by Nella Tyler
I pushed through the door on Nicole’s floor and made a beeline for her room. I knocked on the door and then tested the knob—it wasn’t locked. “Boy coming in,” I called out as I opened the door and stepped into the common area of the dorm room.
“It’s okay, no one is naked,” Nicole called back from her end of the dorm.
“Aw, damn—I was hoping we could get in a quick fifteen minutes before we had to go,” I said, grinning.
“No wonder you’re struggling so much in your classes, Nic—if I was getting laid all the time I wouldn’t even have the energy to study,” Ashley called from her end of the dorm. I laughed, but I knew how much it stressed Nicole out that she couldn’t seem to get ahead in any of her classes—even the ones she was doing the best in. I hoped that once she got the hang of college, everything would start coming more easily to her; I didn’t want to see Nicole stressed out so much.
“Tell me what you think,” Nicole said, and then the door to her part of the room opened and she stepped out of it. She was absolutely stunning, as always: she’d done her hair in some kind of complicated web of braids, and while I had no real idea how she had done her makeup, it made her big, dark eyes look huge and glowing, her lips so full and sweet that I almost couldn’t bear not to kiss them.
She was wearing a dress that fit her absolutely perfectly, with cut out pieces along her sides and her cleavage showing. Her legs looked amazing, and all I could think about was wrapping them around my waist.
“I think we’re only going to spend like five minutes at that party before I have to bring you home,” I told her. Nicole grinned and blushed, looking down at the floor, and Ashley came out of her end of the dorm room.
“You two are impossible,” Ashley said, shaking her head. “He’s right though—you look like you’re ready to be eaten up by some lucky man.”
“I am ready to be eaten up by a lucky man,” Nicole told her roommate, glancing from her to me and grinning a little more confidently.
“Later, babe,” I told her. “We should at least pretend like we have a social life, right?”
“Okay,” Nicole said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. “If you say so.”
“Are you ready, Ash? Or are you riding with someone else? I think Alex is already headed over to Lucas’ house.”
“I was going to ride with you guys if that’s okay,” Ashley said. “Let me just grab my coat and I’ll be ready.”
We headed down to the ground floor, taking the elevator since the girls were in high heels. I could barely keep my hands off of Nicole—she looked so completely stunning, so utterly hot that I almost wanted to call it a night already and not even bother with the party. But Nicole and I had agreed it was a good idea, and we had Ashley to think of—it wouldn’t be fair to strand her at the dorms just because we wanted to spend the night having sex together at the last minute.
All three of us piled into the car and I started it up, trying to remember where Lucas’ house was. I’d gone to a couple of parties at his place before, when Lucas had first started living off campus in his junior year. The parties were always pretty good, with a lot of different people invited, good booze and usually snacks.
I felt a little guilty about the fact that I was going out at all, especially after the low score I’d gotten on the CPA exam practice test; but dad had told me more than once that it was no use burying myself in books until I lost my mind. He had told me to take care not to let partying become my major—but he had also pointed out that if I didn’t take time off to have fun every once in a while, I was going to burn out before I even graduated, and I wouldn’t be in any position to take the exams and come to work at the firm.
As I made my way off campus and started off on the road to Lucas’ place I listened to Ashley and Nicole chatting. It was good to see Nicole loosen up a bit too—she was stressing out at least as much as I was, maybe even more, since she seemed to be struggling more in her classes. I knew I was going to pass all of my classes for the semester; I just didn’t know whether I’d be able to get a good enough score on the CPA exam to get the job I’d been trying for and planning for ever since I’d been a kid.
“Oh man,” Nicole said, shaking her head and laughing. “You would not believe what Maureen Angelotti wants me to do with her hair.”
“What does she want?” I bit my lip to keep from saying anything about the topic of conversation. I knew better than to interrupt two girls when they were talking about gossip.
“She wants me to bleach it out to platinum and then dye it lavender.”
“What’s wrong with that?” I glanced at my girlfriend, confused.
“Maureen’s natural hair color is practically black,” Ashley explained from the back seat. “If she wants to bleach it to platinum she might as well just shave it off—it’s going to totally break her hair.”
“I told her that it would take at least two or three bleaching sessions, and I wouldn’t do them closer than a week apart,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “At that I’ll be shocked if her hair doesn’t turn into white straw.”
“How do you girls always know so much about this stuff?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand it at all.”
“It’s not that difficult once you know what you’re doing,” Nicole said with a shrug. “It’s a little chemistry, a little physics…”
“Hair chemistry? Hair physics?” I laughed—and then looked to make sure that Nicole wasn’t mad at me for it.
“Well bleaching and stuff—that takes a little chemistry know-how,” Ashley said. “You have to know how the bleach is going to work, and how the different developers work.”
“It’s pretty basic,” Nicole insisted. “Higher volume developer means it lifts more color out of the hair. It’s straightforward.”
“It sounds like it,” I said dryly.
“And things like cutting hair are just kind of…knowing how hair works, knowing how it will fall and stuff,” she said, shrugging again. “It’s not a big deal.”
