Chapter 14 #2
In the end, the party was about what Nina had expected.
Tessa made out with a particularly hot guy, the two of them becoming aggressively acrobatic in one of the leather booths of a dark, cavernous event space.
Alina Antwerp’s boyfriend was in the frat, which perhaps explained The House’s acceptance of the invitation despite receiving similar entreaties from all the other fraternities on the row.
“He looks like a knock-off Kennedy, doesn’t he?” came a whisper in Nina’s ear. Well, a shout, given the volume of the thudding bass, but it felt like a whisper. It felt like a fingernail had drawn a slender line along Nina’s spine. “Alina’s boyfriend. His name is fucking Tripp.”
It was Fawn. Nina turned to take in the Twiggy-style eye makeup, the hair that had been fashioned into a faux bob.
Fawn wore knee-high pink boots made of a crocodile material, visible beneath a slinky red dress with a thigh-high slit and a V-neckline that dipped to just above her navel.
It was impossible that she could be wearing underwear.
She looked both sexy and untouchable, which Nina suddenly realized was the height of feminine power—the inspiration of desire paired with a bar for worthiness that you could never, ever reach.
Nina giggled, looking again at Alina’s boyfriend, who visibly rowed crew. “It’s worse than a knock-off Kennedy, I fear,” said Nina. “More like the guy you cast in the sequel to a Hallmark Christmas movie about the prince of knock-off Switzerland.”
Fawn threw her head back with a laugh—an utter gorge of one.
Heady, that was the word. Nina’s vision nearly swam with pleasure at the sound, at the understanding of what it meant.
A laugh that was better than sex because it was harder won.
With Fawn’s head thrown back like that, you could almost imagine her in bed.
Oops. Nina was drunk.
“That is so specific,” Fawn said in Nina’s ear. “God. Who wants to fuck that guy?”
“What’s your type?” asked Nina, lifting her glass to her lips. The venue didn’t serve anyone underage, but she and Jas had gotten fake IDs for each other for Christmas in a rare episode of honest-to-god twinning.
“Mm, I like a man’s man,” said Fawn. “A really thick thigh, you know what I mean? Like a cartoon Christmas ham.” Fawn giggled. She sounded a little drunk, too. “I like to feel tiny by comparison.”
“You are tiny,” Nina said. Her own voice came out breathy.
“Yeah, well, teeny-tiny. Pocket-sized. I like to be with a guy that makes me spontaneously think the word girthy.”
Nina erupted in a fit of bubbly laughter. “You mean like Superman?”
Fawn leaned closer, giving Nina a quizzical look as she sucked her cocktail straw, suggesting she hadn’t heard. Nina took a step toward her, half-shouting in Fawn’s ear, “So your type is Superman?”
“In guys, yeah.” To that, Nina’s heart bang-banged ham-handedly in her chest. “In girls I like the opposite. I’m a narcissist. I like someone really femme, painfully petite, practically no boobs at all.
” Fawn giggled again, the straw caught between her teeth.
“Well, okay, sometimes I love boobs. The point is it’s really more Narcissus than Sappho in terms of vibes.
I like an hourglass, you know—hips and a small waist. Something to grab onto. ”
It was too dark to tell if Fawn’s eyes had drifted down to Nina’s goose-fleshed midriff.
“So yeah, I guess in conclusion, Superman and Lois, too,” remarked Fawn, idly, her fingers still clutching the straw. Before Nina could begin to process a response, she was jostled into Fawn by someone from behind.
“Oh Nina, I’m so sorry—Taylor, you fucking idiot!
” blasted Summer Toft at some laughing frat bro before she rolled her eyes and turned back to Nina.
“I’m so sorry. He’s a child. Are you having fun?
” She seemed to register Fawn’s presence belatedly, her expression transforming.
Still friendly, just … less inviting. “Fawn,” Summer acknowledged, her smile approximately five degrees cooler than it had been.
“Summer,” Fawn replied, her eyes already drifting away. Then she waved at someone, some meaty dude who came over and plucked Fawn up in both arms, twirling her until she shrieked. Both staggered slightly, then they touched each other’s faces.
Mating ritual, Nina thought.
“God,” remarked Summer near Nina’s ear, a little huff of indignation. Unclear who was the recipient. “So,” Summer said, turning to Nina, “how is everything? Semester going well? Everyone being nice?”
Before Nina could answer (good, yes, of course!) the initial frat bro, the jostler, was back, one arm suddenly slung around Summer’s bare waist from behind.
“Taylor, for fuck’s sake,” said Summer, throwing him off and shaking her head before knocking her elbow affectionately against Nina’s.
“I better go, sorry, Nina. I think Geoff’s on risk tonight—he’s gonna need to call a cab stat.
” Summer was already mentally several feet away from where she stood. “Listen, have fun, okay?”
“You too,” said Nina. She blew Summer a kiss, something she’d never done in her life, which Summer readily returned.
Then Nina turned back to the bar for another drink, exhaling with a brief sense of melancholy.
Probably from one drink too many, though history suggested she’d still likely have a few more after that.
“Hey,” said a guy who stood near her at the bar.
“No thanks,” said Nina.
“Ooh, feisty,” said the guy.
“Hard pass,” said Nina.
“Hey,” said Dalil, stumbling a little as she blazed a path to Nina. She grabbed onto Nina’s shoulders, trying to steady herself. “Important sisterly question. Is this guy I’m with a pledge?”
Nina glanced over Dalil’s shoulder, surveying the guy in question. He was average height, sandy hair, seemed golden retriever-y and young. “I think so.”
“Is he at least hot?” said Dalil, frowning.
“I mean, he’s fine,” said Nina. Who did think a lot of the guys present were hot.
They just weren’t her kind of hot. They all seemed like they’d been captain of their high school water polo team.
They were mostly boyish hot. She liked her boys to be men.
Professorial. With an air of experience.
With eyes that could undress you while they whispered sweet nothings about philosophy to your clit. Or, you know, something else.
Dalil looked over her shoulder, then back at Nina, having seemingly drawn a conclusion. “I have to pee!” Dalil announced to the boy before taking off, dragging Nina behind her by the wrist.
When they got to the single-stall restroom, they collapsed inside in a fit of giggles. Dalil tumbled so hard into Nina’s arms that Nina could almost taste the sweat on her skin. Nina licked her shoulder, just for fun, and Dalil let out a squeal of delighted protest.
“No, really, I have to pee,” said Dalil, shimmying out of her jumpsuit and squatting expertly over the toilet. Dalil grinned, her stick-on gel bra pads defying gravity while the uneven stream hit porcelain. Nina held her hand to her stomach and laughed and laughed.