“Yes, of course!”
“Then it’s a deal.” We shake on it, and she nods past me. “It’s quitting time for Cole, so we thought we’d head out to the beach for a late night swim. I’ll call you.”
“Sounds like a great idea. And thank you so much for the job! I can’t wait to get started!”
No sooner does Roxy take off than my smile fades as I spot Rex Toberman in the back with an entire gaggle of gorgeous girls, every last one of them with their long tan creamy legs, their hair slicked back in ponytails. It used to be that the notorious girls of Alpha Chi forced each of their members, and wannabe members, to don the face lift inducing hairstyle, but since my friends and I shut them down, the only group that collectively partakes in the sleek pulled back ’do as a group are the cheerleaders.
Rex is the quarterback of the football team here at Briggs. He’s the campus’s unofficial Adonis mascot, at least where the cheerleaders are concerned. Thus, the cornering of the ponytail brigade. Rex is handsome by most all standards with his dark thick glossy hair, his brooding affect, and piercing I’m-going-to-fuck-you-now gaze that sends the girls a titter.
He casually glances my way, missing me by a cheerleader-ponytail-in-the-way-mile, and my stomach squeezes tight at the sight of his cut features, that perennial five o’clock stubble, and those tight in all the right places well-worn jeans. My body breaks out into a bite of hot sweat, and my heart thuds clear into my throat like the lunatic it is. I hate that I have this visceral reaction each time he’s around. More than that, I hate that both he and his moronic family always seem to be around.
His eyes meet up with mine, and he raises a hand in my direction. That egotistical grin of his briefly takes over. A small crowd melts between us, and I pretend not to have seen his smug little grin as I make my way to the table that houses my friends.
Piper stands just as I arrive. “I was just about to grab my man and hit the dance floor. You ready for your big getaway weekend at the lake?” Piper is a dark-haired beauty, almost a twin to her older brother, Cade.
“How did you know about my getaway weekend?” I glance back at the growing cheerleader pyramid assembling around Rex. “Never mind. I can surmise.” Rex is best buds with Piper’s main squeeze, Owen. As much as I appreciate the boys we hang out with now and again, I loathe the fact Rex has grafted himself among them. It’s sort of a fluke really. His friends and my friends just so happen to be friends—just like it’s sort of a very big fucking fluke our parents are dating. Fucking fluke… The words marinate in my mind a moment. Geez, they’re not fucking, are they?
“Never mind how she knew.” Cassidy snaps me out of my gag-worthy stupor. “How did I not know?” She springs up with her blonde ringlets falling neatly over her shoulders, the scent of gardenia in her wake. Cassidy has a scar running from her lip to her ear on the left side of her face, and she’s spent a lifetime trying to bury it in her shoulder whenever she’s out in public—up until she met her boyfriend, Cade, that is. Cade has pretty much freed her from her need to conceal her best weapon, her pretty little face. I’ve never seen Cassidy so happy. Heck, I’ve never seen Piper so over-the-top happy now that she’s with Owen. Not that I think a girl needs a man to put a smile on her face. Nope, not me. I’m as free as can be, and I don’t mind it one bit, with the exception of Colin Bale and his very much-needed role in my emancipation from Witch Mountain tonight. I’d rather stab my eyeballs out with a fork and eat them—after I sauté them in butter, of course—than broil in the family stew for forty-eight hellish hours.
“Trust me, I’m not spending the weekend,” I assure Cass as I pull her into a quick embrace.
My roommate, Daisy, pops up out of her seat and thrashes her fist in the air to the music. I’ve known Daisy going back to high school. She’s one year older, so next year she’ll be a junior to my sophomore. Daisy is pre-law like me, but that’s about where the similarities end. She’s as blonde and blue-eyed as Cassidy, and as extroverted as I am introverted. Cassidy, Daisy, Piper, and I have become fast friends ever since the beginning of the school year, and we’ve had no problem accepting one another’s differences.
“I’m hitting the dance floor, girls.” Daisy knocks her hip hard into mine. “I’ll see you back at the ranch.” The ranch is her little nickname for our dorm. Trust me, there is not one animalistic thing going on at that place. It’s so chaste and sterile you could slurp a glass of water from the carpet if you had to. Neither Daisy nor I have yet to introduce the male species to the inside of our dormitory or our sheets. “Have fun at the lake with Sexy Rexy.”