“Nicki’s the one who did my hair,” Ashley informed me. “And it’s so amazing that everyone has been asking me what salon I went to.”
“It’s just a standard bleach and deposit,” Nicole said, sounding almost defensive. “It was easy. And you paid for the supplies.”
“But I never would have known how to pull it off so well on my own,” Ashley insisted. “Nicole is seriously gifted.”
“I can see that,” I said, glancing over at my girlfriend again and seeing how nice her hair looked. She was stunning—I was a lucky man. I told myself that I was going to stay at the party just long enough to fulfill my social obligations and then Nicki and I would go home so I could get her hair very carefully out of that complicated, braided up-do.
“Can we talk about something else?” I shrugged at Nicole’s question.
“Go for it,” I suggested. She and Ashley started talking about one of the other girls in their year—who apparently was having a runaway romance with one of the members of the school’s most party-prone frat. I laughed and grinned along with them as they rehashed the details between themselves, thinking of how things had been back in my freshman year.
I had managed to drink to the point of puking twice that year, but I had learned from my mistakes pretty quickly. It seemed to me that Nicole and Ashley didn’t even need the benefit of spending half a day cradling a toilet bowl to learn that they needed to pace themselves; they were both talking about keeping their drinking to a minimum, even though I would be there and able to keep the creepy guys away.
The whole drive to Lucas’ house, I thought about how great my life was overall; I had a great girlfriend who was awesome, sweet, funny and sexy. I had great grades in my classes, and I had the prospect of a good job when I graduated in a few more months. That is, assuming I manage to do better on the actual exam than I did on the practice test, I thought with a moment of bleakness. I forced myself to stop thinking about it. The practice test was behind me, and I was going to take an
other practice test early in the spring semester after I’d studied the areas I’d done the least well in and I would be much better the second time around.
We finally arrived at Lucas’ house and the party was in full swing already; Lucas had been blessed to have fairly rich parents, who could afford to rent him a nice-sized house that was just about in the middle of nowhere. He was able to throw parties without having the cops show up, which was a major benefit; but he didn’t party too hard. He always managed to somehow have enough food to keep people from getting too drunk too fast, and he managed to pay for decent kegs and a wide selection of other things to drink.
In the spring I’d have to make the time to go to another one of his parties, especially assuming that Nicole and I were still together then: he had a huge swimming pool in the back yard, and I would love to see her hot little body in a bikini. The image danced in my brain even while I managed to park the car without running anything—or anyone—over in the process, and I leaned across the center console to kiss Nicole on the lips for just a moment.
The girls put on their jackets for the walk to the house—it was just cold enough to need them—and we got out of the car. “So tell me about Lucas parties,” Nicole said when I grabbed her hand to walk her to the door.
“They’re basically the best parties you can go to,” I told her. I kissed her again, unable to help myself and not even caring if I got lipstick on my lips in the process. “It’s going to be a great night, babe.”
“Ugh, you two are going to give me diabetes,” Ashley said, grinning. “Of course maybe I’ll find someone I can hook up with. Or at least someone I can talk to about New Girl.”
“That would be a girl,” Nicole said, rolling her eyes. “And hey, if you want to hook up with a girl, I’m not going to judge you.”
“College is for experimentation,” Ashley said, grinning, as we got to the door.
Chapter Five
I was a little intimidated at the thought of going to an upperclassman party, especially one so far away from campus; but as soon as I walked into the house with Ty, I felt relaxed and relieved. It was just like the other parties I’d been to—both as a high school kid and in my first weeks in college. “Yo, Luke, this is my girlfriend Nicole and her friend Ashley.” Lucas—Luke—was shorter than Ty, with a shaved-bald head and the beginnings of a pretty decent beard, with big hipster glasses and colorful clothes.
“Welcome to my humble home, ladies,” Luke said, grinning at us. “Make yourselves at home, help yourselves to as much punch or beer or cocktails as you want—but I have to ask that if you’re going to be sick, you try and make it to either the bathroom or at least outside. It’s a lot easier to hose shit down outside than to try and clean it up inside. If any dudes bother you or try and make a scene, let me know and someone will handle it.”
“It sounds like you run your parties like a well-oiled machine,” Ashley said, and I could see the respect in her eyes for Lucas.
“I try,” Luke said, smiling again. “Of course sometimes things get out of hand, but this is my second year throwing parties here—I should have a pretty good handle on how to control a crowd by now, don’t you think?” I agreed and Ty clapped Luke on the shoulder, giving his friend a quick, manly hug before escorting me into the party itself.
Whoever Lucas had put in control of the sound system had good taste; he mixed Taylor Swift with The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Kesha, Ariana Grande with OK Go—and I was shocked that it all seemed to go really well together the way it appeared on the playlist. Ty found the kitchen and helped get drinks for Ashley and me. “I’d take it easy on the punch if I was you,” he told us, raising an eyebrow. “I don’t recommend having more than one glass of it unless you want to test the theory of whether you can make it to the bathroom on time.”
