“Would you two stop worrying about me and get a room already?” I give Ava a brief embrace, and Grant accidentally feels up both my boobs and hers. “Get out of here before you sponsor a big brother outrage that accidentally pulls the pin on my own brother’s sanity.”
The Black Bear happens to be both Owen’s and Jet’s favorite alcohol-laden watering hole. Case in point, that’s exactly why Ava and I only visit the Black Bear during these rare mandatory mixers. Usually, all Greek activity is bound and gagged on The Row, where all the Greeks sit neatly tucked inside their Victorian mansions. But once in a while, we cross the line in the Greek sand and intermingle with the other Whitney Briggs’ students who just so happen to haunt this piña colada paradise.
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Ava blows me a kiss as Grant whisks her toward the exit.
“Do everything I would do, you little whore!” I laugh as I scream the words out, but my efforts are in vain as the 12 Deadly Sins belt out the lyrics to their latest song. That’s the one thing I do appreciate about the Black Bear—live music. And their lead singer isn’t so hard on the eyes either.
My hips begin to sway as I migrate my way over to the center of the dance floor where the rest of the girls from Kappa G have amassed, and I bump into a hard body—Lawson Kent.
That short-lived smile I was sporting is replaced with something I’m far more comfortable with, something I can’t help but do whenever the aforementioned jock strap is around—scowl.
Lawson Kent is tall, muscular to a Gibraltar fault, and built like sheetrock. Lawson is on the basketball team with Rush and Grant. Apparently, the three of them are pretty tight, which is pretty great for them, but seeing that he’s my least favorite part of the trio, I’m quick to sidestep out of his way. And much to my chagrin, he sidesteps right along with me.
“Why are you always avoiding me?” Those lime green eyes of his sizzle over my skin, and, honest to God, my face is starting to blister.
“Why are you always annoying me?” True as God. Lawson Kent’s superpower is getting under my skin and burrowing in. He’s about as welcome in my sub-dermal layer as a dust mite. He’s about as charming as the parasite, too, which seems to be why just his presence has the ability to send me into a blind rage.
He leans in until his face is inches from mine. “What exactly is it about me that pisses you off?” His lips curl up at the tips as if the idea in general somehow pleased him, and the thought has me whistling with steam like a teakettle.
“What exactly is it about me that makes you want to care?” I try to skip around him, but he blocks my move as if we’re on the court and I was holding the ball. Come to think of it, between the two of us, I’m probably the only one with balls.
“I don’t care.” His hands fly in the air as if attesting to this callous fact. “I was just wondering. Because in my experience, when a girl expends so much negative energy around me, she eventually ends up in my—”
“Laundry basket?” My brows hike to my forehead as I get up in his textbook handsome face. Everything is textbook about Lawson Kent, the basketball all-star here on scholarship. Basic good looks that have the power to lure any and every coed into his aforementioned STD-laden mattress? Check (Sans me, of course). “Don’t you ever believe for a minute that I’d land anywhere near that venereal disease-laden bedroom of yours.” I hike up on my tiptoes until we’re nose-to-nose. “And don’t ever verbally insinuate it either!”
He inches back as if I just slapped him, and he’d better believe that five-fingered show of affection is the next thing on my list.
“I don’t have to insinuate anything.” His voice dips down to its lower register. “That look on your face says it for the both of us. By the end of the night, you’ll be begging for a road map to my bedroom, and if there’s a venereal disease in it, just know it wasn’t there before you showed up.”
A dull choking sound emits from my throat. I’m so locked up in a fury I can’t catch my next breath.
“I’m teasing.” He holds his hands up. “It doesn’t feel so good to have your purity challenged, now does it?”
“I seriously doubt anything pure applies to you.” I’ve heard rumors—seen evidence of Lawson’s rather unlawful trysts. Honestly, I don’t want to know any of it. “Don’t hold your breath. I won’t be begging for a road map anytime soon. How did you ever get that big ego of yours through the door, anyway?” I smirk into the crowd. Good God, of all the people in this damn place and I’m stuck with the dust mite.
He leans in and looks off in the direction of my gaze at a group of dancing sorority sisters. “Oh, I get it. You’re into the fairer sex. I can’t blame you. The fairer sex does have a lot to offer.” You can practically see the condoms swirling in his eyes.
“Would you stop drooling?” I smack him in the gut. “It’s not a good look. And no, I’m not into thefairersex. I’m into boys, if you and your overblown ego must know—just not you. So scat, go run headlong into the first gaggle of girls you find and see which ones stick to you like Velcro. I’m sure your mattress is already missing the depraved gymnastics that take place on that thing.”
“Excuse me?” He looks genuinely confused. I’m sure the kind of girls he’s used to utilize far less sentences to communicate—syllables for that matter, too. “And what do you mean you’re not into me?”
It’s clear he’s affronted by the idea, and I can’t help but laugh.
“I’m not into you,” I’m quick to reassure, forcing my gaze anywhere but on those oversized emeralds he calls eyes. I spot Rush with a group of guys and nod in their direction. “And would you relax? I do like you—in a mentor kind of way.” That should quell his ego. I’d hate to be the mental road bump that keeps him from getting laid on the night of the big Black Bear mixer. Half the girls in here are ogling him, just waiting for me to shove him back out to pasture so he can plow their fields.
“Mentor?” Lawson blocks my view with his behemoth chest, and I not-so-gently shove him out of my way.
“Yes, mentor. I’m the female version of you, only I choose not to bum-rush the bedroom.” I smack him in the gut once again. “That’s disgusting, by the way. I’m into serial dating. You know—test driving the prospects and actually going somewhere with them rather than revving their engines and leaving them to idle.” I glance up and can’t help but note he looks more than impressed by my vehicular analogy. “Brace your ego because I plan on dating all of your fraternity brothers one at a time, with the exception of Rush and yours truly. Try not to get your boxers in a bunch, sweetheart.”
“So, you plan on sleeping your way through Beta house?” He gives me that disbelieving look as if calling bullshit on my monogamous yet slightly salacious scheme.
“That’s right. I’m no Ava.” I glance toward the barren exit. “There is no Grant Jones in my future. I’m a love ’em and leave ’em kind of a girl. I’m at Briggs to play hardball.”
His chest thumps with a dry laugh. “You mean blue ball.”
“You wish.” My blood hits a boiling point. Who the hell does Lawson Kent think he is practically calling me a tease? He’s certainly not God’s gift to the women of Whitney Briggs, like the evil spirit haunting his mirror mistakenly leads him to believe. It’s about time someone put him in his mediocre place. “I don’t blue ball.” What’s the opposite of blue ball? “Iwiffleball.” Crap. I have a feeling it’s only a pubic hair above blue balling, and honestly, I’m only vaguely familiar with the colorful phrase myself.
“Wiffleball?” He leans in once again as if gauging my sanity, and at this point so am I.
