| |
During the next week, Carrie made sure that she put forth a few hours every night to finish any assignments. The beginning of a school year always made her ambitious; she didn’t want to get behind on work in the first few weeks.
That was supposed to happen further into the semester.
She made sure to set up a time partway through the week to check in on Izzy and make sure she wasn’t feeling too overwhelmed with her first few courses. She brought Lex with her to the coffee shop this time and, just like she’d predicted, the two of them got along great. Izzy was a great addition to their little group.
“Are you going to the party this weekend?” Lex asked Izzy during their coffee.
“Which party?”
“Every year the Alpha Sig house throws an amazing party. It’s got everything you could ever want: boys, drinks, and great music to dance to. What do you say?”
“I don’t know.” Izzy hesitated. “I’m not a big partier. I feel like I would just be uncomfortable the whole time.”
“That’s fine,” Carrie reassured her. “If you don’t want to go, you don’t have to. Despite what people think, you don’t have to go to those parties to have fun. We can do something the next night if you want. Maybe a girls’ night plus Asher?”
Izzy gave her a grateful smile in return. “That sounds great. After everything I’ve heard, I’m looking forward to meeting this Asher.”
“He can be an acquired taste,” Lex warned her. “But he’s a great guy and an even better friend.”
“So, how’s everything else going? Have you gotten any closer to your roommate?” Carrie asked.
Izzy pursed her lips. “No. She still only responds with one-word answers if I ask her anything.” She shrugged her shoulders before giving them a small smile. “I did meet someone, though.”
“Oh?” Carrie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, but Izzy laughed and shook her head.
“It’s not like that. Luca’s an awesome guy. He may be extremely good-looking, but he’s also nice and funny. Besides you guys, he’s who I feel closest to on campus.”
Carrie’s expression warmed. “Then I’m glad you have him.”
They spent another half hour with Izzy before the trio split up to either go to their classes or go back to their dorms to get some work done. Carrie was grateful when the weekend hit that she’d gotten everything done. Now all she had to look forward to was the party, the girls’ night, as well as an afternoon with her big brother. No worries.
The complete opposite of what Lex was feeling.
“I mean, when the hell am I going to use any of this shit?” She huffed in frustration. She was in the middle of an assignment she had to do for her math elective. Carrie couldn’t help but feel thankful that she’d gotten those types of courses out of the way freshman and sophomore years. Now, she could take classes that pertained to her major and had her actually excited to go into the lessons.
“I’m sorry. Do you want me to ask my brother for help?” Carrie had woken up that morning to a text from John asking if she wanted to go out to eat for lunch before he needed to go home to be with Taylor and Christopher. Carrie was looking forward to the outing a lot. She’d hoped that with him working on campus that she’d be able to see him more, but sadly, that wasn’t the case. He was so busy with his home life and work that he could barely come up for air. Though you wouldn’t think that by talking to him. He was the happiest guy in the world and would tell anyone who’d listen.
“No,” Lex replied sullenly. “I’ll figure it out. Hopefully, I’ll have it done before the party tonight, but if I don’t, I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Nothing like a fire under your butt to get the creative juices flowing, am I right?” Lex laughed. Carrie gave her a smile. She knew better than to try to argue with Lex. In the three years that they’d known each other, Carrie had seen her turn in amazing papers with just a few hours work behind them. She was kind of jealous of her for that.
“Alright, I’ll be back in a few hours and then we’ll start getting ready for the party?” she double checked. Lex nodded and Carrie shut their door behind her before heading towards the stairs.
~~~
“I TELL YOU, THAT KID’S going to be in the pros,” John boasted.
All John could talk about since they sat down at the student deli was Christopher. Carrie loved to see the pride that was in his eyes as he talked about watching him out on the ice. No one would be able to guess that Christopher wasn’t his own child by the way he talked about him.
“Is Taylor looking forward to starting classes?” His girlfriend had Christopher in high school and due to unforeseen circumstances, she had to drop out. College had never been on the table for her. John had finally convinced her to pursue her dreams, and she was set to start some classes at the university soon.
“Yeah, but since we missed the deadline for applications, she can’t start this semester. She’s going to take a few classes once the winter semester rolls around and then take a bigger load next year.”
“Yeah, that really sucks. Is she still going to stay on at the diner?”
