THE GIRL IS A LIVING FLAME.
Fiery curls fly around her as she dances, so wild yet fluid in her movements, so eye-catching. And that dress, that fucking red dress. So tight around her chest but loose around her hips, flaring every time she spins to the music, riding higher and higher on her thighs with every twirl, the sight of creamy, freckled flesh sending a jolt of heat to my groin. She tips her head towards the ceiling, lips parted, cheeks flushed, chest heaving as she breathes heavily. When she buries her hands in her hair, pulling the thick curls into a ponytail, I groan in frustration, my jeans suddenly impossibly tight.
I can’t take my fucking eyes off of her.
My dance partner—Janine, maybe?—simpers up at me, clearly thinking my excitement is for her, a result of her gyrating against my hips. She couldn’t be more wrong.
It’s embarrassing, how fucking hard I am from watching a girl dance. From watching her tip tequila down her throat and laugh with her friends. Embarrassing and inconvenient and I need to do something about it.
It hurts to tear my eyes away from Red but I manage. Before the invisible force begging for my gaze can kick in again, I grab Janine or Jean or whatever the fuck her name is and drag her to the bathroom, kissing her hard the moment the door closes behind us. She’s more than a willing participant, giving herself to me eagerly, hands roaming until I can’t take it anymore. It takes a second to roll on one of the condoms stashed in the bathroom cabinet, another to turn her around and bend her over the sink, one more to sink inside of her, and then I’m fucking her, thrusting again and again in an attempt to rid my mind of piercing green eyes.
Instead, I come to them.
Fuck.
I’m lurking in the kitchen, regretting my life choices and hiding from the hook-up I left behind in the bathroom when I spot a familiar face shoving her way through the mob of dancing students. It’s not the face I’m looking for but it catches my attention all the same.
Not-Blondie—I need to learn her name—sighs as she comes to a stop in front of me, an expression of concern twisting her face.
“Lost her again?” I ask, slightly amused that Red keeps giving everyone the slip. Wild little thing.
My new unnamed friend sighs again and nods.
“And the other one?”
“Ask your roommate.”
Alright. Good for you, cowboy.
“I’ll take upstairs again,” I call over my shoulder as I head for the staircase again with a parting salute, hoping I don’t find anything close to resembling earlier’s scene. Thankfully, the hallway is empty, all doors firmly shut bar one. My bedroom door, I realize.
If someone’s fucking in my bed, I’ll lose it.
Relief hits me like a goddamn truck when I find my room as empty as the hallway, exactly how I left it except for the pair of heels dropped outside the ensuite door.
Red heels.
Crossing the room in record time, I gently push the ajar door open, rapping my knuckles against the wood before peering around the edge. Lo and behold, as I expected, there she is. Sitting on the tiles with her back against the tiled wall, knees tucked up to her chest and causing her dress to pool in her lap, flashing a glimpse of matching panties.
Fucking hell.
“Hey, trouble.”
Red starts at the sound of my voice, her head snapping up fast enough to give herself whiplash. She frowns at me for a moment, rubbing at her eyes and smearing black stuff everywhere. “I’m looking for my friends,” is all she says in a voice so soft and soothing, I could probably fall asleep to it.
Bracing a shoulder against the door jamb, I cock a brow. “One of your friends happen to be a cat?”
Her frowning increases tenfold, head tilting to the side in an assessing way. Slowly, her head dips in a nod, a leisurely smile curving her lips, and damn if the room doesn’t get a little brighter.
Taking a careful step forward, I reach out a hand towards her, a silent offer to help her up that she accepts. And good fucking thing too because the girl wobbles like a newborn deer taking its first steps as she clambers to her feet. She grips my hand with both of hers, an action that draws my attention to the growing bruise on her wrist. Various shades of purple and yellow, it wraps around her wrist like a nauseating bracelet, and I have to look away before the urge to murder Dylan fucking Wells becomes too strong not to give into.
Dropping my hands as soon as she’s steady enough, I take a step back, creating a space for her to slip through. She does just that, wobbling out the door, leaning down as she goes to clumsily scoop up her heels and flashing me again in the process. I stifle a groan as I become particularly familiar with the birthmark marring her left ass cheek and wonder what exactly I did in a past life to deserve this torture.
“Do you want me to find your-” I don’t manage to get my question out because, as though summoned by her prospective mention, Not-Blondie miraculously appears in the doorway, her worried expression melting away when she catches sight of her wily friend.
“Kitty Kate!” Red squeals and throws herself into her friend’s arms. Not-Blondie, Kate, stumbles as she catches her, her quiet laugh filling the air. For the first time in my presence, Kate smiles.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, Amelia.”
