by Jenna Scott
“I don’t know,” I say. “I totally forgot about the group text.”
“It’s not like a party party,” Monica says. “More like an intimate gathering of friends. Friends who want to get drunk and eat chips.”
“It was intimate, until everyone started asking if they could bring other people,” Allison corrects her. “But it’s still not gonna be huge. Maybe twenty people, max.”
That actually doesn’t sound so bad. Definitely way better than the eardrum splitting, packed sardine can vibe of the frat party that I cut my teeth on.
“Are you going?” I ask, directing this at Hunter. He never responded to the group text either.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Are you?”
“I asked you first,” I say, and suddenly it feels a lot like we’re flirting.
Monica’s eyes dart between us, and a little smirk quirks her lips. Not for the first time, or even the tenth at this point, I think back to what she said in the library, about how boys are mean to girls they like. She’s probably thinking she was dead right about Hunter and me—though I’m still not positive what his behavior means. Even if he did bring me breakfast and we’re sort of technically walking to class together.
“Well, whatever, I’ll just add a plus two,” Allison says. “Better to have leftovers than run out of Doritos and IPA.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Monica agrees. “Anyway, see you guys later. We have a couple more people to hunt down.”
Checking my phone, I realize I need to hustle if I’m going to drop these tests off with Laurens before my first class.
“I have to run up to the English offices,” I say, nodding to the building on my right. “Thanks for walking me.”
“Sure.”
Tossing the empty paper bag in a trash can, I add, “And thanks again for the muffin.”
“No problem.” He gives me a small smile. “So…you think you’re gonna show up at Zach’s later?”
I smile back. “Maybe…”
“Well, then maybe I’ll see you there.”
“Maybe you will.”
My feet are reluctant to take me away from him, but I force myself to walk.
Chapter Sixteen
Camilla
Zach’s place is off campus, so I have to take an Uber over. I could probably text Hunter and get a ride, but with things between us still so up in the air, I’d rather show up at the party solo and try to play it cool. Plus, it’ll make it easier for me to sneak out early if I have to. As long as I’m home by midnight, I should be fine for class tomorrow.
The driver drops me off at the curb, and I try to get a read on the place as I walk up to it. Zach lives in a Spanish-style apartment building that looks about a hundred years old, but it’s crumbling in a way that seems more charming than neglected.
The red-tiled courtyard has shaggy palms in the corners and a few scattered tables and chairs, and I stop to check out this little artificial pond full of lily pads and moss. I think it might have held koi fish at one point. Something about the quiet burble of that pond makes all my nerves melt away. It’s like this perfect zen moment.
A few of the apartment doors are wide open, snatches of music and energetic voices spilling out from inside, and the smell of weed hangs thick in the night air. Zach must not be the only one having a party tonight. In fact, I’d bet anything that all the other tenants are college students, too. It’s past nine p.m., but I don’t see a single window that isn’t blazing with light.
Still, I know this will be nothing like the frat party was. For one thing, the volume is tolerable. No bass rattling my eardrums. Nobody screaming drunkenly or yelling, “Chug, chug, chug!” And I think I even hear the strains of an acoustic guitar. This might actually be pretty chill. Monica did call it an intimate gathering.
I check the group text again. Apartment eight…he must be on the second floor.
Upstairs, I tentatively knock, and the door swings open almost immediately.
“Camilla! You made it. Aloha,” Zach says, greeting me with a slow, lazy smile and a side hug. He straight up smells like a Grateful Dead concert.
“Um, are you high?” I blurt.
Everyone in the room behind him laughs, and I’m immediately mortified.
“That I am, my dear, that I am,” Zach says. He ushers me inside and picks up a glass pipe off a side table and holds it out to me. “Would you care to partake? It’s a really nice indica.”
“I’m okay,” I say, waving him off.
“Cool, cool,” he says, nodding. “Zero pressure. Make yourself comfortable.”
