by Ella Fields
“Right?” She tipped hers back. “Just one. Liquid courage to explore, then we’ll get the hell out of here.”
That sounded like a good plan to me. Holding my nose, I chugged back half of the frothy warm liquid before giving up and leaving it behind on the counter. “Let’s explore then.”
We moved out the back, discovering a lot more people. Twinkling fairy lights were strung up through the maple trees, the gardens littered with solar lights, beer cans, and half squashed flowers.
“Hey, hey. What do we have here?” Some guy who smelled like a cigar wrapped his arms around our shoulders from behind.
“Nothing for you.” Pippa tried to shove his arm off, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Don’t be like that, sweetheart.” He moved us over toward a group of guys who were sitting around a small fire pit in deck chairs, girls on their laps or sitting in groups around them.
“Ray, where the hell did you find them?” someone asked.
“They just walked on out here,” he replied. “My lucky night.”
Someone scoffed. “Yeah, fucking right. Who are they?” My eyes tried to find who was talking, but it was sensory overload, and my gaze kept darting everywhere.
“Two freshman chicks,” the guy supposedly called Ray slurred. “I’m guessing so, anyway. Haven’t seen these ones yet.”
Pippa finally shoved his arm off, scowling up at him. I did the same as he took a drink from his Solo cup.
“What are their names?” one guy asked, getting up and walking over to us. He had mocha skin and a glowing smile that twinkled with mischief as he approached.
Ray pointed at me. “Legs for days.” Then he pointed at Pippa. “And curvy delicious.”
Laughter ensued. I noticed one of the guys closest to me staring at Pippa, his blue eyes raking up and down her body as she adjusted her dress and flipped Ray off.
The guy approaching stopped in front of me, snorting at Ray’s nicknames before holding out his hand. “He’s wasted, ignore him. I’m Paul, and you are?”
I was hoping that being more than a little inebriated would stop my blushing. No such luck as his brown eyes glittered, and he took my outstretched hand, bringing it to his lips.
“Get your mouth off, Henderson. That blonde is the one Welsh has been trying to get with,” someone called out behind Paul. He dropped my hand before it reached his lips.
“The fuck?” He spun around, arms going out to his sides. “Welsh! Where are you, motherfucker?”
“He’s inside. With Renee,” came Quinn’s voice.
And I didn’t know what shocked me more. Knowing that Callum was with another girl when he was supposedly waiting for me, or that Quinn was here and I didn’t even notice.
Paul moved back over to his seat, and there he was. In the corner, seated on a chair with a beer can clutched on his lap and his hazel eyes on me. “Quinn?” I asked, like I couldn’t actually see him right there. Meters away from me.
His small smile made my stomach flutter. “Hey, Dais.”
“Oh, great,” Pippa muttered, realizing Quinn was here. “Let’s go, Daisy.”
She tugged my hand, but my feet wouldn’t move. I knew I probably looked like some lovesick fool—just standing there staring at him—but I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Maybe it was the alcohol or his use of my old nickname, but I wanted to keep looking at him a little longer. I wanted him to keep looking at me a little longer.
“You two know each other?” the guy who’d been looking at Pippa asked.
“They used to,” Pippa said. “He’s now going out with her ex-best friend.” My eyes unglued themselves then, and I glared at her. “Sorry,” she said. “But it’s true.”
“No shit,” the guy said, whistling. “You pull a swifty on this beautiful girl, Burnell?”
“Shut up, Toby. You don’t know shit.”
Toby chuckled, glancing up at us. “Oh, but I think I do. Want to join us, ladies?”
My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, my heart galloping as I fought to keep my eyes from returning to Quinn. “No, we should probably go.”
“What’s your name?” he asked Pippa.
“None of your concern,” she said, turning us toward the back door. We walked away to the sound of more raucous laughter.
Back inside, I saw Callum making his way downstairs with a redhead kissing his neck. He was still tugging his shirt on. When his eyes finally met mine, I looked away.
“Wait,” I told Pippa, turning around and heading for the keg. We poured another drink each, clinking them together as I said, “Fuck parties!”
