The music is only marginally quieter in the kitchen.
Everyone congregates around the bar, which isn’t really a bar so much as a long table constructed out of plywood that’s being staffed by two very tall boys and a dark-haired girl with a gold hoop in her nose. Half the room is carrying a red cup. The other half is shouldering their way forward in the hopes of getting one. I brace myself against the swaying crowd and tighten my grip on Nina’s hand (so I won’t lose her) and Vincent’s (because I don’t want him to lose me either).
“It’s the birthday boy!” the girl with the nose ring shouts when we reach the bar.
Vincent laughs. “Hey, Priya. Any chance we get VIP access?”
Priya shifts some cases of beer and bags of red cups out of the way, revealing an opening under part of the bar. Vincent presses a hand to the small of my back, guiding me forward, and then I’m ducking to get under the plywood. Nina’s next.
“Oh, I like this,” she says when she pops up with me on the other side. “I like this a lot.”
There’s actually breathing room back here, in the open space behind the makeshift bar. My shoulders sag with relief. Then Vincent ducks under the bar to join us, and suddenly there’s less space, but I’m not mad about it. Not at all.
“What do you want?” he asks.
You. “I don’t know. What are the options?”
“Beer, wine, vodka, tequila, whiskey. Anything you want. Just . . .” Vincent winces, then reaches out to pat the side of an enormous plastic Gatorade barrel perched up on the bar. “Don’t touch the jungle juice. It’s got like six different types of hard alcohol in it. You’ll be blacked out before you finish your first cup.”
Nina wordlessly slips around us, plucks a cup off the stack, and dispenses herself a glass.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
She takes a sip and smacks her lips. “I’m never serious. Oh, wow. This is poison. Yep. Okay. You stay and do your thing, and I’m going to challenge someone to beer pong before this stuff hits. I’ll be making friends and enemies, if you need me.” She adds, in a mock-whisper she hides from Vincent with one hand, “Don’t need me.”
Then Nina slips out from under the bar and disappears, leaving me with Vincent.
Alone—and also very much not alone.
“I’ll take some red wine,” I blurt. “If that’s okay?”
I want to kick myself. Who asks for red wine at a house party? My drink of choice for cozy nights in with my roommates is a disaster waiting to happen with so many elbows flying around.
But Vincent doesn’t even blink. He flags down Priya, who’s busy distributing cans of beer to half the lacrosse team, and relays my order to her. She reaches for the boxed wine. Vincent redirects her to an unopened bottle hidden in a cabinet on the other side of the bar. Priya cocks an eyebrow and gives me a look that’s a little impressed and a lot intrigued.
“What’s the special occasion?” she teases.
“My birthday,” Vincent says. His tone is bored, but there’s a pink flush to his cheeks.
I watch as the cork is popped and my own personal wine is poured into a red cup.
“Here you go, babe,” Priya says.
“Thanks so much.” I put my nose over the rim and sniff. “Shit. Is this real wine?”
Vincent cracks a smile. “Of course it’s real wine.”
“I know! I just meant—it smells good. Not like the boxed stuff.”
For a solid three seconds, I’m convinced there are honest-to-God stars twinkling in Vincent’s eyes before I realize it’s just the reflection of the string lights pinned up around the crown molding over the kitchen cabinets. He looks so beautiful. And he’s so tall that, even in my heeled boots, I have to tip my chin up to look at him. The last time we saw each other, he was sitting down. Now that we’re both upright, I’m reminded how well our bodies slot together when he lifts me and I can wrap my legs around the middle of him. He was able to pick me up with only one good arm. I wonder what he could do with two.
Oh, God. Maybe red wine is a bad idea.
“How’s your wrist?” I blurt.
A bolder girl might stroke the back of his hand or trace little patterns on his skin with her fingertip. Instead, I clutch my plastic cup of wine in both hands, white-knuckled, absolutely killing this whole seduction thing.
“It’s better,” Vincent says. “The physical therapist cleared me to play again. I actually got to handle the ball in practice yesterday, which was a relief.”
I’d like you to handle me—
“Were you going to get anything?” I ask, suddenly not keen to be drinking alone.
Vincent shakes his head. “I’m good. Trying to keep a clear head.”
“For the poetry reading?”
“Obviously. I already butchered Blake sober. Can’t make a fool of myself again.”
“You did fine. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”
The corner of Vincent’s mouth curls up into a half smile, and it’s like the best shot of hard alcohol I’ve ever had—none of the burn, just a slow shot of heat that lands deep in my belly. It’s almost too much. I look down at my cup of wine.
Vincent bumps his hip against mine.