He tilted his head to the side like he was exasperated. “What do you think? I keep trying to tell that woman that she doesn’t have to work. I have more than enough saved up that I can support her, but she’s adamant that she doesn’t want that. So right now, she says she’s going to drop some of her shifts and work just a few days a week.”
That sounded like Taylor. Carrie knew what John was talking about when he said that he had a lot of money saved up. When their parents died suddenly a little more than four years ago, Carrie had been just a junior in high school. They had left behind a vast inheritance for their two children. Neither John or Carrie would ever have to work again if they didn’t want to, but they never felt comfortable touching that money. Carrie knew that John had set aside a majority of it for Christopher’s college. She had chosen to put it towards her own schooling, but she didn’t know what to do with the rest.
“Jace was saying something about you keeping an eye on his little sister. How’s that going?”
She sighed. “A lot better than I thought it would. I was worried that she’d be kind of a bratty teenager, but she’s actually really cool. We get along really well, and Lex loves her. We’re hanging out tomorrow.”
“That’s good. Now, are you staying out of trouble? No parties, right? Boys keeping their distance?”
She rolled her eyes before narrowing them in anger. She wasn’t really angry, but she loved to make him sweat. What were little sisters for?
“Boys won’t even come near me, thanks to you. Is that part of your training now? ‘Must stay away from little sister!’” She mimicked his voice, but he just laughed at her, not denying it at all. “You know, you’re making it really hard to have a normal college experience.”
He waved away her concern with a flick of his hand. “Guys only want one thing. I’m protecting you from getting hurt.”
She took a deep breath. “What if I only want that one thing, too?”
He scoffed at her like she’d just told a hilarious joke. “You’re funny, kid. Don’t make me buy a chastity belt for you.”
“John...I hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m not a virgin.”
He put his hands over his ears and shook his head adamantly back and forth like he could unhear what she’d just said. He was drawing attention from the nearby tables, but he didn’t seem to care.
When he finally dropped his hands, he glared at her. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
She pursed her lips, trying to fight back the smile that wanted to break across her face. “Doesn’t change the facts now, does it?”
“Whatever. I know guys like that. I was like that before Taylor, and so were Jace and David.” Her heart did a crazy flip at David’s name, but she schooled her features so John wouldn’t be able to tell where her mind had gone. “I know what they want, and I’m not going to let them have their way with you.”
She picked her next words very carefully. “Are you saying that guys like David aren’t... good?”
He sighed before shaking his head. “That’s not what I meant. I would trust David with my life, but with you? Never.”
After that, she was quick to change the subject. She was too scared that the longer they talked about David, she would slip and he would be able to read her feelings on her face. They hugged each other goodbye, and Carrie headed towards her dorm building thinking about John’s words.
I know what guys like that want... I would trust David with my life, but with you? Never.
It just further reinforced the plan to forget about David. Even if by some miracle David felt the same way she did, John would never approve, and she really didn’t want to have something like this hanging over their relationship. She was pretty sure that David would feel the same way.
Tonight, Operation Forget Clarke would go into full effect, and hopefully, she would be able to actually make some progress.
~~~
“GIRL, YOU’RE GOING to have all the straight men eating out of your palms,” Asher told her later that night when he came to their dorm to pick up the two of them.
She had chosen a short, tight-fitting, long-sleeved black dress that accentuated her curves. She paired it with a pair of thigh-high black boots and left her brown hair down so it went to the middle of her back. Due to having it in a braid all day, it was slightly wavy, which just added to the image she was trying to portray at the party.
“That was the plan,” she told him while slapping on a layer of dark red, matte lipstick. She pursed her lips together a few times to make sure the lipstick was evenly spread and double-checked that she didn’t have any on her teeth.
“So you’re ready to kick some ass and take names?” Lex asked her with a wide smile. She was wearing a short red dress with spaghetti straps that left little to the imagination. On some girls, it would look a little cheap, but Lex was able to wear it with such confidence that Carrie was envious. She had on high heels that matched her dress, and her hair was also left down in her natural waves.
“Let’s go,” Carrie said after she’d checked that she had everything in her little clutch.
They arrived at the party a little before eleven, and it was already in full swing. Music could be heard from down the block, and there were more than a few students spilling out of the house onto the porch and the lawn. Carrie could feel lots of eyes on her as she followed Asher and Lex to the kitchen where the drinks would undoubtedly be.
“Have your eyes on anyone yet?” Carrie asked Lex who was, sure enough, eyeing a group of guys in the corner of the room. One was even eyeing her back which seemed very promising to Carrie.