“Fuck parties!” Pippa repeated.
We chugged and slammed our cups down on the counter.
“Daisy, hey.” Callum touched my arm. I pulled it back.
“We were just leaving,” I said without looking at him. “Have a nice night.”
Pippa flipped him off, then we were laughing and barrelling out the door. “Holy shit, I need to burp.”
“Do it,” she said. “No one’s gonna hear anyway.”
I did, and it was tiny. Pippa laughed again, and we stumbled down onto the cold grass, far enough away from the frat house but still within view.
“What an adventure,” I murmured, kind of breathless.
“Yup.”
My head swam with seeing Quinn, with seeing Callum with another girl, then back to Quinn.
“You okay about Callum?”
I thought about it for a minute. “I think I’m too drunk to care.”
“Maybe we should sleep here,” she said after some time had passed.
The moon was covered by a blanket of clouds, but they were slowly drifting, and inch by glorious inch, it was unveiled. “I’m good with that.”
“I don’t think so,” Quinn said from above us.
My heartbeat skipped as his head appeared over mine, blocking out the moon. “What are you doing in the sky?”
His lips twitched. “Come on, I’ll take you home.”
“Oh, no you won’t,” Pippa said.
Ignoring her, Quinn hollered, “Hawthorne! You coming?”
The Toby guy appeared a second later, offering his hand to Pippa, who scrunched her face comically at it. “Yeah, no. I can get up myself, thank you.”
But when she tried, she wobbled like a newborn foal, and Toby caught her by the waist. She looked up at him, and I knew she was blushing. It made me laugh until a throat cleared above me. Oh, yeah. “What’s up?”
Quinn swiped a hand over his mouth. “You gotta get up and head home. It’s pretty late.”
“Home is pretty far away from here,” I said airily.
“It sure is. Come on.” Walking around me, he held his hand out. I stared at it a moment, noting the light dusting of blond hairs on it, even in the dark. And the size. He’d always had large hands. Strong, capable, and caring hands.
With those thoughts floating through my head, I took it, and he grabbed my waist when I teetered, making the warmth already overrunning my body increase tenfold. His eyes burned everywhere they landed, and I forgot all about Pippa and Toby standing a little way off, arguing about something. It was only him and me. His hand on my waist, and his eyes on mine, and the night sky beckoning my heart to remember.
He looked away, and the moment dissolved into mist that rained over me in sharp, icy pricks. “Where’s your dorm? We’ll walk you back.”
Pippa ditched Toby, linking her arm through mine as we silently followed them back through the lamp-lit streets and sidewalks. Toby kept glancing over his shoulder, grinning at Pippa like he knew all her dirty secrets and could unleash them one by one if she didn’t play fair.
Her bristling was evident without her saying a word.
We stopped outside our dorm, and that was when my head un-fogged enough for my stomach to drop. “The keys.”
“What?” Pippa asked.
“When we went back in to get our shoes, I don’t know where I put them.” I started searching the pockets of my cardi
gan, feeling their eyes on me. They weren’t there, which I already knew. “Shit.”
“It’s late,” Toby said, moving to the door. “You could get in, but not into your room. I’ve heard of people crashing on the couches in the common room when this happens.”
Pippa’s face paled, likely thinking about the ancient lounge chairs we’d have to sleep on.
“They can’t do that,” Quinn said, and my heart lurched at his voice and nearness.
I kept my gaze averted, letting it drift back and forth between Toby and Pippa.
Toby shrugged. “Let’s go then.”
“What?” Quinn and Pippa asked in unison.
Toby was walking backward down the sidewalk. “They can stay at our place for one night. At least we know who’s jizzed on our couches.”
Pippa balked, and I felt like I might throw up. My mouth opened and closed, no words coming out.
“I’m not sleeping on your semen-infested couch,” Pippa said, her hands going to her hips. She swayed a little, and Quinn quickly grabbed her forearm. She smiled, then remembered she wasn’t Team Quinn and stepped away.