When I tasted the punch, though, it was delicious; but after I swallowed my first mouthful I could see what Ty meant. I couldn’t taste the alcohol in it, but I could feel the after-burn. It was definitely potent stuff, and if I wanted another drink—other than maybe water—after that, I was definitely going to just stick with a beer. As I sipped my punch and Ty worked on his beer, he led Ashley and me around the house, “working the room,” as he called it.
We ran into a few people we knew from classes and Ashley immediately got into a debate about something that had been covered in Economics, while Ty and I chatted with one of my classmates about one of the professors we had that Ty had had himself in freshman year, joking about how incredibly boring he was and how difficult it was to stay awake through the Art History lectures.
Ashley was fine with her friend from Econ, so Ty and I continued about our way; he showed me the backyard, where the pool was covered up for the winter. “In the spring, I hope we’re still going out,” Ty said, grinning at me slightly.
“Why’s that?” I looked up at him, trying to resist the urge to smile.
“Because Lucas throws the party of the semester one week before spring break, and I definitely want to see you in a bikini.”
“What if I’m all fat with the freshman fifteen by then?” I stuck my tongue out.
“Even then. Even fifteen pounds heavier you’d still rock a bikini like a fucking goddess,” Ty told me. He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I could taste the beer on his tongue, the underlying sweetness of his mouth, for just a moment before he pulled back, letting his hand rest on the small of my back, at my hip. “Want to go inside and dance for a while?”
“Sure,” I said, straining my ears to catch the opening sounds of a Daft Punk song. “We need to check on Ashley too,” I reminded Ty. We’d agreed that we’d check up on each other throughout the night, mostly to make sure that no one was trying to carry Ashley off—at least not against her will.
We found her in the kitchen, still debating some point from economics; I was pretty sure she was going to spend almost the whole night there, until she either proved her point or one of the two of them passed out from exhaustion. “We’re going in to dance,” I told her. “If you get bored of saying the same things over and over and want to have some actual fun, you can come find us.” Ashley rolled her eyes.
“I’ll find you in fifteen,” she countered. Ty led me by the hand into the living room where the music was loudest; Lucas must have cleared out most of the furniture that normally sat in the room, because there were tons of people in the middle of the floor, dancing and drinking and having a good time.
Whoever was DJing the event switched to a slower song, one I didn’t recognize, but Ty let his hands fall to my hips and I draped my arms around his neck and we started slow dancing together, swaying to the beat, almost no space between us. I let my head rest on his shoulder, feeling so happy, so completely contented. I could barely believe my luck.
Ty was definitely right about the punch, so when I finished my first plastic cup of it, I decided it was going to be all of that particular drink that I would have that night; instead I switched up to water while Ty and I took a breather from the sweaty, humid, oven-hot dance floor, hanging out in the kitchen and listening to Ashley and her classmate debate some more. I let Ty walk me to the bathroom—to use the toilet, not to puke—and then I grabbed a beer and we were out in the living room once more, dancing as hard as we could.
Ashley finally joined us, picking one of Ty’s friends and dancing with him for a while, or “stealing” me from Ty for a few dances so we could dance together. I was having a better time than I had ever had at a party before in my life—really feeling like I was having a real college experience, like I was where I was supposed to be, in a way that I had never felt in any of my classes.
Ty and I took a break from dancing and decided to visit the backyard again; since it was chilly there weren’t very many people out there, and I was dripping with sweat from the living room dance party.
Ty found an empty lounge chair underneath one of the outdoor heaters Lucas had set up, and we sat talking, looking up at the stars, or discussing the other co
uples who had made their way outside for a little bit of privacy and a break from the noise. I didn’t know whether Ashley had found her way back into the kitchen or if she was still dancing with Ty’s friends, but I thought that based on how she had been when we’d left the room, she would be fine at least for a little while.
“Did you see that guy in the living room dressed in all lime green? He had to be at least seventy,” I told Ty, remembering the sight of the guy in question; he’d been really going for it, dancing to a Nelly song, looking completely oblivious to how strange it was to see an old man in a lime green suit dancing his ass off.
“Oh! Yeah, that’s Lester,” Ty said, nodding. “Luke, me, and a few of the other guys used to go to karaoke pretty regularly back in sophomore and junior year, and he was always there—always singing his heart out with like, Notorious BIG songs or Juvenile songs. So when Luke threw his first party here, we invited him.” Ty grinned. “It was kind of a joke and not a joke at the same time, you know? He’s never tried to lay a finger on any of the girls, he’s always good to drive at the end of the night, and he’s a good time.”
“Actually, that’s kind of cool,” I said, smiling. “I like that idea a lot. And hey—it’s not like there’s an age limit on who’s allowed to party, right?”
“Exactly,” Ty agreed. “So we invite him to all the parties, and he comes or he doesn’t, and he’s a good time.” He gave my waist a squeeze, pulling me closer to him on the chair.
“Is that your oh-so-subtle way of hinting you want to do more than just talk?” I looked up at Ty through my eyelashes and he grinned, nodding. I shifted closer to his body on the lounge chair, careful not to flash anyone—my dress was a little on the short side, even with my jacket draped over my legs—and I brought my lips up to his.