“I’m not spending the weekend at the lake,” I reiterate to Cassidy who’s still busy giving me the playful stink eye. And I’m definitely not spending the weekend with that moron whom I refuse to gift with the sexed-up moniker.
She gives a deep-throated cackle as her hips sway to the music long before she hits the dance floor. “Oh, hon, Sexy Rexy is gonna need somebody to warm his bed tonight. You know that boy is dripping with all kinds of come-hither glances each time you’re around. Go on and get yourself some Whitney Briggs Mustang grade A beef.” She offers up a playful sock to my arm, and now it’s me involuntarily swaying to the music.
“It’s a thousand degrees out tonight. If I warm anybody’s bed, we’re both liable to go up in flames.”
Piper’s eyes expand with glee. “What’s this I hear? You want to go up in flames with Rex Toberman?” She doesn’t mean it. Once Cassidy gets going, she riles up the other two against me just for kicks.
“Would you be quiet?” A trio of beefy boys head in this direction, and I give my good friend a stink eye of my own. “They’re coming. Knock it off.” The last thing on this planet I need is “Sexy Rexy’s” ego to blow his head right off his shoulders. I’d rather stab my eyes out with a fork and bypass the butter sauté than have Rex Toberman think I was the least bit interested in him.
The boys appear in an instant with Owen wrapping his arms around Piper from behind and Cade claiming Cassidy by way of a ballerina spin. My stomach does its own revolution, not because I’m sick, because I’m actually a tad bit jealous of all this Valentine’s-worthy affection streaming from the four of them. I admit that it would be pretty nice to have someone wrap their arms around me that way. Lord knows I wouldn’t mind a romantic ballerina spin or two in my lifetime.
Rex steps up. His smile quickly defuses as he looks past my shoulder. I follow his gaze, and my body floods with relief at the sight of Colin Bale and his neon green shirt, the boy who will, unbeknownst to him, spare me of a family weekend with Satan and her spawn—spawn as in singular. Rex’s siblings, Knox and Trixy, are totally nice and undeserving of my quasi-hormonal wrath.
“Colin!” I give him a quick squeeze of a hug. I’ve never actually done more than nod at Colin Bale before, but in an effort to keep Sexy Rexy’s ego in check, I thought I’d indulge in the physicality while I can. Colin is a sandy-haired surfer type with gangly limbs and a permanently lewd grin plastered to his face. He’s friendly enough—a little too friendly if you ask me—but I’m desperate, and desperate family times call for desperate horny surfer measures.
“What’s up? You ready to hit Avalanche?” He tweaks his brows when he says that last part because, well, I may have led him to believe our little getaway involved a nice roomy cabin where just about anything could and will happen. I hate that my father’s poor choices in the dating world have made me out to be a lying, quarterback-despising cock tease.
Rex steps in, positioning his body between my ticket out of our parental nightmare of a weekend and me. “You’re going to Avalanche?” His chest puffs up, and his words come across more like a threat than they do a question. Something about the aggressive male reaction makes my thighs quiver on cue. But for all the thigh quivering I do around Rex, I’ve deduced that it’s simply an affliction of biology. I’m stronger than all of those cheerleaders that bounce onto his mattress. I can see right through his pretentious, I’ve-got-the-bigges
t-dick-on-campus routine. More like he is the biggest dick on campus. And, if I’m right, his gorilla-like maneuvers are about to display just that.
“Yup.” Colin pulls me in and tucks his chin over his shoulder before letting out an ear-piercing belch. The smell of onions and death blasts over my face, and every last cell in my body demands to die.
Both Daisy’s and Cassidy’s eyes enlarge at the ungodly sight. And, well, I’m too afraid to look in Piper’s direction to see if she’s ready to lop off the arm Colin just draped over my shoulder—his fingers fumbling toward the curve of my bra.
“Skipette and I are headed on up.” He gives me a quick squeeze that lands my nose in his armpit a moment—ripe, yet surprisingly better than the onions covered in death.
Shit! I come up, gasping for air, but it’s too late. His oily scent has infected my nostrils.