I snorted, and Quinn’s gaze fell on me, his top lip curling a little before he sighed. “Well, shit.”
“Yep,” I agreed and moved to the doors, peering inside. “Come on, it’s only a few hours until the sun comes up. We’ll survive.”
Pippa grumbled but followed.
“Wait,” Quinn said.
We turned around, and he ran a hand roughly through his sandy blond hair, making it stand on end. “Just stay at our place. He was joking. The couches are fine; his OCD wouldn’t let a crumb fall on them.” He jerked a thumb at Toby, who was leaning against the wall, a knee bent and his foot against the brick.
Toby huffed, ducking his head. “Whatever.”
“You’re a bit of a neat freak, are you?” Pippa asked, not even trying to hide how much she liked the sound of that.
Toby straightened then, stepping closer to Pippa. “I like to call it hygienic. Tidy.”
She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment too long. I was starting to get tired. “Pippa, what do you want to do?”
“Pippa?” Toby asked, eyes steadfast on hers. “Fuck, that would sound amazing rolling off my tongue when it’s between those beautiful legs of yours.”
I knew she was probably blushing again. Hell, I was. Quinn laughed and said, “Let’s go already. I’ll drive or walk you girls back in the morning.” He slapped Toby on the back and started walking down the sidewalk.
With one last glance at Pippa, who was now scowling at Toby, I followed Quinn. I heard her say, “So you’re a neat freak with a filthy mouth.”
“It’s about to get a whole lot filthier, I hope.”
She scoffed, and that was the last I heard as I tried to catch up with Quinn’s long strides. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Really.”
“I know I don’t.” He kept looking straight ahead, kicking a stray stick as we neared the exit to campus.
“This kind of reminds me of the time we snuck out into the fields that night, and you got locked out of the house. Before the ladder became a statement by your window, of course.” I laughed nervously when he didn’t say anything. “And I snuck you into my bedroom through the window.”
Crickets. Legitimate crickets chirped as he remained steadfast in his silence.
I didn’t know what else to say or do, but the alcohol in my system made me feel a little bolder than usual, so I couldn’t help myself. “Do you hate me or something?”
He almost tripped. “What?” I didn’t repeat myself. I knew he’d heard me. “No,” he finally said after a minute. “I don’t. Though it would make things a lot easier.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Forget about it.”
I wish. Anger ignited in my belly. “I can’t forget a damn thing, Quinn. That’s the problem. Though, apparently, you can.”
He stopped, pinning his narrowed eyes on me. “You really want to do this now?” At my shrug, he went on, “Fine. Tell me, what it is you thought might happen when you got here, Daisy?” I couldn’t give him that answer, but he knew it anyway. He saw it in my eyes and laughed humorlessly. “Right, you thought I’d just dump my girlfriend and get back with you?”
“I didn’t know you’d—”
“Yeah, because you left. No”—he paused, jabbing a finger at me—“you didn’t just leave. You left me completely.”
With my hands shaking, I cut in. “Never where it counted. Did you really think I wouldn’t keep my promise? We said so many times that we’d come here together.”
“Yeah, we did.” His voice grew colder. “But that was then. Back when I had no idea you’d be okay with breaking some promises and fine with keeping others. “
“Quinn, please.”
He ignored me. “No. For weeks and weeks, I called you. I lost count of how many times I begged your parents to let me speak to you, but every time I called, every damn time, you were out with your friends or asleep. And when I asked them why the hell I couldn’t reach your cell anymore, they said it was best to ask you. Convenient, right?”
My eyes filled with tears, my heart hurting so much I wanted to rip it out of my chest and be done with it. He clearly wasn’t finished letting his own hurt and frustration out, though, as he continued. “What did I do to deserve that, huh?”
My head shook furiously. “Nothing. I-I didn’t know you tried that much. Before I changed my number, when my parents gave me my phone back after taking it, I saw that you’d only called me a few times.”
“What?” His brows knitted.
Before I could respond, Toby and Pippa caught up with us, and we kept walking. My head spun, my stomach sinking and rising tumultuously, as I kept myself from looking at Quinn again.
