Broken At Love (Whitman University)

by Payne, Lyla

  “They’re not coming to your show, huh?” Ruby squinted at me, her typical blunt manner grating the way it did when she invaded my privacy.

  “No. My dad took some Doctors Without Borders speaking engagement that night and he wants her to be there.” The excuse paled, even for them, but I wouldn’t get a better one.

  My father didn’t approve of my majoring in Art, which meant my mother didn’t approve either. I’d changed my major to Graphic Design, to appease them, but it hadn’t really worked. Apparently nothing other than Pre-Med or Pre-Law would make him happy, and I couldn’t stomach either. The sight of pretty much any bodily fluid made me want to yak and the thought of sitting in an office all day staring at a computer made me want to die.

  Lose, lose.

  But if Dad pulled my tuition money and shut down my trust fund, I’d have to cave.

  Ruby shrugged and I smiled, content to drop the subject. “How was rehearsal? Get to the makeout scene yet?”

  She grunted, a frown turning down her red lips. Ruby moved to sit on the end of my bed, prime position for being able to peek at herself in the mirror while she talked. “I swear, if Melvin Hickens has ever kissed a girl before now, I’ll eat my hat. Hell, I’ll even wear a hat.” She shuddered. “And if he tries to shove his tongue in my mouth I’m going to need a lawyer.”

  I snickered. “I’m tempted to suggest it to him just to watch you not be able to freak out in the middle of your opening-night performance.”

  Ruby finished sweeping her hair into a ponytail, pulling blonde strands of hair around her face just so, then turned and grinned. “So are we going to Quinn Rowland’s Australian Open party or what?”

  I clapped a hand over Ruby’s mouth and waited for Annette to come barging in with those crazy eyes, screeching about evil Quinn Rowland. “Ruby, seriously. You know you can’t say his name out loud.”

  She rolled her eyes, then giggled as I frowned at the smear of bright red lipstick on my palm. “He’s not Beetlejuice.”

  One of the guys in my art history class, Toby Wright, had passed me a coveted invitation with a plus-one, and Ruby had been begging to go ever since. Now, her giant green eyes went sappy as she fell to her knees at my feet. Ruby threw her face in my lap, blonde hair tickling my thighs as she fake-sobbed. “Please, Emilie! We never get to do anything fun. Nothing exciting in the least ever happens here!”

  Attending Ruby’s plays made my semesters brighter but sometimes her tendency to overdramatize every moment of regular life exhausted me. I moved my knees, pushing her to the side until she collapsed on her back, one arm thrown over her face.

  She peeked at me from under her forearm. “Please? I know Quinn used and abused Annette, broke her heart, pushed her into therapy, whatever. But come on, Em. These are the best parties we’ll ever go to, everyone will be talking about it for months, and seriously, Annette shouldn’t have slept with the guy after knowing him for two hours, anyway.”

  “All valid points…” I hedged.

  The truth was, I wanted to go. Art history was a great class and I loved Toby. It would be fun to hang out, and Ruby wasn’t exaggerating about the status of Quinn’s parties. Plus, Annette shouldn’t have slept with him. Everyone knew about Quinn Rowland and his womanizing ways.

  Not that it stopped half the girls on campus. The guy got laid more than a member of a British boy band even though he never called, never dated, and apparently never gave a shit about anyone but himself.

  He’d seemed different to me on the pro tennis tour. More focused. Maybe he just didn’t have anything else to work toward since his injury forced his retirement at twenty years old. I’d felt sorry for him at the time.

  “So we can go?”

  “What about my art projects? The gallery showing is in less than two weeks.”

  “You’re almost done.” Ruby stuck out her lower lip. “Come on, Em. We won’t tell Annette.”

  “We won’t tell anyone,” I insist.

  ***

  We spent hours getting ready, because not only are Quinn’s parties the best of the year, he’s also part of the undisputed hottest fraternity on campus. Toby’s not too shabby; we went out a couple of times, but I just wasn’t really into it. I liked him, though, and we’d stayed friendly.

  The mirror reflected me but with more makeup than usual. Far from ugly, but on a campus full of some of the richest kids in the country, far from the prettiest girl in any room.