“Who the hell’s Skipette?” Piper barks it out so aggressive that I’m suddenly fearing for Colin’s gangly horny self. There’s no doubt in my mind that my three besties wouldn’t subject him to a beatdown. Piper might be the leader of the butt-stomping pack, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Cass and Daisy wouldn’t join in.
“It’s Scarlett.” I bat my lashes up at Colin sweetly, and he grimaces.
“Whatever. Let’s get going. I’ve got a cooler full of beer in the back of my truck, and they’re not going to drink themselves.” He jostles me with a strangulating hug.
“Beer, huh?” Rex folds his freakishly buff arms across his chest. Rex is sort of a freakish physical specimen altogether, which explains the parade of girls who have followed him over just hoping that he’ll point his crotch rocket in their direction. It’s sickening watching my fellow females degrade themselves in such a desperate manner. Although it’s pretty evident these cheer-bots are easily swayed by all the pomp and circumstance his quarterback self has to offer. Just because he can pull off a great pass on the field doesn’t guarantee he’s touchdown material in the bedroom. Not that I would know how to gauge anyone in the bedroom. My virginal status affords me exactly zero experience in that promiscuous arena.
“Yeah, we’re headed up for a quickie.” Colin nods to the exit, and I can feel my body willing itself outside those very doors.
A quickie? Does this meathead even understand the decency and decorum involved in such an act?
A pretty blonde struts by and blows Rex a kiss on her way to the dance floor. Never mind. I keep forgetting that at WB there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of decency or decorum regarding coital matters.
“What kind of a quickie?” Rex leans back on his heels, suddenly amused by my date for the evening. His eyes squint in an annoying way as if he’s buried a laugh in each one. Once he sees our taillights headed back toward Hollow Brook, he’ll bow to my genius and wish he had a female version of Colin to get him out of the Toberman-Kent weekend of torment. Who’ll be laughing then?
“You know—a fucking quickie.” Colin pulls me in and offers a noogie to the top of my head like I was his kid sister. By the time I manage to right myself, all three of my friends are open-mouthed and aghast at Colin’s latest attempt to woo me.
Piper grunts, “You’re not having a fucking quickie with that girl or any other girl tonight, so you can just take your hands off her before I rip them off at the insertion.”
Crap. I shrink a little as I cinch my purse over my shoulder. I’m thinking a speedy getaway is necessary if I want my plan to succeed.
“We’d better get going!” I sing, doing my best to turn Colin toward the exit, but his feet seem to have drilled themselves into the floorboards.
Rex smirks at him with that ever-so smug I’m-better-than-you smile. “So, you’re up for a long family weekend, huh?”
“Family?” Colin loosens his grip on me, and that’s pretty much when I know it’s over.
“Yup”—Rex lets out an exasperated sigh himself—“our parents are hosting some weekend long family fun-fest. But don’t worry, you’ll love it. Knowing my mother, there will be charades, board games, and group fishing nonstop. If we’re lucky, there’ll be a pancake breakfast tomorrow morning—all-you-can-eat, made of buckwheat and spinach, of course. None of that processed shit. But don’t worry, you won’t be able to taste the spinach in anything she prepares. You like hot cocoa, right?” Colin’s eyes widen a moment as if that one carbohydrate-slash-greens infected feast might have just put him in the running again. “But then, it’s the boys weekend to do the dishes.”
“Dishes?” Colin ticks his head back as if he’s affronted by the idea of manual labor in the kitchen of all places. “No fucking way.” Colin shakes himself loose. “You can’t expect me to keep my hands in hot water. My skin cracks and shit.” He looks at me with a manufactured apologetic look. “I’m afraid I’ll have to back out. I have a thing with these guys tomorrow. I can’t be stuck at the lake all weekend playing charades. If you want a good time when you get back, let me know.” He nods while doing this weird duck face that I refuse to acknowledge might actually be Colin trying to blow me a kiss as he melts into the crowd.
