“Or not,” I agreed.
I excused myself and sidled out of the row, passing the only other person in there besides my party and Quinn’s.
I’d just finished relieving myself in the bathroom when the door swung in. I caught the action in the reflection of the mirrors to my left, and was buttoning up as Quinn sauntered in. At first he must have been looking at me, but then his gaze met mine in the mirror.
There was something almost predatory as he kicked his way across the room.
With a slight shiver, I turned to the sink and pressed down on the faucet. Antiseptic soap scented the air. “How do you like the film?”
Quinn stood behind me, keeping eye contact through the mirrors. “I don’t.”
I shrugged. “I wish I could comment more constructively, but I’ve been oblivious to the screen. This dating thing is more challenging than I thought. It’s like an equation I’m not schooled enough to solve. The angles, the timing, the—”
“Fact she’s female?”
I nodded. “Maybe that, too. I tried to kiss her but all I could think about was how much better it was with you. How I could feel it in my toes. How even just remembering makes me itchy.”
Quinn stepped closer, his chest rising as he took in a deep breath.
I asked, “Do you mind giving us both a lift to Fifth?”
His chest deflated, and his gaze darted from the mirror to the urinals. He started running a hand through his hair.
“Looks good,” I told him, drying my hands.
“Cheddar thinks so too.”
“Then the cheese has taste.”
Quinn almost grinned, but something held him back. Maybe the fact he needed to piss and hadn’t yet because I was standing around. Some men were shy that way.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” I said, slipping past him to the door. “Are we good for the lift?”
“It’ll be a tight fit. Cheddar’s coming home with me.”
“I’m taking that as a yes.”
Jell-O Fight Night.
Well wasn’t this a pretty sight?
A ten-foot, rectangular paddle pool lay lengthwise in an empty living room. Tens of students surrounded the pool at a wide berth, watching two women in jeans and T-shirts wrestling in ankle-deep putrid green Jell-O.
The party smelled of beer, citrus, and cheap thrills.
Hannah pressed closer to my side, scoured the scene, and shook her head. “I need a drink.”
Alone in a crowd of cheering guys, I reached for my notebook and pen.
A guy in a tank-top and running shoes hollered from the corner of the room. “If your number is called out, please make your way to the pool. Seventeen and twenty-three, you’re up.”
My gaze veered from my notebook to the fifty-seven that’d been stamped on my hand, apparently for entry to the curved fishbowl of numbers.
Well. They could forget that. No way in a hundred years would I expose myself to such crass ridicule.
Was this the type of thing Jack and Jill found fun? No wonder my columns were a disappointment ifthiswas the type of cut-rate angle readers sought.
Flyers were pressed against my chest and I clutched the pile on reflex.