  As if to prove my point, Ruby’s stunning frame appeared in the mirror behind me. She spun around, the bright red dress flaring around her thighs. “What do you think?”

  “Gorgeous, as always.” I turned back to the mirror, curling a couple last stubborn pieces of too-smooth black hair. “Is this dress okay?”

  It was hers, and shorter than anything I owned. It made me feel daring and sexy, two things that sizzled excitement through my blood. Ruby and I had been friends only since we were thrown together in the roommate lottery our freshman year, but I had been significantly bolder since that moment of chance.

  “Duh. The emerald makes your skin do crazy hot things. You know I’m hella jealous of your mixed parentage, right?” She tugged my arm, making me drop the flat iron into the sink.

  “Sheesh, Ruby! I almost burned myself.”

  “You look amazing. Any hotter and the boys will be too afraid to talk to you. Let’s go.”

  I let her drag me away from the mirror and down to her Acura. It might have been January, but winter in South Florida meant an occasional nip in the overnight air, not snow and heavy coats. Ruby had vetoed even the thin black cardigan I’d tried to slip over my bare shoulders.

  “You have the invitation?” she double-checked.

  “Yep. Green means go.”

  My invitation was green—overnight guests were given white ones. I didn’t mind; no other Delta Epsilon girl had even been invited. That we knew of, anyway. With Annette’s total meltdown after Labor Day we couldn’t be the only ones afraid to breathe a word in the house that started with Q and ended with uinn.

  The drive to the beach didn’t take more than fifteen minutes. Whitman University essentially sat on the Gulf Coast, but Quinn’s family home stretched across acres of private beaches. My family didn’t have to worry about money but we didn’t own our own flipping beach.

  Or a house that probably had its own zip code.

  We pulled up to the front door and stepped out into the twilight, the mansion rising into the deepening sky. Pretty cream-colored siding and blue shutters completed the massive coastal architectural dream. A valet—or rather, a freshman Sigma Epsilon Alpha pledge—took Ruby’s keys. The kids waiting to get inside stretched along the manicured privacy bushes, the pops of purple and red from the lush flowers bright in the early evening. The line disappeared around the western corner of the house, and the laughter and chatter interrupted the peacefulness of the coastline at the end of a long day.

  “Ugh. Lines. What is this, some trashy Miami nightclub?” Ruby wrinkled her nose.

  My roommate hated waiting for things, and she had very little practice. Neither did I, if I was being honest, and the idea of traipsing around in these three-inch heels made me want to punch the first frat boy who tried to pick me up. “We need a drink.”

  “Did someone say drink?” a playful baritone interrupted.

  I turned to see Toby, his brown waves tousled and a roguish grin lighting up his face. He held up two plastic red cups. Ruby reached out at the same time I did and we took a couple of big gulps. Watered-down beer. Preferable to the trash can punch that knocked you on your ass inside an hour that some frats preferred, but somehow I’d expected something more from a Quinn Rowland party. Champagne, maybe.

  “Is the line the only option?” I wanted him to sneak us in, partly because I didn’t want to wait, but partly to impress Ruby. It was a nearly impossible feat.

  “Well, I can’t get you in now, if that’s what you’re asking. But we can take a walk and come back.” He pulls
a flask out of his pocket and winked. “It’s better than the cheap keg they’re rolling up and down the line, right?”

  We followed Toby down the street. Once we passed what I assumed must be the edge of the Rowland property, he led us down to the beach and flopped down just out of the incoming tide’s reach. The flask contained tequila, which, while not my favorite, was preferable to vodka.

  Clear booze made me barf faster than cheap Chinese food.

  “I’m glad you decided to come,” Toby said, wiping his mouth after a swig.

  “You knew I couldn’t resist. These week-long tennis-major-inspired ragers are legendary. What would I tell my grandkids if I graduated from Whitman without attending a Quinn Rowland party?” I was only half kidding.

  “An excellent point, as usual.” He glanced at Ruby. “You know she’s a genius, right?”

