She’d been crying, and her black eyeliner was running down her cheeks in thin rivulets. Despite this, there was nothing vulnerable about her. She was all fierce anger and indignation, and I whistled under my breath.
The sound caught her attention. “What?” she called out to me, her brows pulling together as her arms wrapped around her waist. “Here for the melodrama?”
I shook my head. “Trust me, I’ve just had enough of my own. You okay?”
Her shoulders lowered slightly in response to my words. “Yeah. Just broke up with my asshole boyfriend. It was about time, you know?”
She had a short pixie cut, effortlessly pulling it off by virtue of her sharp features. Her hand rose to rub at her button nose before moving to her right eye, smudging the makeup further.
“Sure. I think I just broke up with someone fifteen minutes ago,” I told her, leaning back against the wall. “We weren’t really together, but it felt like a breakup anyway.”
Her lips curved into a knowing smile. “They sure know how to string us along, don’t they?”
I nodded. Jack would probably argue that I’d strung him along, but whatever I’d done to him paled in comparison to what Oliver had done to me. I’d earned the right to feel like a victim.
“You live here?” eyeliner girl asked, glancing down at the keys dangling from my hand.
“Yeah, 305 down the hall.”
The frown returned. “Oh. Zoey’s roommate?”
“Yeah.” I spun the key chain on my finger. “You know her?”
“In passing. We met when she moved in a few weeks ago,” she said, looking down the hall toward our door. “Don’t think she likes me much.”
Zoey moved in two weeks before me, eager to get out of her parents’ house in River Valley so that she could have some privacy. I shrugged and stretched out my palm. “She didn’t say anything to me. I’m Ivy.”
“Mimi,” she responded, shaking my hand. “I stumbled into your roommate when I was coming home from a club at six am. Let’s just say I wasn’t in great shape and…” she trailed off, looking down at herself. “I suppose this isn’t much different. But at least I’m not high.”
I laughed at her blunt honesty. “Is that how you let off steam?”
She pursed her lips and moved them side to side as she considered my question. “I guess. Sometimes it works better than others. You party? Your roommate sure as hell didn’t seem like a partier.”
“She’s not. But neither am I. I mean, I’m still underage. Can’t get into any of the clubs anyway.”
“And what do I look like to you?” Mimi asked with a snort. “I’m nineteen. You don’t have a fake ID?”
My cheeks heated. “No. I wouldn’t even know where to get one.”
She looked me up and down. “You’d pass for twenty-one easily. I’ve got a hookup for you, if you want to get one made. Otherwise, if you’re ever in the mood, let me know, and I can take you to Flare. My boyfriend works as the doorman, he’ll get us in.”
I glanced toward the staircase her boyfriend had run down. “You sure about that?”
She followed my gaze and snorted. “Oh, not him. That was Evan. I’m talking about Mikey.”
My eyes widened. “You have two boyfriends?”
“Had,” she corrected. “Just one now. I’m back to being one of the normies, I guess.” She crossed her legs, shifting to lean against the doorframe. “So you interested? I’m going to Flare tonight.”
Could going out with her solve my current dilemma? Maybe I’d meet someone cute at the club and bring them home. Scratch that. Zoey would kill me. They’d need to be the ones bringing me home.
But who was I kidding? I was the girl who sucked at making friends, and now I thought I could get a guy’s attention at a club?
You did it once.
This was reckless, but in my current state of mind, maybe it was exactly what I needed. I could be an anonymous girl tonight, and do things I normally wouldn’t. I lifted my gaze up to Mimi. “Sounds fun. You sure you’re up for it?”
She grinned at me. “Hell yeah. I’m newly single, after all. Well, kind of.”