“I’m really glad you’re here, Holiday,” he says. “Especially after Monday. I know it was. . .” He trails off and grimaces, which just about sums up the catastrophe that was the end of our little tutoring session.
“I wanted to talk to you about that, actually—”
The words are out before I can stop them. Shit. This isn’t going to plan. I’m supposed to keep it light and fun. I’m not supposed to make a big speech—not when I’m pretty sure I’ll say the wrong thing again and ruin this. But Vincent stands straighter, like he’s physically bracing for whatever verbal hellfire I can rain on him, and suddenly it feels imperative that I clear the air. Even if I have to scream the words over a Doja Cat song.
“Vincent, I—”
“Knight!”
All my courage evaporates.
There’s a basketball player standing on the other side of the bar. He’s an absolute unit of a human (seven feet tall, give or take an inch) but his cheeks are round and his face is decidedly boyish. I think he’s a freshman. I’m not entirely sure, though, because most of my roster stalking has been focused on Vincent and the boys I saw in Starbucks.
A muscle in Vincent’s jaw ticks—the only indication he gives that he’s annoyed by the interruption.
“What’s up?” he demands.
Vincent’s teammate isn’t dissuaded by his sharp tone. “Do you have a copy of the key to the basement? Jabari said there are some kegs down there we can bring up.” His eyes shift past Vincent and land on me. “Hey, I’m Griffin—”
He attempts to reach a hand across the bar for me to shake, but Vincent steps forward and creates a human wall between me and his teammate. I’m quietly glad for it. Maybe he’s learned his lesson about keeping his teammates out of our business.
“The key’s in my room.”
“Cool. Do you want to give me your room key? Or do you want to go get it?”
“I don’t remember where I put it. But I don’t want you turning the place inside out. Why do we even need kegs? There’s plenty of alcohol.”
“But we wanted to have a keg stand competition,” Griffin says forlornly.
Vincent sighs and turns to me. I get the odd sense that he’s about to ask for my permission, and I’m again reminded that I can’t own him.
“Go take care of business,” I say, giving him what I intend to be an encouraging pat on the shoulder but turns out to be just an excuse to run my palm over the curve of his muscle. I can’t remember the name of it right now. Maybe I should ask him later for an anatomy lesson.
God, I really need to put down this wine.
Luckily, it’s dark enough in here that Vincent can’t see how badly I’m blushing.
“You’re staying, right?” he asks, still looking uneasy.
“No, I did my hair and makeup and walked all the way over here for the free wine.” I give him a pointed look. “Of course I’m staying. Someone has to make sure Nina’s not breaking international beer pong ethics.”
“I’ll find you later,” he tells me. It sounds like a promise.
As soon as Vincent disappears into the crowd, though, I’m suddenly and painfully aware of the fact that I’m standing completely on my own in a house full of strangers. With a deep breath, I duck back out from behind the bar and dive into the crowd, joining the stream of people heading into the dining room.
I’m relieved when I find Nina posted up on one side of a beer pong table.
She’s not as happy to see me as I am to see her, though.
“Where’s Vincent?” she demands.
“He had to go take care of some official party business.”
Maybe tonight wasn’t the ideal night to try to talk to him privately. People are drunk and loud and desperate for a piece of him. His teammates, the other athletes, the kids from his classes, the girls who are watching from all corners of the room and waiting for their chance—all of them are playing a strategic game to win Vincent’s attention, if only for a few minutes before someone else swoops in to steal the birthday boy.
It hits me, then, that I’m playing too.
“Go after him,” Nina orders, reading my mind. “Assert yourself.”
“He said he’d find me again . . .” As soon as I say it, I know Nina is right. Waiting around is only going to give me time to overthink and convince myself that this won’t end well. Or, worse, result in me going all night without being able to actually talk to Vincent.
“You can’t say you hate passive main characters and then be passive, Kendall.”
“I know,” I huff. “Give me a minute, okay?”
What I need is a moment in relative silence to compose myself, fuss with my hair, blot my lipstick, and remind myself that I am a bad bitch who is totally capable of seducing Vincent Knight and then not freaking out if it all ends in anything less than us riding off into the sunset.
Nina whoops out a cheer as she lands another Ping-Pong ball into a cup across the table. The two boys at the other end look at each other like they’ve realized they’re in over their heads. I would stay and delight in her triumph, but I have an agenda tonight.
“I need to find the bathroom,” I announce.
“It’s upstairs at the end of the hall. You want me to come with you?”
I shake my head. This is a solo mission.
“I can find it,” I say. “Stay right here, okay? I’ll be back in five.”