Regret made a nice little home inside my already wounded chest. I couldn’t go back, and I couldn’t make him understand. It was too late now anyway.
A few minutes later, we arrived at a cream and white townhouse with a familiar truck and an old vintage car parked in the driveway.
“Home sweet home,” Quinn muttered tiredly, opening the door for me to walk in ahead of him.
Taking my glasses off, I wiped them on the hem of my dress, still blinking the tears back.
I didn’t even want to look around. As soon as I stepped into the living room, I saw the large dark brown sectional and nose-dived onto it, kicking my Chucks off and curling onto my side.
My head was still spinning. Badly. But I was too drained to hydrate or do anything other than drop my glasses on the floor and lie there with my eyes closed. I vaguely remembered the sound of Toby arguing with Pippa. Saying something about how much better his bed would be before sleep thankfully took me under.
Brightness burned into my closed eyelids. I blinked them open, then immediately squeezed them closed. My head. Oh, dear God, my freaking head. It felt like ten baby elephants were stomping around inside it.
“Ugh.” I heard a familiar voice grumble and carefully lifted one eyelid open, squinting across the living room to find Pippa asleep on the other side of the sectional. Right. Because we weren’t at home in our dorm.
Panic filled my stomach, making waves that traveled throughout my body and threatened to spill out of my mouth. “No. Oh, no.”
Jumping up way too quickly and grabbing my spinning head, I tossed the blanket someone had put on me and raced out of the room with a hand over my mouth. It took a few tries, laundry room, linen closet, but I finally found the downstairs toilet.
I heaved over it for a few minutes, feeling like I’d eaten something rotten and the taste was festering in my mouth, but nothing came up. I had a feeling I’d feel a lot better if it did but was too chicken shit to force it. So I did my business and flushed the toilet.
Moving to the sink to wash my hands, I searched the vanity and opened some mouthwash. I swished some around in my mouth, almost swallowing it when I caught sight of my reflection in
the mirror.
I looked like a Barbie doll that had been through a terrible makeover. Mascara smeared underneath my eyes, something red on my cheek, and my hair a fuzzy, teased beehive. The ends curling or straightened out at odd angles.
Trying not to whimper, I grabbed some tissue paper and wet it, doing my best to clean up the black smears on my face. And the red, I had no idea what that was. I’m guessing lip gloss gone wrong. But my hair, I couldn’t do much about that without some really good conditioner. Which was back at our dorm. A dorm we were locked out of.
This officially sucked.
Finding a hair elastic around my wrist, I threw my head forward and tossed my hair into an extra messy bun on top of my head before leaving the tiny bathroom.
Pippa was sitting up, staring at the blank television as if she couldn’t figure out what it was when I returned. “Hey,” I said, sitting down and pulling the blanket over my bare legs. I spied my glasses on the floor and leaned forward to pick them up, inspecting them before shoving them on. “Why are we only in dresses? It’s kind of cold.”
She shook her head, drawing in a deep breath and setting it free. “I don’t know. I don’t think we really cared. We were only worried about shoes.”
“Wanna walk back?” I offered, wanting to shake her out of her stillness. It was starting to freak me out.
“I think I’m gonna …”
Oh. “Third door down the hall.”
She was up and running, almost slamming into Toby, who watched her go before turning back to me with a raised brow. “You guys got pretty hammered last night, then.”
“Not really. We just don’t have much of a tolerance, I guess.”
He nodded, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. “So that’d be a no to coffee?”
I smiled. “No, thanks.”
He stared at me for a long beat, and I tried to hold his gaze. It was hard. He wasn’t the best-looking guy I’d ever seen, but he was definitely attractive in a dangerous, edgy, and mysterious kind of way. Crystal blue eyes and dark brown, almost black hair. A rugged jawline covered in stubble. Oh, and he was huge, too. Freaking football players.
“So you’re the girl. Hey.”
“I’m who?” I asked, averting my gaze and fidgeting with the knitted pattern in the blanket.