  “Duh.” Ruby’s standard answer. Not terribly articulate, but she didn’t have trouble attracting guys. Friends were another matter, at least at Whitman, where new money was barely better than having no money at all. It didn’t bother me.

  The three of us finished off the flask as the sun sank below the water, purples, pinks, and midnight blues stretching across the surface like a blanket. I drank enough to be sleepy, but not enough to ignore the sand falling out of every crevice when we trekked back.

  Toby opened the ornate, carved wooden front door of the Rowland vacation home. The line had dissipated and everyone crowded in the tiled foyer, spilling onto the staircase spiraling up and into the rooms beyond. Warmth from the alcohol found my face, making my cheeks pleasantly numb and the racket from the sound system dimmer.

  I turned to say something about the song selection to Ruby—she hated John Mayer more than most sane women—but she’d disappeared into the crowd. Toby was gone, too, which left me alone in a house full of my rowdy classmates. At least some of them would be familiar, but walking through the crowded rooms alone didn’t sound like my idea of fun.

  Before the decision to go back down to the beach alone overwhelmed me, a handsome blond guy sidled up with a smile. He wasn’t very tall—only a couple inches taller than my five-eight in these stupid heels—and his chocolate eyes sent a shiver down my back.

  Not in a sexy way, although he wasn’t unattractive. Despite his smile, something about him unsettled me.

  “Hey, gorgeous. You look lost, and this is half my house. If you’d allow me to be a gracious host, I’ll show you to the bar until you find your friends?”

  There wasn’t a good reason to say no, especially not to someone who must be Sebastian, Quinn’s half-brother, and I wanted a drink. I smiled back, shaking off my uneasiness. “I’m Emilie.”

  “Yes, Emilie Swanson, I know. I never let the prettiest girls on campus escape me.” The choice of words sounded wrong, predatory, but he quickly moved on. “I’m Sebastian Blair.”

  I nodded, anxious to move into the next room and look for Ruby. Sebastian led me past the winding staircase in the generous foyer, my heels clicking on the slick marble flooring. The guests absorbed the sound, making the room feel smaller, but on a normal day it would be vast and intimidating.

  Which, based on the media perception of Theodore Rowland—Quinn and Sebastian’s media-mogul father—was likely done on purpose.

  Farther into the house, I couldn’t help but gasp at the view. The living room stretched at least a quarter of the length of a football field, paved with creamy carpet and decorated with off-white leather furniture begging to be ruined by someone’s appletini before the end of the night. Pieces of impressive artwork that could well be originals hung on several walls. I wished I could stop and examine each one. Windows lined the entire back wall, revealing a sprawling deck that led down to the beach, the glinting black of the Gulf of Mexico crashing beyond it.

  “This way,” Sebastian said, guiding me to the left, where a full-service bar on the deck hopped with activity.

  As I crossed the threshold to the outdoors, someone squeezed past going the opposite direction, brushing warmth across my shoulder. My eyes glimpsed a muscled chest barely hidden by a thin blue t-shirt, then traveled up over a strong jaw, a shock of shaggy, jet-black hair, and the bluest damn eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.

  Chapter Three

  Quinn Rowland.

  God could not be serious with that face, on that body, with those eyes.

  I’d seen him before, of course, but not in person and could honestly say now that the television did him no justice—and he appeared plenty attractive on the other side of a screen.

  His eyes, soft and seductive like a shift of azure silk, slid to my mouth. Heat rushed unbidden into my cheeks, along with a few other places, and I realized I was staring at him. Practically panting like a dog in heat.

  Without a word, I tore my eyes away and stepped out into the chilly evening breeze. The cool night helped calm my racing heart and after a moment the reminder that no girl in her right mind wanted anything to do with Quinn Rowland—ridiculously hot or not—eased the heat coursing through my blood.

  Sebastian did me the courtesy of not mentioning my ridiculous swooning, instead grabbing me a glass of whiskey and 7-Up. “So, is this your first time here?”

  “Yep. I have Art History with Toby Wright. He invited me.” I glanced around, hoping to glimpse Ruby’s red dress, or even Toby’s waves, but the last beams of sunlight disappeared at least an hour ago. Tiki torches sprouted out of the sand around the deck’s perimeter and forged a path onto the beach, but they blurred the scene more than clarified it.

