5. Faith
Chuckling over the group in the private room, I shook my head in wonder, feeling a nip of jealousy because I knew I’d never be a part of that kind of teasing, warm camaraderie myself.
I think I was doomed to be a loner.
Sighing past that fact, I hurried to the bar to put in the two draft orders.
Behind the counter, Ieisha was aggressively shaking something in a silver canister before she removed the lid and poured the contents into a martini glass.
“Heard you were serving the seven tonight,” she said to me without even glancing up as she busied herself with stabbing a row of olives with a sword-shaped toothpick before dropping it into the glass. “Congrats, sis.”
“The seven?” Wrinkling my nose, I rested my elbows on the wooden surface. “Who the hell are the seven? And could you get me two Yuengling Goldens on tap when you’re ready, please?”
Ieisha finally glanced up in surprise. “Are you serious? You’ve never heard of the seven before?”
“Girl.” Hannah whistled as she appeared, landing at my side. Slapping her drink tray down on the counter in front of us, she shook her head. “How can you not know who the seven are? You been living under a rock or something?”
I shrugged helplessly. “I’ve been a little preoccupied with working and classes.” And when I wasn’t doing either of those things, I sometimes helped Mirlande out in her shop.
I’d cut myself out of the social scene and trying to make friends and get to know people around campus abruptly after Gen had screwed me over. Because I wasn’t getting burned like thatever again. I’d rather just be alone.
When both Hannah and Ieisha blinked at me as if I’d lost my mind, however, I guessed, “So they’re, like…football players?”
“What? No!” Hannah grimaced as if the idea was preposterous before she shrugged and added, “I mean, only Foster is. The rest… I have no idea if they’re even in sports.”
“You’ve heard of the Magnificent Seven, right?” Ieisha broke in.
I squinted. “The Western movie?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Well, these guys are like that…but not cowboys. That’s why I call them…” She lifted her hands as if to frame the phrase in the air. “The Seven Magnificents. They’re the hottest group of guys to walk Haverick campus.”
I snorted in disbelief and almost said, Not unless they have Genesis’s boyfriend among their ranks.
Except, ugh… I was trying to train myself not to want him anymore. He could only ever be my enemy’s nasty remains now.
But all I could remember was the eye contact we’d made hours earlier in the university’s student union when he winked at me, and my stomach started to churn with mad adoration.
Yeah, I wasn’t doing a very good job of getting over my obsession with him at all.
Next to me, Hannah said, “Keene told me they’re the seven vowels. Because all their last names begin with a different vowel.”
Frowning in thought, I mentally counted through A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. “But that would make only six, tops, if?—”
“I know,” she sneered acerbically. “The seventh guy is Keene Dugger, and according to him, he was the only one of his friends without a voweled last name because he brought the D to the group. But what I didn’t realize at the time was that he meant massivedick, personality-wise.”
Uh-oh. I sensed trouble in paradise. “What?” I guessed. “Did he never call back?”
“No! And I had sex with him twice,” she confirmed, sounding moody. Then she straight up whined, “He was really good at it, too. He could do this thing with his tongue, and oh my God, Faith, I’m telling you right now?—”
“No.” I lifted my hand, cutting her off right there. “No, no. Please don’t. I can’t bear to hear about good sex right now. It’s been way too long since I’ve had any. You’re just going to send me into a funk if I listen to any more.”
“Besides,” a familiar voice growled from behind us. “You three are supposed to be working. Not gossiping.”
All three of us jumped. Hannah and I whirled around together to send our boss, Ravi, a guilty grimace.
“Just picking up my drinks,” I told him with a tense smile as my face heated about twenty degrees and Ieisha rushed to slide the two drafts I was waiting on across the bar toward me.
Snagging them gratefully, I stole Hannah’s tray and set them on that before whirling back so I could go fetch the rest of my drinks from the fountain machine.
But Ravi was still standing, like, right there, hovering directly in my path.
The look he sent me made my stomach drop, and I knew he’d heard everything I’d said about missing sex.
Which, no, wasn’t uncomfortable to learn your boss had overheard—not at all.
What was worse, it was a well-known fact around Calamity’s that he was already fucking Bianca, the hostess. So clearly, he wasn’t opposed to sleeping with the staff.
I just hoped he didn’t think I wanted him now, too, because just…no.
Ravi had to be in his forties and old enough to be my dad.
Sure, I had no idea how old my biological father actually was—or even who he was—but my mom had given birth to me when she was sixteen. So this dude was surely older than my sperm donor.
And that just didn’t appeal to me at all.
“Excuse me,” I said a little too firmly.
He was slow to step aside, and even as he did, he just kept watching me, which skeeved me out even more and prompted me to hurry away to retrieve the rest of the drinks for my party and hustle it back to the private room, where he couldn’t see me anymore.
As I blew through the doorway to the party room, out of breath and relieved to be away from him, I noticed that two more had joined the group and were just now seating themselves.
One guy was super tall with big rings of scattered curls in his brown hair, while the shorter one was movie-star pretty. There was a very Chace Crawford look about him, but his eyebrows seemed much straighter—and thinner—than the actor’s.
“Where’s the fucking birthday boy, anyway?” Parker was asking as he checked his watch. “I swear, that asshole’s going to be late to his own funeral.”
“He just texted,” the Chace look-alike answered. “Said the worm queen held him up, but he’s on his way now.”
