We’d met up for brunch at our favorite coffee shop a couple of blocks off campus. My friend’s demeanor and lack of her usual care with her makeup and hair told me she’d stayed at the party long after I left.
“I caught a ride with Axel and Drake.” I popped a bite of cranberry scone into my mouth to preempt additional explanations.
Not that Saylor was in the mood to let me off the hook. “You could have told me you wanted to leave early.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt whatever you had going with Jeremiah.”
A coy smirk tipped up the corner of her mouth as she set her latte on the table, wrapping her hands around it. “I don’t usually go for guys his size, but that twinkle tells you something naughty is going on behind those deep brown eyes, and the way he lowers his voice...” She shivered, her smirk blooming into a full smile. “Fitz is probably one of the sexiest guys I’ve ever met.” Tilting her head, she eyed me close. “No wonder Piper, Jamaica, and you have a thing for Wildcats football players.”
“I haven’t hooked up with anyone this year, let alone a football player. Do not lump me in with Piper and Jamaica.” I sucked in a deep drink of my Americano and burned the roof of my mouth.
Saylor’s laughter at my desperate grab for my ice water made me want to dump what was left of it over her head.
“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” she said with a chuckle.
“Whatever,” I grumbled as I ran my tongue over the roof of my mouth.
“So what happened between you and Finn that had him in a dither to find you, and you leaving the party early, hmm?” She picked up her cheese Danish and nibbled around the edge. “The way you spark off him could light up the inside of a cave, so don’t pretend something didn’t happen.”
Because I knew my friend well and I knew she wouldn’t stop pushing until I gave her something, I went with a heavy sigh. She wrinkled her nose at me and rolled her hand in the universal gesture for “go on.”
Pursing my lips, I shot her a narrow-eyed stare from which she didn’t back down in the slightest, forcing me to give in.
“We went out onto the front porch where we didn’t have to shout over the music and talked for a while.”
“Talked, huh? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Over a bite of her Danish, she batted her lashes at me.
Throwing myself against the hard oaken back of my chair, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. “Wetalked. That’s all.”
A picture of Finn, his T-shirt barely up to the task of covering his massive chest and shoulders, his sculpted arms on full display in the cool November evening, flashed through my brain. Heat rolled over me as I remembered how his suggestion to settle me in his lap had made my lady bits weep. Against my will, of course, because I absolutely was not interested in Finn McCabe in the same way Saylor was apparently interested in Fitz.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
“What did he say that made you leave the party early?”
I glanced around at the funky art on the wall beside our favorite table. This month’s student display seemed to be bas-relief sculpture painted in colors completely at odds with the subject matter. Pepto-Bismol-pink paint dots splattered over a water buffalo head as it attempted to emerge from a pool of black water. Random lime-green, electric turquoise, and mouse-gray brushstrokes decorated a llama lounging on a couch. From my seat against the wall, I couldn’t be sure if chartreuse and purple flames were revealing or consuming a pea-green rose. The art sort of mirrored my current mood, my intellect at odds with my emotions. Why did Finn McCabe even have to know Tory Miller, let alone know her well enough to exchange numbers and texts?
“It’s more what he didn’t say.” This time I sipped my hot black coffee rather than gulped it. “Someone kicked Tory Miller and her entourage of wannabes out of the party.”
“Yeah, that was Fitz. He wouldn’t serve them beer, Tory threw a fit, and one of the other players—Dallas Cousins I think—invited them to leave.” With a thoughtful expression, she sipped her drink. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was Dallas, ’cause the guy was as big as Fitz and could kind of shoo Tory and her girls along by being too massive for them to sneak past. So what didn’t Finn say?”
“He didn’t deny he’d invited Tory and her buddies to the party when she demanded the bouncer let them back in.” I toyed with my scone then popped another bite into my mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “We’d actually been talking about Tory because she ruined what he was trying to start between us on Homecoming.”
“What was he trying to start?” An impish grin lit up her face. “Because you had zero interest in him at all that night.” She cleared her throat. “Like staring at him the whole time you were at the bonfire.”
“What are you talking about? You weren’t there.”
“No, but Jamaica was, and she said it was pretty entertaining watching the two of you pretend to not be eye-fucking each other every chance you had.”
Waving off her comment to avoid lending it any credibility, I continued. “Anyway, he told me he was listening to his roommates and cutting Tory off, but when push came to shove, he tried to play the middle. He didn’t want to piss off his roommates by overruling them about letting underage people into the party, and he didn’t want to piss off Tory by admitting he’d rather be with me and he shouldn’t have invited her in the first place.”
With a deep inhale and a slow exhale, I said the thing that had been eating at me since the scene on the front porch of Finn’s place the night before. “I can’t help wondering if he would have sneaked her and her friends back inside if I wasn’t there. If he would have, I don’t know, hung out with them.”
“That’s why you left early. Because Tory’s scene forced Finn to choose, and apparently, he didn’t.” Saylor finished off her Danish, flicking crumbs from her fingers onto her plate before wiping her hands on her napkin.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” I couldn’t help the tiny note of hurt that colored my words. “But you know what happened with her last year. You know how toxic and terrible she is.”
“Yeah, but I’ve also seen her turn on the charm at frat parties. The girl knows how to flirt. If that isn’t working, she flaunts her daddy’s money.” Saylor sat back in her hard oak chair and sipped her latte. “Men can be dense when it comes to a pretty woman giving them attention or promising them access to the club. Just sayin.”
