This might be the most we’ve said to each other in years.
He tucks his big hand in the pocket of his jeans, a movement so smooth and sexy it appears choreographed. Confidence surrounds him. He’s rich. Beautiful. Popular.
That’s right.
He’s charming up until the last moment, then he pulls your heart out and rips it to pieces.
He’s speaking in that easygoing way of his, playing Mr. Nice now, but just wait . . .
“No, I was just leaving,” I mumble, my voice drowned out by the music wafting out of the mansion.
“Are you okay?” he asks, pivoting with me as I move around his truck.
I cut a look at him, and I mean to glance away, but his topaz eyes hold mine. They aren’t regular topaz; they’re a brilliant gold with layers of gray, green, and blue as if his creator didn’t know what color to give him. They’re the softest part of him. I used to think they reflected a deep person, someone vulnerable, someone who had a side to him no one knew.
I was wrong.
He glances at my feet, and I lift my hands and heave out a sigh. “Nothing to see here. I lost my shoes.”
“Ah.” He frowns, looking back at the Kappa house, then again at me. “Did someone take them?”
“No.” I huff out a laugh and shake my head. “They weren’t worth stealing.”
“You seem upset,” he says and moves closer until there’s only a foot between us.
The tension sizzles—or at least it does for me.
He’s staring at me, hard, and I swallow thickly as the silence builds between us.
For three years, every time we’ve seen each other on campus, we’ve purposely avoided one another. He’d see me coming and turn the corner. I’d see him in the cafeteria and choose a table on the other side—behind a plant. Even when our roommates, Z and Sugar, started dating, we kept our distance.
You should keep it that way, a voice says.
I whirl to leave.
“Bye, slut,” one of the girls from the porch calls behind me.
“If you ask me, Eric should’ve hit her with his truck,” another says as they burst into laughter.
Tears sting my eyes.
If I don’t get some money soon, I’ll be in for a lot worse.
2
Eric
Julia’s long mahogany hair flies behind her as she dashes away, the glitter on her shoulders sparkling as she runs under the streetlights. I guess she wears it when she strips.
Jesus. She hates me.
Do you blame her?
An emotional exhalation comes from my chest.
I push down the guilt I feel about her as I climb the steps of the frat house and take in this year’s assortment of new frat girls. Most of them are doe-eyed girls in short dresses, clutching their beers as they smile.
“Who called her a slut?” I ask the group. Just for the hell of it. And because I know she isn’t.
They glance away from me, like they’ve got no clue what I’m referencing.
Whatever.
They part like the Red Sea to let me pass. Another girl, one who wasn’t part of the group giving Julia the evil eye, chases after me. “Wait. You’re the one they call Everest, right?”
“Yeah. That’s me. And you are . . .”
“Fiona.” She stands up straighter, smoothing out her skirt. “You’re a Kappa?”
As I start to shake my head, one of the guys calls out, “He fucking wishes.”
I give him the finger over the girl’s shoulder. I could’ve been a Kappa, but that’s ancient history. I got out. Or kicked out. Depends on who you ask. These days I only come to Kappa to check out the party scene or celebrate hockey victories. Long ago, tradition dictated that Kappa throw our parties for us. It’s the biggest—and supposedly the best—frat on campus.
“Excuse me. I gotta go see someone,” I tell her.
“Are you coming back?” she asks, pouting. She has round cheeks with dimples and pretty blonde hair that curls around her face.
“I might.”
She gives me a bright smile, lashes batting. “Come find me later.”
Fine. I’m game. She didn’t call Julia a slut.
“Alright.”
She giggles. “Promise?”
Her crop top is only covering half of her tits. I picture my hands around them.
All in good time.
For now, I touch her cheek, and a little of the darkness that swirls in my head abates. I hate going to bed alone. Sex releases endorphins I crave.
“Wait here for me?” I give her a wink and go inside the house, which reeks of sweat and old beer. The music in the common room blasts as strobe lights dance.