“I can’t believe this.” I cringe toward Daisy. “Colin Bale just baled on me.” I drop my face in my hands a moment before Cassidy shakes me out of my Colin-based stupor. Little does she know it’s actually a Sabrina-based stupor because dateless me will actually have to sit through the entire livelong weekend watching my sister and my ex suck face for forty-eight hours. Aren’t there laws about this somewhere on the books? If not, it’s the first law I’ll look to instate upon graduation. Thou shalt not date your sibling’s ex and bring them to the Happy Squirrel to flaunt in their face. Sounds more like a commandment, and, now that I think of it, I like the idea of it being written in stone.
Cassidy hops over and wraps her floral perfumed arms around me. “You get that glum look off your face, missy. You just escaped a Dutch oven fire if you ask me. Now, get over to that lake and sit by the dock of the bay and watch the weekend go by. Sounds like a perfect heaven to me.”
I glance to Rex who still has his arms folded across his chest, his serious gaze set to mine, and my throat tightens as I’m forced to eat crow.
“It won’t be heaven.” Mostly due to my sister, but Rex can share in that paradise-stealing glory. “Besides, I can’t go. My car has been acting up.” It’s my go-to excuse when there’s an entire highway between my prospective destination and me. “Colin was giving me a lift. So there’s that. I’d better let my sister know.” I pull my phone from my purse, and Cassidy slaps it right back out of my grasp.
“Rexy, you’re on your way over to this family ho-down showdown, aren’t you?” Cassidy flashes her wicked little grin at him. “You wouldn’t have room for one more tiny, albeit cuter than a bug’s ear, little girl, would you?” She pushes me in front of him like some virginal offering to the Whitney Briggs Mustang gods.
Rex grunts out his devilish smile, those dark eyes of his glinting with delight at the proverbial fall that just took place moments before. “I’ve got plenty of room for one tiny, albeit cuter than a bug’s ear, little girl.” He looks to Cassidy. “Where is she?”
Cassidy swats him over the stomach while I groan at his ill attempt at humor. Rex has been pretty much nothing but an annoying thorn in my side from the minute our parents introduced us last summer. Both my father and his mother were thrilled that Rex and I were attending the same university. My father even went as far as charging him with keeping an extra eye out on me. My dad has always been a touch too protective of his girls.
“I’m teasing.” Rex roughs up my hair a bit as he walks on by. “Get your bug’s-ear-self together and let’s get out of here.”
“Who says I’m going anywhere with you?” It comes out a bit more temperamental and bitchy than necessary, but I can’t help it. Rex Toberman has a way of reducing me to a cranky temperamental bitch.
“Okay, fine.” He pumps those behemoth shoulders, and, for a second, I envision the two of us alone in bed, his piping hot body pre
ssed over mine, the wingspan of those shoulders as he glides up and down…and every last inch of me shudders. “You can drive yourself in your unreliable car. I’ll see you up there—maybe.” He offers a dry smile.
There’s something about the snide way his lips twitch when he says that last word that makes me a little dizzy. I’m not sure if it’s because he managed to look vexingly comely or the fact getting on the highway makes my body tense in a bundle of nerves. You practically have to take every highway in the universe before you get on the back road that takes you up to the cabin. It’s almost as if he’s calling me out on the fact my car isn’t unreliable, that it’s simply one of many fronts I’ve developed to keep those around me in the dark about the fact I’m terrified I’ll come to a crashing end if I ever dare drive on a hellish speedway.
Rex takes off, and I watch as he grows smaller, as the crowd of girls following him out the exit grows larger and blonder, and all I can think about is how Sabrina will think she’s finally gotten to me with all of that I’m-dating-Duncan bullcrap.
“Wait!” I wail, giving my friends a quick wave as I head for the exit. I step out into the balmy night air, only to find Rex Toberman already barreling down the street in his brand new white souped-up truck, and I do the only think I can think of.
I jump in front of it.
Rex
“Shit!” I slam on my brakes so hard the smoke from my tires clouds up the road.
Is that Scarlett? I may not be a fan, but I don’t want to kill her—at least not yet. And for sure not this weekend when I’m due for another round of her father attempting to fill my own father’s shoes for the hundredth time. The guy’s been dating my mother for under a year, and he’s already tried to have one too many serious father-son discussions. I’m not interested—not in him, and for sure not in his psychotic, jumping-in-street-traffic daughter.
The passenger’s door swings open and in flies Scarlett like a wild, redheaded flame.