“I think mama’s gonna get some tonight,” Lex laughed. “What about you?”
Carrie gave the room a cursory glance but didn’t see anyone that drew her attention. It was still early, though, so she wasn’t going to lose hope.
“Don’t let me ruin your fun. Go get your guy,” she told her friend with an encouraging smile.
“Be my wingman?” Lex asked her.
“Of course.” None of the guys over there interested her, but she had to put her friend’s needs first.
When they walked up to the group of guys, the blonde that had been eyeing Lex from across the room only had eyes for her. Promising. The guy standing next to him had black hair and dark eyes that Carrie had trouble reading. He looked her up and down like she was his next meal. She was pretty sure that she should’ve felt flattered, but she felt a shiver race up her spine instead. She looked over to Asher to see if he sensed anything wrong with the guy, but he was already on the dancefloor with a handsome dark-skinned man.
Looked like she was on her own.
Carrie was the diligent best friend. She laughed at Wyatt’s jokes—the guy that was interested in Lex—and acted interested when the other man, Richard, talked to her, but she was more than ready to exit the conversation. Unfortunately, she didn’t see Lex losing interest any time soon, and since she didn’t want to come between her and Wyatt, she kept her mouth closed.
“Dance with me?” Wyatt asked her after a few more minutes of flirting. Lex looked at Carrie to make sure that she would be okay, and Carrie hoped that this would be her chance to escape, but then Richard turned to her.
“Do you want to dance, sweetheart?” She felt nothing but repulsion at the nickname, but she tried not to let it show on her face.
Lex’s face begged her to say yes, so what did she do? She said yes and followed Richard out into the living room where the furniture was set aside to make room for a makeshift dance floor.
Not even halfway through the song, Richard’s hands started to wander. The tips of his fingers brushed against her ass, and her body stiffened in response. She tried to pull away from him, just to put a few inches in between their bodies, but he pulled her closer... even closer than they had been before. Alarm bells went off in her head, and she knew that she needed to escape this situation. She couldn’t see this ending well for herself.
She pulled her phone from her clutch and held it up while making sure he couldn’t see the black screen.
“I need to take this.”
She could see that he hesitated. In the end, he dropped his arms from her waist, and she skirted away from him. She put her phone up to her ear as she went towards the back of the house where there were fewer people. Just as she was getting closer to her destination, she ran into Asher who was just leaving the bathroom.
“Asher, code orange,” she whispered to him.
“Code Orange” was a safe word that the three of them had come up with at the beginning of their freshman year. It was to be used when either one of them was uncomfortable. They had only used it once before when a guy got a little too handsy with Lex at the end of the same year. She had kept trying to tell him that she wasn’t interested, but he wasn’t getting the hint. She had texted the code to both Asher and Carrie, and they had immediately run to her aide.
She wasn’t sure if she was just overreacting or not. Nonetheless, it was the first thing to come to her mind when she saw Asher. Better to be safe than sorry, she thought to herself. She needed to learn to trust her gut, and her gut was screaming at her to run in the opposite direction.
“Who?” Asher immediately asked her while checking their surroundings.
“Just a friend of the guy that Lex is dancing with. I was trying to help her as a good wingman does, but he was getting a little too handsy. I had to pretend to take a phone call to get away from him.”
He nodded his head seriously. “Stay with me then. He’ll probably find someone new.”
She agreed, so the two of them went back to the kitchen to get new drinks while she tried to get the nerves that were flying around in her stomach to go away.
The next few hours were considerably better for Carrie. She soon forgot about the creep as she danced with Asher. They kept one eye on Lex to make sure that she was still having fun, and by the flush that was filling her cheeks, Carrie could tell that she was having the time of her life. She was glad that she hadn’t worried Lex earlier since Richard had moved on to another girl that seemed a lot more receptive to his advances.
“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Carrie shouted in Asher’s ear.
“Want me to go with you?” he asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “Stay here and have fun. I’ll be fine.”
The bathroom on the ground floor had a long enough line that she wasn’t sure she could make it. She’d spent enough time at this house during previous parties that she knew there was another bathroom on the second floor that not many people knew about.
Like she had thought, there was no line, so she was able to do her business quickly. She unlocked the door and opened it. At first, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but in the next second, a tall frame filled the doorway, and pushed his way inside the small bathroom.
It was Richard and, by the look in his eyes, he was drunk.
And he did not seem happy.