s little sister!”
The night wore on, and Lauren grew increasingly aware of Will, paying far more attention than she should’ve to where he was at all times.
He wasn’t just drunk—he was plastered. Wasted. In full-on self-destruct mode. If Spencer had been there, he would’ve known what to do, but he wasn’t due home until the following day. She was on her own.
And on her own with Will Sinclair was not a good place for her to be.
Around midnight, Will plopped down on the couch next to Lauren and wrapped an arm around her. “Can you give me a ride? I haff t’ go home now. I can’t stay here because this issin’t my house.”