Squinting through marijuana smoke into the crowded space, I count six or seven people squeezed onto two loveseats chatting with each other across a big coffee table, a few people watching a college football game muted on the TV, and maybe another five or six people milling around in the adjoining kitchen. There’s a tapestry of a tropical beach lined with palm trees and surfboards on the wall behind the entertainment center. Probably Zach’s way of keeping Hawaii close while he’s here for school.
The indie rock on the stereo is playing at the perfect volume, loud enough to give the apartment some ambiance but quiet enough to allow for a few different conversations around the room. It’s a cozy vibe. There’s a lot of lap-sitting, cuddling, and even making out going on. Every available surface is littered with cups and beer bottles, various bowls of salty snacks, and even a towering plate of cookies that makes me instantly homesick for Emmett’s mom.
Zach must mistake my homesickness for social anxiety. “Don’t be shy,” he says, “you’re amongst kindred individuals. You wanna grab a drink first?”
“I’d love to. Are Monica and Allison here yet?”
“Yup. In here with the booze,” he says, ushering me around the peninsula that separates the living room from the kitchen.
With my entire body, I feel the exact moment I walk into the same space as Hunter. He’s leaning casually against the counter, talking to Monica, and when I actually lay eyes on him my heart jumps, heat rushing to my cheeks. It’s completely unfair. He’s wearing a hoodie over a T-shirt and jeans, an ensemble that took exactly zero effort, and yet he still looks like a hot male model.
I avert my eyes before he catches me looking, and say hi to Allison.
“Hey!” she says, giving me a quick hug. “Beers are in the fridge, and this blue cooler has hard lemonade and sodas if you want a mixed drink. Help yourself.”
She gestures at the table and I see big stacks of cups and a variety of bottles. Two kinds of vodka, fancy gin, a huge bottle of Bacardi, some cheap-looking whiskey, a lime green melon liqueur. Someone also decided to be classy and bring red wine.
I pour some vodka into a cup of ice and grab the orange juice.
From behind me I can feel Hunter’s presence, my body temperature ticking higher the closer he comes. In my hands, the bottle trembles as I pour.
“Screwdriver?” he asks, lips at my ear. “I would have pegged you for a Bacardi and Coke kind of girl.”
“Just shows what you know,” I shoot back. “Gotta get my vitamin C.”
And then I make the mistake of turning to look at him. His blue eyes pierce straight through me, and I’m completely overwhelmed. By his familiar cologne, by the heat of his body, by the urge to lean in and lick that spot behind his ear that drives him wild. The kitchen is so hot and crowded, I feel like we’re practically dirty dancing.
A devilish smile tugs at the corners of his lips. “Make me one?”
“Take mine,” I say, feeling his eyes on me the whole time I make a second drink for myself.
I take a big gulp to steady my nerves and then look up at Hunter again.
For a few long seconds, the only sound between us is the buzz of other conversations and the music in the other room.
“So I’ve been thinking,” Hunter finally says, leaning in close enough that I can smell the OJ on his breath.
A shiver runs down my spine, God help me. “What have you been
thinking?”
But before he can say anything else, Zach claps his hands in the living room and shouts, “All right, everyone, drinking game time. We’re all way too sober!”
“What should we play?” Allison asks, looping her arm through mine as we make our way out of the kitchen.
“Never Have I Ever!” shouts a girl I don’t recognize.
Much to my dismay, everyone else enthusiastically agrees. “Is this, like, the official drinking game of Stanford?” I groan as I approach the couches, Hunter right behind me.
“I think Ring of Fire gets everyone drunk too fast,” Monica tells me.
Allison adds, “Plus, everyone likes finding out everyone else’s personal shit. When people aren’t too cowardly to share, that is.”
With the couches taken, I end up lowering myself to the carpeted floor to sit with my legs under me. Hunter takes the spot beside me, drink between his crossed legs, which are so long that of course his knee brushes my thigh every time one of us shifts.
“Me first, me first!” Monica starts off. “Never have I ever driven a car!”
