“Ha, ha. Funny,” I tell him. “Come on. Give it here.” He ducks out of the way before I can reach into his pocket. “I’m going to a party tonight and I need that to get in.”
“You are not going to a party at 1919 Hemphill,” he says plainly.
I pause, confused and taken aback. “Don’t be a dick. I gotta go. Briar and Daisy are waiting on me. I’ll be back later. Maybe we can watch a movie.”
He picks up the rest of my stuff and hands me my purse, sans card.
When he turns around to return to his book, I stomp my foot and reach for a paperback on my desk, launching it at the back of his head and missing by an embarrassing margin. “What the hell, Bennett?”
He practically growls in response and whirls around. “What the fuck?”
“Listen, living together has finally become manageable. Easy, even! And I’m thankful for that. But when, over the course of our long history together, have I ever led you to believe that you could tell me what I can and cannot do?”
It’s like he’s that smug high school boy all over again. “I guess this is me cashing in my one-time token, then, because you’re not going to 1919 Hemphill. It’s a bunch of pompous-ass rich boys and they treat every person who walks through their door like they’re disposable.”
“Oh, so you’re jealous that you didn’t make the pompous-ass cut? Is that it? Give me the card back, Bennett. Now.”
“No.” He crosses his arms, and I have to look away before I start thinking about what the veins that stretch across his biceps do to my brain. “I’m not about to let you become just another notch on their first-year body count scoreboard. Which is a real thing, by the way.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at the absolute cliché of it all. Even if this little scoreboard is real, I’m not dumb enough to end up on it. “I’m pretty sure you forfeited your right to have an opinion about what college parties I choose to go to years ago. It doesn’t even matter. I can just text my friend who gave it to me and get another one.”
“Your friend, huh? Don’t tell me you’re talking about Tate. I wasn’t kidding when I said that guy is not safe.” I don’t know what the deal is with him and Tate, but I’m not about to let him make me a chess piece in their little dispute.
I hold my lips tight for a moment, and then say, “You told me not to tell you. This is me not telling you.”
He closes his eyes for a moment on a deep inhale and then exhales through his nose. “Will you at least share your location with me? Because that’s the only way I’m about to give this card back to you.”
The whine that leaves my mouth is the single brattiest noise I have ever heard in my life, but I need that card and it feels like an innocent enough ask. “Fine,” I tell him as I unlock my phone and add him behind Mom and Marianne as the third person on the short list of people who can track my phone.
His phone pings in response and after accepting the request, he reaches into his pocket for the card. “Here. Just be careful, and for fuck’s sake, keep your phone on you at all times.”
Of course, he makes no effort to move or come closer, so I’m forced to walk around his side of the bed until we’re only a breath apart.
I yank the card out of his hand with enough force to rip it, and he practically snarls at me, his gaze hungry as his eyes travel the length of my body.
I’m tempted to tell him that there is one way he could make me stay, but I’m worried I might actually mean it.
Before I flirt a little too close to the sun, I stomp out the door to where Daisy and Briar are waiting for me.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” asks Briar.
“It’s not anything that I’m going to let ruin my night.”
Daisy squeals and claps her hands together. “To the slutty college party we go!”
CHAPTER 20
Clover
1919 Hemphill is a four-story Victorian just a few blocks away from campus near the center of town. Even if I didn’t know where it was, I could find it simply by following the trail of shivering college students wearing anything but clothes.
“I thoughtouroutfits were pretty scandalous,” Daisy shouts as a few girls walk by dressed in bikinis made of McDonald’s Happy Meal boxes. They’re followed by girls wearing the Wexley seal as pasties and paper bags from the bookstore as miniskirts.
A small group of guys who are obviously trolling for something to do are walking toward us in the ultimate PNW bro uniform of khakis and Patagonia vests. They stare at us in confused silence.
“What are you looking at?” snaps Daisy.
Briar lets out a loudmeowat Daisy’s surprise sauciness.
