“Shit, sorry!” a girl says, her arm outstretched away from me while she clenches an overly full Solo cup between her fingers.
I pat myself down for any wet spots, breathing a sigh of relief when the dignity of my dress remains intact. If Hassie found out I’d returned her five-hundred-dollar ensemble ninety-five percent cotton and five percent alcohol, she’d probably blow a gasket.
Nothing but a fugitive stammer. “It’s okay.”
She shakes her head of long, chestnut hair—the kind that you only see in shampoo adverts—and doesn’t bother with camouflaging the faint blush on her cheeks. “It’s too crowded in here. I totally didn’t s?—”
Maybe my hearing has finally croaked, but the last part of her sentence gets cropped, and it takes me an embarrassingly long time to realize it’s not because of the atrocious EDM setlist currently shaking the base of the floorboards.
“Wait a second, are you Knox’s girl?” she asks out of nowhere.
Knox’s girl.
I stall like the hiss of a car’s radiator in hundred-degree heat. A good actor keeps up their performance, even when the spotlight is no longer on them.
“Uh, yep. That’s—that’s me,” I confirm, guilt an anchor in my belly that slams me against the ground.
How does she know who I am?
As if she can hear my internal monologue, she flushes my worry out with a hasty rectification. “Sorry for being so forward. That sounded…creepy. I know Knox. My boyfriend plays hockey with him.”
Hockey. Right. Another part of my fake boyfriend’s life that I’ll have to be indoctrinated into. It’s now that I realize Imight’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’ve never been in a relationship before, and the first one I’m “in” is the equivalent of a goddamn gauntlet feared by seasoned veterans and newbies alike. Making conversation out of nothing, kissing in public, pretending like you know everything there is about the relative stranger beside you. And things only get complicated when you sub in Knox’s and my rocky history.
A smile skims my lips, partly exaggerated. My discomfort is an easy thing to spot if someone learned to look for it—learned to triage my differing levels of anxiety.
“Oh, hi! You’re all good! Sorry, I’m just…all of this is a little overstimulating.” I gesture to the bedlam that is Sig Chi’s frat house on a rowdy Friday night.
“Oh, yeah. Sig Chi really goes all out. My social battery is usually on red by the time the party is over.”
The girl in front of me—my fake boyfriend’s teammate’s girlfriend—is backlit by an auroral sky sealed in darkness, projected through the main door’s sidelight windows. She’s stunning. Otherworldly. Harboring a dark sensuality that outshines everyone at this party. It makes sense that she knows Knox—beautiful people herd together.
She sticks her hand out, completely oblivious to—or polite enough not to comment on—my lack of interpersonal skills. “I’m Merit.”
“Staten,” I reply, shaking her palm. “It’s nice to finally meet someone who isn’t trying to get into my pants.”
Shit. Why did I just say that?
Waiting for the punchline to land, I’m relieved when I extract a genuine laugh from her, the tiniest of dimples bracketing the corners of her peachy lips.
“You know, I’m surprised Knox found someone to settle down with,” she comments, only needing to take one look at the fear on my face before backtracking. “I mean that as a good thing.”
I’m blowing this. I haven’t interacted with someone like this since freshman year. All I ever needed was my two-person friend group, okay? Without Hassie and Leif, I’m a loner. I make it a point to only exchange casual pleasantries with my classmates. I’m not versed in navigating the landmines of adolescent socialization.
“Thanks. It’s, um, all still really new.”
Merit nods in understanding. “He must really like you. I was convinced no girl could ever get him to throw in the towel.”
Oh, I’m convinced anorgy with Megan Foxcouldn’t get him to throw in the towel. I say this lovingly, but that man is a sex fiend through and through.
It’s my turn to laugh, but I do so with a lot less elegance. “I don’t know about that.”
Knox is just…doing what we agreed on.
Then why was he so upset earlier?
Because he doesn’t like Leif.
Okay. Andwhydoesn’t he like Leif?
