Dear God! “I’m so sorry.” I pull my purse over my shoulder. “I have to leave, Monistat.”
His hand clamps over mine before I can make a run for it. “Are you sure? I think a little loving from those luscious lips of yours can do thejob.”
Thejob!Gah!
“Yes, I’m sure.” I spike right out of my seat, only to be reeled onto the salacious Senator’s lap. And good God! Please tell me that is a pickle in his pocket!
A dark shadow of a man pops up next to the table. “Senator Danberry?”
We both look up, only to meet with a flash to the eyes. The senator gasps and gags, and I steal the singular asthmatic window to run like hell.
Whitney Briggs Universitynever looked so good—so innocent, so free of perverted old men. I run all the way to Cutler Tower, straight to my dorm, straight to bed. Scarlett’s not home, so I fall into a deep coma-like sleep and forget all about the inebriated old Santa who wants to feed my kitty.
The sound of the world crashing in shatters me out of a dead sleep.
“What?” I struggle to rise to my elbows, only to find the sun already filling the room and all three of my best friends shouting something at once.
“What the hell?” I scoot to the edge of the bed and wipe the sleep out of my eyes.
“What the hell is right,” Cassidy spits it out, caustic like bleach, before her affect softens and she runs her fingers through my hair with a look that suggests tears are imminent. “Say it ain’t so, sweetie.”
“Say what ain’t so? Am I dreaming?” I scoot so far back, I’m practically climbing the wall to get away from the three of them.
Piper clutches at her chest like she might join Cassidy in the boo-hoo fest, and, dear God, if Piper is prepared to show that level of emotion you know that something is very fucking wrong.
I pull Scarlett in by the shirt until there’s nothing separating us but a sea of her crimson locks.
“Speak now or forever hold your peace.” Scarlett is notoriously good at that, considering she chose that very juncture to burst out and say nice things about her stepmother during her nuptials a few weeks back.
“You don’t know.” Relief sweeps her face, and the color slightly comes back to her cheeks. Nobody blushes quite like Scarlett. She truly is an Irish blushing rose.
“I don’t know what? Would somebody please tell me before I lose my ever-loving mind?”
A firm knock comes over the door, and I’m the first to jump to see who it is. If my best friends aren’t willing to cough up the ugly truth, maybe this ham-fisted stranger will do the deed.
Norma, my dorm mother, and Mrs. Carmichael, my guidance advisor, stand side by side with horrified looks. Mrs. Carmichael clutches a newspaper in her hands as the two of them stammer for words.
“For God’s sake, does everyone around here need a road map to tell me what’s on your minds? Spill it, would you?”
“Miss Pembrooke.” Mrs. Carmichael grimaces as if what comes next were somehow ghastly. “I’m afraid the press got ahold of some sensitive information regarding your—gentleman caller.” She clears her throat while exchanging glances with Norma. Norma is a grad student whom I’ve always secretly felt sorry for because she’s so painfully shy she hardly looks you in the eye when speaking.
“What gentleman caller? For God’s sake, I’m not a prostitute.” I snatch the paper from her. “Let me see this.” I unscroll it to find my startled face, my body clad in a little tight dress while seated precariously on Senator Danberry’s dirty old lap—his fingers pressed against my left boob—a moment I can’t even recall. “Oh my shit.” I stumble backward.
A flood of words stream from the women at the door at once—It’s best for the university. It’ll be strictly temporary—but only if you can swing it. This isn’t mandatory, of course.
Scarlett and Piper manically swirl around the tiny dorm room packing up “just a few things” into my hot pink Michael Kors overnight bag, and I come too just long enough to motion to the bathroom, and Cassidy scoops all of my makeup right in with a sweep of her hand.
I hardly remember how we get from Cutler Tower to the pool room in the back of the Black Bear, with Piper shutting the door behind us as if a body needed to be buried. I can’t blame her. An entire parade of reporters, with camera lenses the size of baseball bats, followed us over like a coven of darkness.
Owen, Cade, Rex, and Jet arrive, inspiring Scarlett and Cassidy to fill them and me in on the media shitstorm that took over the entire late great state of North Carolina.
But the sounds Scarlett and Cassidy make with their mouths are soon reduced to wordless drivel. I’m too lost staring at the bevy of newspapers Piper has strewn out in front of me.
Senator Danberry’s Mistress Revealed! Daisy Pembrooke: Coed by Day—Stripper by Night!
“Nobody reads the newspaper.” Piper scrapes the table clean. “It’s a dead medium.”
“Just my parents,” I mumble incoherently. God, where’s my phone? On second thought, do I really want my phone?