Amelia. Finally. A pretty name for a pretty girl.
A cough grabs my attention, drawing it to Ben lurking nearby too, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Amelia,” he mouths, and I can just hear his would-be teasing tone.
I oh-so-discreetly use my middle finger to scratch my cheek, not-discreetly-at-all scowling at the little shit. Ben only laughs, the noise alerting the subject of his mockery to his presence. Head tilting again, Amelia rocks on the balls of her feet as she scans Ben thoroughly.
I scowl harder.
Slowly, she leans into Kate until they’re practically nose-to-nose. “Your friend is very pretty,” she states in an overly loud whisper, and Ben’s expression erupts with amusement.
“Sorry to disappoint, beautiful, but I’m afraid we have one too many things in common.”
Amelia blinks at him cluelessly, too drunk to get the joke. Rolling her eyes, Kate pokes her friend playfully in the ribs. “He’s gay, Mils.”
Mouth opening in a perfect ‘o,’ she makes an accompanying sound before breaking out in a smile and poking her friend back. “Like you.”
“Sure, sweetie.”
“Such a shame,” Amelia sighs and clicks her tongue. “I’m on the hunt for a rebound.”
Well, if that little line doesn’t steal my attention.
“I’m sorry, what?” Kate questions, grabbing her friend by the shoulders in a useless quest for her fleeting attention. “You and Dylan broke up?”
A hum is the only response she receives, Amelia’s drunken mind already wandering to what she deems more interesting topics—namely Ben. She’s back to assessing him, her lips pursed, a finger tapping against the slightly fuller bottom one.
It’s like a light bulb flickers to life above her head as she has a eureka moment, recognition flashing in her gaze, a grin brightening her features, “Baby face!”
Ben’s amusement mingles with bewilderment as slender fingers probe his face, poking and pinching his cheeks playfully. “Excuse me?”
“I kicked you out of Greenies the other day,” she slurs in explanation through bouts of giggled laughter. “You were lying about your age, right? I knew you were lying.”
“Because I have a baby face?”
She snaps her fingers. “Exactly.”
“That’s because he is a baby,” I mumble beneath my breath. Remembering my presence, at last, Amelia spins towards me. After a moment of assessment, an accusing finger jabs my way. “You!”
A lazy grin pulls at my lips. “Me?”
“You were rude to me.”
She remembers me, is all my twisted brain gets out of that exclamation. “You got my friends kicked out.”
“No, you got your friends kicked out by being rude to me.”
She’s yelling but she might as well be whispering sweet nothings with the way I’m gazing at her. Drinking in the sight of her. She looks exactly like she did that day. Hands on her hips, hair unruly, those fucking eyes pinning me in place. Intoxicating, dark green eyes, the color of an evergreen forest seconds before the sun goes down. My hands itch for my camera, longing to snap a picture of her but I highly doubt she’d be okay with that.
One day, maybe.
For now, I’ll settle for committing that glower to memory
I’m almost disappointed when the glowering ceases and she turns back to Kate with a tired sigh, that fire of hers extinguished in the blink of an eye. “Where’s Luna?” she asks through a yawn.
Kate chuckles as she jerks her head towards the room across the hall. Jackson’s room. If that didn’t tell me everything I needed to know, the look of pride on Ben’s face does. God, the guy’s going to be insufferable tomorrow.
“Go, Luna.” Tiredly, she pumps a fist in the air, jaw stretching in another yawn as she stumbles into the hall, managing a grand total of three steps before tripping over her own feet, prompting me to swoop in and stop her pretty face from meeting the hard floor. “I wanna dance.”
“Maybe you should sit down for a minute.” My kind suggestion earns me not one but two glares, a glower from the girl I’m holding upright and a scowl from her friend. The latter nudges me aside and takes my place, guiding Amelia’s pale arms around her neck, and it’s a good thing Amelia is so small she all but flops in Kate’s grip.
Despite her obvious distrust for me and that ever-present scowl, Kate takes my advice and leads her friend to my bed. “Can you get her some water?”
The gentlemanly thing to do would be to leave the room in search of the requested beverage.
I don’t move except to shoot a pointed look in Ben’s direction.
Hey, I never claimed to be a gentleman.
“You know, I see you around the diner a lot.”
I jump at the unexpected voice interrupting the rummaging I’m doing through Cass’ bathroom cabinets in search of a spare toothbrush because I know the guy keeps a stash in here. Turns out, I’m more of a gentleman than previously anticipated. They must’ve been buried deep down, those gentlemanly instincts, inspired to arise at the sight of a drunk girl sprawled on my bed and her friend cursing and swearing as she tried to get an Uber.