  That might have been the tequila, though. Or Quinn’s cobalt eyes going straight to my head. Now that I’d seen the guy in person, it didn’t seem fair to blame Annette for basically falling head over heels in a matter of days.

  The way he looked, the air of sexy confidence he exuded, pretty much tipped every scale in his favor. It tipped mine for a minute and I’d heard every single day since September what a seductive, therapy-inducing monster he was.

  I shook my head, clearing it and attempting to focus on Sebastian. “What?”

  “I said, so you’re an Art major?”

  “No. I’m a Graphic Design major.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  He asked the question as though he already knew the answer. He couldn’t, though, unless he was just very perceptive. Either way, my issues with my parents were not up for discussion. “More money in it, I suppose. I can still create, but be able to eat dinner, too. Win-win, right?”

  Sebastian smiled and I felt less creeped out this time. He was being awfully nice, escorting me around when everyone else would have ignored me.

  My phone dinged with a text message and I smiled an apology, digging it out of my bra. Embarrassing, but Ruby insisted no purses at parties. They always got lost, or you put them down, got drunk, and your friends spent half the night searching for it. It was a good rule, except for the finding a place to tuck your cell phone problem.

  Sebastian raised his eyebrows, letting his gaze linger a little too long on the cleavage I had in this dress, but maybe that was the point of most of Ruby’s clothes. The text message wasn’t from my roommate, as I’d hoped, but from a girl I knew from home—Marla.

  Thought I saw you at QR’s Aussie Open party. U here?

  I typed a response quickly, curious what she wanted and why she didn’t just come and find me.

  Yep. Where are you?

  “Another drink?” Sebastian asked politely.

  “Sure.”

  Can you meet me out by the last tiki?

  1 min.

  I took the sweet mixture of whiskey and soda from Sebastian. “Thanks for not making me wander around like a loser. I’ve got to go check on a friend.”

  “Wait, what? Where are you going?” The way his gaze surveyed the area, as though searching for someone specific, tightened my nerves. He dropped his arm, forcing a smile. “I mean, I was enjoying talking to you.”

  Right. Sebastian Blair enjoyed getting to know me. H
is reputation was only slightly less infamous than Quinn’s, but less often forgiven since he hadn’t just injured out of the pro tennis tour. No girl with half a brain went near either one of them, not without clear eyes and a whole box of condoms. At the moment, I had neither.

  I mean, I still had my brain, but my eyes were pretty blurry. And I didn’t have a single condom.

  “My friend Marla needs to talk to me. Gotta go, girl code and all that. Thanks again.”

  I left him at the bar, an irritated wrinkle between his too-groomed eyebrows, and headed toward the sand. The stairs tripped me up a little, telling me it was time to take at least an hour break from the booze, but finding Marla wasn’t too hard.

  A lone figure hunched in the sand, golden grains sticking to her slinky black dress. Shadows hid her face; the circle of flickering firelight ended a few feet away. Marla and I hadn’t been great friends in high school—we were more competitors than anything, both for valedictorian and cheerleading captain—but our friendship had warmed since coming to Whitman. We grabbed coffee occasionally, kept up on gossip. Wallowing over a horrid professor’s inability to make the slightest bit of philosophy even mildly interesting had allowed us to leave high school behind once and for all.

  “Hey, Marla. What are you doing out here alone?”

  “Jack broke up with me,” she choked, swallowing what sounded like a fountain of tears. “And I thought coming to the party thrown by his stupid frat brothers, maybe hooking up with one of them, would show him I didn’t care.”

  Standing over her felt awkward, but sitting would recreate the sand issue I’d managed to shake once tonight. Jack and Marla had been an item since like, fourth grade. Literally. The statement didn’t even sound plausible. “He broke up with you? Why?”

  Marla shrugged, sobbing quietly and shaking her head. I put a hand down, my fingertips brushing soft brown curls.

  “I can’t even say it. Some bullshit cliché about sowing wild oats.”

  “Well…so you decided to come here tonight and sow some of your own?” She nodded. “What happened?”