"I pulled her out of the water by her hips. She wrapped her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist because she panicked. That was it.She pulled away before anything else could happen."The lies tonight are just toppling out of my mouth, but there are some things that don’t need to be shared with the class.
"Oh, brother. This is a recipe for disaster," she says, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Okay, and now your office? Why were you half-naked? You didn’t fuck her in there, did you?"
"I haven’t fucked her at all, period." My frustration grows each time she accuses me of doing something I told her I wouldn’t do. "She barged into my office when I yelled 'don’t come in,' but she mustn’t have heard the word 'don’t' and came in anyway."
"Why were you half-naked?" she asks again.
"I wasn’t half-naked. I spilled my coffee when she knocked, and it went all over my shirt. I was in the process of taking it off as she barged in. There was nothing more to it, Beatrice. Can we drop it?"
"Wow. My full name, huh?" She knows she’s hit a nerve.
"You know me, Bea. You know how I felt when everything went down with Austin. But he’s not in the picture anymore. Why can’t I see where this goes?"
"I’ve never told you this." She leans forward, tucking her short, blonde hair behind her ear. "Cass had a giant crush on you from the moment she saw you. She kept obsessing about the color of your eyes and the dimple on the right side of your cheek." She pretends to swoon as she chuckles, holding her glass up to her lips, knowing she’s stirring up trouble.
"I don’t want to know that." I groan.
I don’t want to know that I had a chance in high school and blew it.
That I watched as my best friend coaxed her into likinghiminstead.
Even though he knew.
He knew about it all, and he laughed at me.
"Why would you want to waste your time on a girl like her?"Austin had said to me, but I knew that she was special, even back then.
She still is.
"What do I do now?" I ask.
"If you’re serious about it, just tell her," she says firmly, emphasizing the wordserious. I’m getting flashbacks of the night of Matty Maxwell’s party. Only this time, I don’t think I should listen to her advice.
Not again.
"I can’tjust tell her. That didn’t work out so well when the last time I tried," I say, wincing at the memory of a drunken Cassandra, nearly passed out on my shoulder after I’d confessed my feelings for her.
I had told her I had a crush on her. Told her she was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. That she was kind and smart. She’d looked up at me with her big, hazel eyes, smiled and said, “You’re so funny, Wingrove,” before throwing up all over my jeans.
I never got the chance to tell her again.
"I haven’t seen her since her speech," Bea says, pulling me back from memory lane as she pushes her chair away from the table.
The last I saw of Cassandra, she was hugging Jenna and heading out the doors of The Velvetine.
"I think she went outside. Should we find her?" Bea is up on her feet, slurping the rest of her cocktail through her paper straw, and I’m not far behind.
Walking down the stairs and out the exit, the smell of the beach and a slightly cool breeze hits me right away. The weatherin Los Angeles is mostly always beautiful, and tonight is no different.
The streets are packed full of people, celebrating whatever their occasion may be. The sound of the waves crashing in the distance is only slightly louder than the music coming from each venue. Drunk men and women are everywhere, including a couple pressed against a brick wall, with her hand down his pants, while they shove their tongues down each other’s throats. It’s almost like a mother bird regurgitating food for her chick, and I can’t help but chuckle and be grossed out at the same time.
It looks messy, but sometimes drunk, sloppy hook-ups are the most fun.
"Fuck." Bea’s voice filled with urgency, gaining my attention right away. I follow her line of sight, only for it to land on a visibly upset Cassandra Herring, and an angry Austin Anderson. My vision goes from clear to a cloudy, red sky in a matter of seconds.
Without hesitation, I lunge forward, but Bea grabs my arm, holding me in place.
"Don’t. This is not your fight," she orders firmly, strengthening her grip around my bicep, but I just want to rip it free.