Everyone else but me drinks. Ha. The one time it benefits me to not have my driver’s license yet.
Zach is up next, and he frowns for a second before he says, “Never have I ever…flipped anybody off.”
“What?!” someone shouts. “No friggin’ way!”
“It’s true,” Zach insists. “There’s no road rage in Hawaii. It’s the least stressed state in the country, you can look it up.”
“Aww man,” “Whomp whomp,” and a chorus of boos go around the room.
“Never have I ever…been to Vegas,” the next person says.
I have to drink to that one, too. Vegas had been one of our many temporary homes during my childhood—thanks to Mom, I have pretty much the entire west side of the US covered. Soon, of course, the never have I evers start getting frisky. With Olivia’s friends, it had been fun, but in this atmosphere, with Hunter right here…shit.
“Never have I ever had sex outside of a bedroom,” a girl says. Fortunately, Hunter and I aren’t the only ones drinking, but as we do, our eyes find each other. Scorching hot memories flood my mind, and I quickly look away, pulse pounding.
It’s game on after that, no holds barred, with everyone shouting out every imaginable sex-related hypothetical they can think of—which means I drain my first drink and then half my second in quick succession. There’s obviously very little in the intimacy department that Hunter and I haven’t done.
Suddenly, all eyes are on Hunter beside me as he says, “Never have I ever tried to hide my feelings from someone in this room.”
Monica shoots me a look that says I told you so, and Allison gives me a suggestive lift of her brow, gaze darting between me and Hunter. I just shrug in response as I lift my cup. Hunter’s already drinking, of course. Which is honest, at least.
As for me, it’d be pointless to pretend that hiding my feelings from Hunter isn’t all I’m doing any time we’re together nowadays. Is he doing the same? And could it possibly be for the same reasons?
My screwdriver is gone now, and Allison is about to take her turn. Before she can get going, I rattle the ice in my empty cup and lean closer to Hunter and Monica.
“Gonna get a refill,” I murmur.
But the second I stand up, a wave of dizziness washes over me, and I realize I’m a little tipsier than I thought. I’m also starting to sweat, and it’s not just from sitting so close to Hunter. I decide I’m better off heading outside for some fresh air than pounding another vodka OJ. If nothing else, that disaster of a frat party taught me that when it comes to booze, I need to respect my limits.
I wander back down to the fishless koi pond and sit down on the stone ledge beside it, breathing in the cool air. It’s nice out here. The bubbling water is soothing, I can smell the slightest hint of crisp autumn leaves, and the moon is a glowing sliver.
“So…what feelings are you hiding?”
Hunter’s question breaks the flow of my thoughts and I look up to find him standing a few feet away, in the shadow of a palm tree. I can’t see his expression, but I can see how his shirt clings to his muscled torso in all the right ways. All of a sudden, the urge to touch him almost overwhelms me.
“I could ask you the same,” I say.
He walks over and sits on the ledge, inches away. The way he’s looking at me—intense and heart-stopping—tells me his thoughts are not that different from mine, but I’m still caught off guard when he reaches out to cup the side of my face. His hand is warm against my cheek, and soft, and it takes all my willpower not to lean into it.
“Right now, I’m not hiding anything,” he says.
“Oh no?” I say, waiting for him to elaborate.
“No.” As he leans in, my eyelashes flutter along with my heart. Even in the dimness of this hidden corner, I can see his eyes are half-lidded, pupils dilated, his desire as easy for me to read as a picture book. “If I was, I wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Doing wh—”
Before I finish the word, his mouth is crushing mine.
Instantly, everything comes flooding back full force—all the want and need, the give and take, the push and pull of Hunter and me and his gravity and our bodies and mouths like magnets. Like fire. The sparks and the heat, and this feeling that my chest is about to burst. Coming home isn’t the right word to describe it. Crashing, I think, is. Crashing into a six-foot-four wall of heat and muscle, strong arms and soft lips.
