One Night of Bliss (Dumas University #2)

Chapter 1

EVER

I overdressed, and that was my first mistake. It’s three in the afternoon, and the sun beats down on us as my friends and I sit on the bleachers, waiting for the rugby team to start practice.

Sweat beads form on my forehead, and my face is flaming, like opening an oven door and getting hit with a blast of heat. I pull the gray hoodie off and knot the sleeves over my stomach.

A breeze cuts through the heat and whispers over my bare arms. A memory surfaces of watching from the bleachers, my crush teaching the neighborhood kids how to bat and catch balls. Carlos looked mouthwatering with his backward baseball cap, loose navy-blue T-shirt, and gray sweatpants.

I bring the hoodie’s sleeves to my nose and inhale.

Carlos’s hoodie still smells the same as it did six years ago, when he loaned it to me at a party where we first met. It smells like sweat and motor oil. Carlos loved working on cars.

The hoodie’s gone through the wash several times, but the smell doesn’t disappear, and I’m glad. Pictures saved on my phone are great, but something I can hold in my hand and remember his scent by . . . It’s priceless.

But today isn’t about remembering Carlos. It’s my friends’ and my last year of college, and I want to be with them as much as possible before we graduate and leave for wherever our next adventure takes us.

My second mistake was indulging in my friend Arie’s ask. Had I been pulling hours at the bakery, I wouldn’t have overheard my other friend Gwen. What she says changes the course of my life.

“Remind me again why we took the day off from earning a decent wage?” I tease Arie.

“To show the two of you that there are options on campus. Dating older guys is overrated.”

Arie is into jocks. I’m not a fan. Growing up, my big brother Ty talked nonstop about football.

At least we’re not at a football game, but rugby is similar, I think.

I mean, it’s a bunch of dudes doing something with the ball and being uber-competitive, to the point of breaking bones, to get the ball into the end zone.

I fan my hot face with my hands.

Arie, Gwen, and I have the best seats among the eager-eyed coeds. We’re front and center. Syn and Riley are missing from this shindig. Syn has a hate-fest for jocks, and Riley had the good sense not to take up Arie on her offer.

“I’m not at DU for a love match,” I say while the conversations in the stands are at a normal decibel. DU, or Dumas University, is a private college in Washington State.

“Same,” Gwen says. “I’m here to get my degree and get off my parents’ farm. If I graduate.”

She said the last part in a near whisper, but I heard her clearly. Carlos and I dated secretly, and being hyperaware of noises and conversations became my superpower.

What does Gwen mean if she graduates? Of course she will. We all will. But I’m not a gambler. I grab my cell phone from my bag and text someone who owes me a favor.

Me: What’s the 4-1-1 on G Bliss not graduating?

Skylar: Let me check

Skylar works in the registrar’s office.

Gray bar. Three dots.

Skylar: Financial aid in but 5K short. Overdue

Well, crap.

Me: TY

“Wherever I land in my future job, I’ll fly my besties out for a day at the spa and a night out on the town.” Gwen props her face in her palms with her elbows on her knees. She stares off into the distance, at the parking lot on the other side of the field.

“We’ll be dressed to the T.” I shoulder-bump her. “It’ll be fun times.”

Gwen sees the world through rose-colored glasses and has been that way since I met her.

I love her, but it must be exhausting to put on a smile for the world yet hurt on the inside.

A girl should have a fairy godmother in her corner now and then, and Gwen is due for one.

I wish I could make her dreams come true.

I drop my cell phone back into my bag and look where Gwen is staring.

Two tall guys get out of a blacked-out sports car.

Backward baseball caps cover their dark hair, and their hands are shoved inside the pockets of their low-hanging jeans like they don’t have a care in the world, but I know differently.

It’s Midnight Sterling and his cousin, Dare.

Those boys are rich and panty-melting hot but trouble with a capital T.

Midnight is Riley’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. The rumor is that Midnight burned down the house of a guy interested in Riley. That tatted, gorgeous sex on sticks is crazy.

Dare? He’s crazy on another level. Brooding.

Quiet. Observant. He’s unpredictable compared to Midnight.

Is Gwen interested in Dare? I caught her looking at him over her red Solo cup when we crashed the dirty trio’s insane parties.

I’d never seen Gwen look at a guy with longing, curiosity, and anger before.

What did Dare do to her? Dare is Syn’s best friend, and I could ask her, but she’s loyal to her core to Dare and would never discuss his personal life.

She’d tell me it was a Gwen problem, and she wouldn’t be wrong.

We girls guard our private lives like squirrels guard their stash of nuts, which makes us peas in a pod.

Peas. Pods. Nuts. Balls. Penis. Heat creeps up my face.

My two-year dry spell is messing with my head.

“Why should we date from the DU pool when you’re not taking advantage of the options, either?

” I slide my gaze to Arie. She’s dressed in weather-appropriate pink shorts and a flowery white short-sleeved top.

“Unless you and Cooper moved beyond your friend zone and we’re the last to know.

” Cooper is Arie’s best friend and the kicker for DU’s football team.

There isn’t a peep from Arie, not even her side-eye. I move on to the true source of her angst.

“I remember meeting you when your hair was cut to your ears. Now look how long it is.” Down to the small of her back. “I love it, Arie, but please don’t tell me you did it for him.” What’s with her love-hate for Riot, one of DU’s hot and single rugby players?

I grasp Arie’s hair and twist the ends between my fingers.

Arie told us Riot bullied her all through high school.

What he enjoyed most was coming up from behind and yanking on her hair so hard that tears stung her eyes.

He did it so often that she finally had enough and hacked off her hair.

That’s what she told us after getting wasted on shots of Fireball.

Then why look at him with longing? He tormented her.

