“I don’t know why you’re so surprised, Mags.” I hadn’t given Jenna’s roommate permission to call me Mags—only Lisa was allowed to do that—but she was driving the car, and I didn’t want to correct her. “You’d be cute even if you weren’t a SAXi.”
“Gee, thanks.” I was in the backseat, keeping my eyes on the road so that I wouldn’t get carsick. Jenna had called shotgun, and Holly was beside me laughing just a little too loudly at that. Not because she was mean, but because she’d started the party early—I could smell it on her breath.
“I’m so glad you decided to come,” she told me. “You can sleep when you’re dead.”
“Great. Something to look forward to.”
Alexa found an empty spot down the street from the Underground and I tried not to flash the world as I climbed out of the BMW. When I’d shown up at the SAXi house to get a ride with the other girls, Jenna and Alexa had pronounced my jeans and cutest T-shirt unacceptable, then proceeded to go up and down the halls until they’d found an outfit that wouldn’t shame the Sigma Alpha Xis’ reputation for hotness.
“Stop that.” Jenna slapped my hand as I tugged down the skirt. “It covers everything. Do you think we don’t know the difference between hot and tacky?”
I had no doubt they did. My eye was less trained, and had widened at the amount of leg showing in the mirror.
“Here.” She handed me a Maryland driver’s license. “Tonight you’re Mavis Bucknell. At least long enough to get in the door.”
“I don’t need this. It’s an eighteen-and-up club, right?”
She wouldn’t take the card back. “Just in case you want to have a drink.”
Mavis and I looked nothing alike. At least I hoped we didn’t. “This is never going to pass for me.”
“Just trust me.”
The music grew louder as we neared the club. When we reached the door, I could feel the bass beat against my sternum like an extra heart. An enormous guy, his bald head as shiny as an egg, sat on a stool outside. Elbowed by Jenna, I handed him Mavis’s license. He stared at it, stared at me, then handed it back, along with a wristband that identified me as legal.
“It worked!” I shouted this at Jenna once we were inside, where the lights throbbed against my retinas the way the music did against my ears.
“Of course it did!” She winked at me. “Like a charm.”
Lisa and I had come here this summer, shortly after my birthday. We’d danced, guys had flirted with me to get introduced to my friend, and I’d had a good time—not everyone could dance with Lisa at the same time, so I had plenty of partners. But techno-pop wasn’t my thing.
The dance floor was writhing with college kids. I didn’t see anyone who looked even close to thirty—though with the strobes and dim light, it was hard to tell.
I looked around, but didn’t see Jenna until she appeared in front of me and pushed a drink into my hand. “Here.”
“What is this?” I took a wary sip. The drink was sweet and fruity and didn’t taste like alcohol at all. The club was hot with pulsating music and sweaty bodies, and I took a deeper gulp.
“Sex on the beach.” Jenna laughed at my grimace. “You’re such a prude.”
“It’s not that.” It was because even I knew it was a total sorority-girl drink. I was standing in a club, dressed in a trendy hot outfit, and drinking a sex on the beach. I had become what I most feared: a cliché.
“Hey!” someone yelled in my ear, the only way to get sufficient decibels over the music. I looked up and saw Will from history class. “You decided to come.”
“Yeah!” He bent down so that he could hear me. “Jenna talked me into it.”
“Excellent!” He pointed to the dance floor, his lips moving, but no sound reaching me through the din.
“Sure!” I looked around for Jenna, to get her to hold my drink, but she had disappeared again. I finished the last sip and stuck it on a passing waiter’s tray.
Will grabbed my hand and we threaded through the gyrating bodies until a space opened up. The pulse of the music filled my head, drove out spare thoughts, criticism, and commentary. In the small pocket of air, we danced close together, and I didn’t worry about looking like a dork, or if my legs were so pale they glowed in the blacklight. No talking, just motion and instinct.
The beat was primal, spoke to parts of me that weren’t used to being included in the conversation. One song bled into another. I glimpsed the other SAXis on the dance floor. In groups and pairs, we came together for one song, then back into the mix and out the other side for the next.
I lost track of partners, until suddenly I was facing Will again. He grinned down, and I smiled up in answer. My skin was damp and hot, and when Will put his hands on my waist the temperature spiked again. Add friction and stir. His jeans brushed my bare legs, my chest brushed his shirt. He smelled of a subtle, spicy cologne and sweat; this was good. But it wasn’t right.
I stepped back, bumped into the girl behind me. “I need some air.”
“Sure.” He blinked, seemed disoriented by the abrupt shift in mood, but let one hand fall from my waist. The other stayed there and steered me through the overheated crowd. The bouncer didn’t give us a second glance as we emerged into the cold night and relative quiet.
The clean air swept through my brain and I felt immediately better. Leaning against the wall, I could feel the music pounding, muted, through my back and hips, and I closed my eyes.
“You okay?” asked Will. “You’re not going to hurl or anything, are you?”
“From one drink? God, no.” At least, I hoped not. My main exposure to alcohol up to this point was wine with Christmas dinner and a mostly-soda-and-not-much-whiskey Dad had let me try from his birthday bottle of Glenlivet.
“Tell me something about yourself,” he said, leaning a shoulder against the wall.
I turned my head, brows knitting in confusion. “Like what?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged a shoulder, looked at me with that charming smile. “Anything.”
“I think the second Aliens movie, the James Cameron one, may be my favorite movie ever. Definite top five.” Not sure why that was the “anything” that popped out. Maybe it was a test.
“Is that the one with the space marines?” I nodded, and he grinned. “You’re a geek, but at least you like kick-ass movies.”
I’m not sure if that qualified as a pass or not. While I was thinking about it, he bent his head and kissed me.
Deflector shields! I put up my mental defenses as quickly as I could. I didn’t want any Dead Zone flashes now, while my head was fuzzy from drinking and dancing. And I didn’t want him to know that, as nice a kiss as it was … I really, really wished he was someone else.