Hunter pulls me onto his lap, leaving me no choice but to throw my arms around his neck while I feel myself melting, wanting more, demanding more. A soft moan escapes me and I kiss him deeper, tasting the citrus and vodka on his tongue, getting lost in the heat of this moment.
I can’t believe I forgot how good he was at erasing my thoughts with just a kiss. Fuck me, he is a great kisser, and right now, he’s kissing me hard. It’s not the only thing he’s good at, either—one of his hands slides down to grab my ass, making me moan again, louder this time. I can feel the hard bulge in his pants, and my core is aching.
He pulls away, breath rough, and whispers, “I’ve been dying to do that ever since I saw you at that frat party. How’s that for not hiding my feelings?”
“Acceptable,” I whisper back, smiling as I plant kisses along his jaw, down his neck, sucking the taut skin and drawing a suffocated groan out of him.
I get in another hickey before he forces my face back up and kisses me with all that pent-up intensity. My breath gets stolen, and suddenly he’s picking me up, my legs wrapping around his waist as he walks us to the wall and pushes my back against it.
I’m braced between his body and the smooth stucco, and his nails are raking the backs of my thighs, giving me goose bumps. I can feel the delicious scrape of his nails through my tights.
“It’s a shame you’re wearing these,” Hunter murmurs. “I’d rather it were just skin.”
So do I, but without the extra nylon barrier as a hindrance between me and Hunter, I know I’d be in trouble. His thumb comes down over my clit, and he pinches it softly through the fabric of my tights and my thin cotton underwear. I gasp into his mouth and suck his tongue harder. Under his touch, my pussy throbs with need. It’s building with every passing second. I can’t get enough of him.
I mutter his name, and Hunter takes it as a warning, keeping both of his hands braced under my thighs again. Our mouths are slick and hungry. It’s less like kissing at this point, and more like devouring.
We come apart for a second, breathing hard.
Half of me really, really wants him to unzip his fly, rip my tights apart at the crotch, shove my underwear aside, and take me right here. Hell, it’s been so long I’d probably come in five seconds.
But the rational half? It doesn’t trust him enough for me to give my body to him again. Not yet.
He dives in again, dragging his tongue down my neck, pressing his teeth to my collarbone, getting reacquainted with all my hot
spots. His hands grip my ass, kneading it hard. My insides clench, and it’s a monumental effort not to grind against him.
I slide my hands up the back of his neck, into his hair, tugging at the thick strands as he downright ravages me with kisses. Whenever the rhythm slows and I think he’s about to pull away, he comes back and kisses me harder; whenever I think about getting myself under control and pushing him away, I go back for more instead.
And all the time we’re kissing in the dark, all I can think about is how I don’t want this to end. But, as with all good things, I know it has to.
What I don’t know—what I’m afraid to find out, if I’m honest—is how it will change things between us.
Chapter Seventeen
Camilla
The next morning, I hit snooze on my alarm and hide out under the covers to buy myself some time before I have to face the world.
I’d already replayed what happened at the party nonstop after coming back to the dorms, but that doesn’t keep me from doing it again. My skin is still burning where Hunter touched me, my lips slightly swollen from those wild, bruising kisses. Our make-out session only ended when the music from Zach’s apartment died down and people started trickling into the courtyard, signaling that the party was over.
As everyone said their goodbyes (including a suggestive brow-waggle from Monica) and made their exits, I rested my head on Hunter’s chest, arms around his waist. I didn’t want to let go. Because I knew I might never have the chance to touch him like that again.
“Come on,” he’d murmured, after we were alone again. “I’ll call you a car.”
Sighing, I’d pulled away and followed him out to the curb. I wanted to ask him about what had just happened between us, try to get some real answers from him, but I’d long sobered up. The courage I’d had before was nowhere to be found.
We stayed companionably silent while we waited, just leaning against each other. When the Lyft pulled up, Hunter gave my arm a squeeze and then opened the back door, turning to me expectantly.