“You can stay here,” I found myself saying before I knew it. “If you want. I’ll take the couch.”
Kate seemed as surprised at my offer as I was, and I swear I almost earn a smile.
Any chance of pleasantries dissipate, though, when I mention and third—absent tonight—roommate’s stash of spare toiletries in his bathroom. What Kate gets from that, noting with a poignant huff and a meaningful look, is that my roommate is kinder to his overnight guests than I am.
“I know you,” she remarks suddenly, surveying me from the doorway of Cass’ ensuite as I crouch on my haunches and dig around in his cabinet.
An unopened toothbrush clasped in my fist, I get to my feet. “What?”
“The diner.” Long fingers tap against crossed arms. “You’re there a lot.”
“So?”
“No one loves diner food that much.”
“Maybe I do.”
Dark brows shoot up, an all-too-knowing glimmer in her darker eyes. “Really?”
“The booze is cheap.”
“Uh-huh.”
“It’s close to college.”
“And the view is great, hm?”
My eyes narrow, my quips momentarily drying up. If I didn’t know any better, I would think Kitty Kate has been conspiring with my friends. “Jackson thinks so.”
She hums, assessing me for a moment longer before turning on her heel and crossing the hall back towards my bedroom, towards the drunk, sleepy girl curled up amongst my pillows.
I huff out a breath, raking a hand over my face before following. “You want some clothes?”
Although she looks less than inclined to spend a night in my clothes, Kate nods stiffly. I keep my gaze averted from Amelia as I head for my closet; that outfit of hers leaves little to the imagination when she’s upright but horizontal, it’s nothing but trouble. I utter a silent thank you to my past self for doing laundry yesterday as I fish out a couple of clean t-shirts and accompanying sweats. “Gonna be big but-”
“What the fuck is this?”
Whirling around at the shouted, panicked question, I’m met with fiery rage and accusing eyes, and the cause isn’t hard to find. In her quest for a comfortable position, Amelia wriggled around so much her dress has ridden up. But, remarkably, it’s not the red panties holding my attention.
It’s the ugly bruise spanning her hip, identical to the one on her wrist in color and rage-inducing tendencies.
My hands fly up in a display of innocence but it only takes one real look at Kate to note her fury isn’t directed at me. No, something about the look on her face tells me she knows exactly who’s responsible. And if it didn’t, the next words out of her mouth do. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
Join the queue, sweetheart.
“I found them up here a couple hours ago,” I explain carefully, quietly, with the finesse of a man defusing a bomb. “I think she walked in on him with someone else or something. They were yelling at each other and he…” Lacking words, I gesture at the bruises, seeing the exact moment where Kate notices the second one marring her friend’s wrist. “I kicked him out and stayed with her until you found her.”
Kate’s face softens with something akin to gratefulness. She’s silent as she carefully fixes Amelia’s skirt, stroking her palms over her hair and murmuring something I don’t catch. Without a word, I set the to-be-borrowed clothes on the nightstand beside them, next to the glass of water and the aspirin Ben must have brought up here at some point. Those gentlemanly instincts of mine flare again as I head for the door, intending on making myself scarce. My hand’s on the door knob when a soft mumble stops me in my tracks.
“He hurt me again.”
It’s so quiet, I wonder momentarily if I imagined it. I hope I did. But as the words ring in my ears like a damn siren, I know I didn’t.
Kate doesn’t reply. When I glance over my shoulder, I find her perched on the edge of the bed with clenched fists and a ramrod straight back. I can’t see her face but I’m willing to bet it’s painted with murderous intentions.
Oblivious to the reaction her words have caused, Amelia sighs sleepily. Eyes closed, she reaches blindly for Kate’s hand, tangling their fingers together. “Love you, Kate.”
Kate’s expression cracks, tight lips melting into a soft smile. Leaning down, she kisses her friend on the forehead and suddenly, I feel like I’m intruding. “And I love you.”
The floorboards creak as I move to leave and glossy eyes flit my way, Kate’s thoughtful yet heartbroken expression affecting me way more than it should. “She’s never said it out loud before.”
Again. Before.
It’s becoming more and more obvious what happened tonight wasn’t an accident nor a one-time thing, and my chest tightens inexplicably at the thought.
A long moment passes of us staring at each other silently, something tangible passing between us, before Kate tears her gaze away, breaking the odd connection. I take my cue, ducking out of the room and closing the door quietly behind me. I shake my head as I trudge downstairs, trying very, very hard not to think about the complicated woman curled up in my sheets.