Personally, I wouldn’t give him the time of day, but he’s been living rent-free in Arie’s head since freshman year, which tells me Arie isn’t over what Riot did to her.

“I’m not sure what you’re speaking of.” Arie side-eyes me.

I groan. This girl is in denial. I start to call her out, but the rugby team walks onto the field and struts their stuff. The stands erupt with cheers, whoops, and hollers. I cover my ears.

Xander Brody, the team captain, leads the charge, with his friends Galley Rutherford and Zeke Harrington flanking his sides. The coeds jump up and down and wave their hands, trying to snag the attention of the “dirty trio.”

The guys are dirty for different reasons.

Xander Brody, with his panty-melting smirk, is known to only sleep with coeds with experience in the sack and avoids the ones with their V-cards. Does the guy have a built-in radar for virgins? Geez.

Zeke Harrington is a one-and-done guy with the hashtag #ZekeHarringtonOneandDone. He sleeps with a girl once, and only once. The word commitment must be a dirty word in his vocabulary of f-bombs, bruh, and bro.

Galley Rutherford? Galley is filthy rich. So is Zeke. But Galley isn’t a one-and-done. He prefers sex with multiple partners and likes to copulate numerous times in a day. The guy has stamina.

But Arie isn’t interested in any of the three. In the corner of my eye, I watch her follow a guy’s movements with her head. I zone in on the guy Arie is checking out.

Riot O’Sullivan. Tall. Ripped. Jet-black hair. Intense green eyes. Commitment issues. He stretches his long legs and holds his arms high above his head, pointing his fingers at the sun. With a twist of his magnificent torso, Riot gives the enthralled coeds a view of his pecs and six-pack abs.

I scrunch my face. That boy should put on a shirt.

I shield my eyes from the sun and shoot Arie a sideways glance. Her jaw is clenched, and her hands are tight balls in her lap.

“Arie Kim, did something happen between you two at Galley’s party?” Every muscle in my body is tense.

The end-of-semester party was three months ago. Galley and his teammates throw the wildest parties at the house he owns a few blocks from campus.

Her silence isn’t reassuring.

“Do I need to kick some rugby dude’s ass? Do I need to kick Riot’s ass?”

“Violence isn’t the answer,” Arie says in a soft voice.

It was in the world I grew up in. Violence was the answer to having the upper hand until Carlos lost it and his life.

“Did he—”

“No, he didn’t hurt me that way. Jesus, Ever, you can be so persistent.” Arie sighs. “But yes, something happened. It wasn’t anything bad. I just don’t want to talk about it. I’d rather he not exist.”

I understand wanting to make something go away. I would love to forget parts of my past, but forgetting would mean letting go of Carlos, and I’m not ready to do that. Not until justice is served.

“Riot?” I glance around like I’m searching for something. “Riot who?”

“Yeah, who’s Riot?” Gwen chimes in. Her blueberry-blue eyes gleam, and the sunlight catches the auburn highlights in her dark-brown hair.

Arie tears up. “I love you guys. I’m glad we were roomies freshman year.

” She puts out her hands with her palms up.

“Let’s make our last year count. Let’s throw caution to the wind and live fully.

Whatever challenges come our way, we’ll face them head-on.

Whatever trials and tribulations we face, we’ll say bring it. ”

“Hey, that’s my mantra,” I say.

The girls laugh.

“Per Ever’s mantra, bring it. We’ll be stronger for it. Who’s in?”

“I am.” My chest swells with pride at how strong Arie is.

Our lives mirror one another. She and her family lived in a housing development in Alexandria, two hours north of Dumas. I grew up in a similar housing development in Montgomery, a big city two hours south of Dumas.

Arie’s mother had her first child when she was fifteen. Arie and her three half-siblings have different fathers. Her mother, Patti, is pregnant with her fifth child, and kids number four and five will have the same father.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Fred is “the one” for Patti. He was a nice enough guy when I had dinner with Arie and her large and loud family over the summer break.

Arie’s dad is in prison. My dad is in the slammer too. My mother died of an overdose when I was fifteen. Thank goodness my brother, Ty, was old enough to be appointed my legal guardian, saving me from spending time in foster care. Too bad he wasn’t around enough to keep me out of trouble.

“Me too. Gosh, I miss you guys.”

Gwen’s cheery words pull me out of my thoughts. Their positivity is the reason I love my besties. From the get-go, they understood the world to be unkind and unforgiving. Yet, they remain hopeful.

“We don’t hang out like we used to,” Gwen says. “We should change that and remind Riley and Syn of our ‘we ride together, we die together’ pact.”

“Hear, hear,” Arie and I say in unison before we break out in obnoxious laughter.

We always hung out during our freshman and sophomore years until classes and studying became intense and time-consuming.

Not to mention Gwen is helping her folks more at their lavender farm, and Arie spends her free time renovating houses with her half-brothers. Or, she’s with her bestie, Cooper. Riley and Syn have also been busy lately with life outside of school.

I miss hanging out. We would ogle the hot guys on and off campus, share our post-graduation plans, and ship our future kids. How lucky am I to have made friends for life in my first year of college?

For the rest of my time with my friends, I watch DU’s rugby team scrimmage while they give the coeds and a few guys in the crowd a view of their sweat-dampened bodies glistening under the sun.

Not that I’m into college sports or the “fine” guys on campus. Those are Arie’s interests.

“Hey, Ever, Braxton asked about you.”

“What? Why?” My head swivels to my right so fast that I swear my brain jostles in my skull.

Gwen stares back at me with narrowed eyes. “I said the same.”

Gwen has mentioned that her brother calls, but this is the first time I’ve heard of him asking about me.

Crap! What did I do to catch Braxton Bliss’s attention from prison?