“Keene, dammit,” Oaklynn scolded as she finished setting little signs and party horns on the table. “You really need to stop calling her that. It’s going to get stuck in my head, and one day when he finally introduces her to us, that’s going to be what comes spilling out of my mouth.”
Chace—er, I guess this was the Keene that had never called Hannah back—laughed uproariously. “That would be awesome. Please do that.”
As Oaklynn groaned and rolled her eyes, I announced myself by saying, “Alrighty, y’all,” as I neared the table. “Drinks are here! Who’s thirsty?”
I served Thane first, giving him his Yuengling. Then Parker. I was handing Foster his water when across the table, Keene lurched to his feet. “Holy shit! It’s you!”
And he pointed directly at me.
When everyone else looked up at me expectantly, I froze momentarily with my lips parted before I answered, “Well, yeah. I’ve been me for twenty years. It’s about damn time someone finally noticed.”
As Thane and Foster chuckled at my joke, Keene turned to Oaklynn as he motioned toward me again. “From today,” he encouraged, trying to jog her memory. “You know…the chick who’s stalking Ivey.”
“Oh!” Eyes widening, she whirled back to me and fisted her hands up by her chest as if she were excited. “You’re right. That’s where I’ve seen her before. I knew she looked familiar.”
“So… Who is she again?” Parker asked, shaking his head in confusion.
“She’s stalking Ivey,” Keene answered matter-of-factly.
“Stalking ivy?” I repeated with furrowed brows. “Sorry. I haven’t checked my Urban Dictionary word of the day yet. Is that some kind of euphemism I haven’t heard before? For, like, plant stalks of poison ivy or something?”
“No…no.” Keene waved a distracted hand. “Not even close. You’ve been creeping on our friend Ivey. As in Hudson Ivey.”
“Huh?” I asked, clearly not following.
At my elbow, Parker snorted. “No way. She looks way too smart to have a crush on Ivey of all people.”
“Yeah, just leave the poor girl alone and let her do her job, will you, Dugger?” Thane piped up.
“I’m telling you,” Keene insisted. “She’s got a massive thing for him. She watches him, like, everywhere he goes.”
Oh no…
I had a sudden bad feeling that I knew exactly who he was talking about.
“And how would you know that unless you were stalking and watching her everywhere she goes?” Curly Head countered, lifting his eyebrows at Keene while I silently finished giving Foster his water. Then I rushed through setting down drinks for Oaklynn and Damien, hoping and praying that they weren’t talking about who I feared they were.
“Hell, yes, I notice her when she walks by,” Keene defended. “She’s fucking hot.”
When he looked up at me expectantly as if he wanted me to return the compliment, I merely patted him on the top of the head and countered, “Aren’t you precious?”
He scowled, not a fan of the term, and Oaklynn blurted out a laugh, coughing and sputtering because she’d just taken a drink.
“Precious,” she charged, pointing at him. “Oh my God, I love it! That’s worse than the cute and adorable that I called you the first time we met.”
“Shut up,” he muttered petulantly and fell back in his seat with a moody slump.
I winced and almost wanted to apologize for bursting his bubble so effectively, but I didn’t want him hitting on me all night, and Hannah had pretty much confirmed he was the type.
“Oh, and by the way, Mr. Dugger…” I lifted a finger, unable to help myself. “Hannah’s pissed that you never called back after the two times you two were together.”
His curly-headed friend cried, “Oh, snap,” and slapped him on the back, laughing uproariously.
Keene straightened in his chair to frown at me. “Hannah?” he asked before his eyes widened in recognition. “Wait. Curvy, petite Hannah with curly, blond hair and massive tatas?” He cupped his own chest as if to physically show me how blessed she was. “And the tattoo of a hummingbird on the inside of her wrist?”
Since that sounded like my Hannah, I nodded and sent him a sympathetic smile. “The one and only.”
“Holy shit,” he gripped his head as if in utter disbelief. “This is so awesome. You know Hannah? I lost her number, like, three weeks ago and have been trying to find her again ever since. Hey, wait. Do you think you could get her my digits?” After snagging the red napkin from under Foster’s water, he snapped his fingers and pointed at Oaklynn. “Vargas! Pen me.”
She sniffed. “What makes you think I have a pen?”
When he lifted his eyebrows impatiently, she sighed. “Fine, I think I have a pen.” Grabbing her purse, she began to dig inside before pulling one free and tossing it his way.
He caught it with one hand and started to write.
Next to him, Foster shook his head. “You really amuse me, Dugger. I mean, you seriously think this Hannah girl is going to give you the time of day after you’ve ghosted her for weeks, don’t you?”
“Of course he does,” Parker drolled as he took a sip of his draft. “And he thinks strippers love him, too.”
As the others laughed, Keene sniffed. “Hey. Strippers do love me.” Then, he extended two pieces of napkin to me. “Could you give this to Hannah, please?”
“Er…” I glanced around at the others who were watching curiously to see what I’d do. So I reached out slowly. “I guess.” Hannah could trash it on her own if she didn’t want it. Or she’d owe me one if she did.
Keene grinned. “Thanks.” Then he waved the other slip. “And here’s my number for you.”
I paused and blinked at him in shock. “Are you for real right now?”
“Trust us; he is,” Parker assured dryly.
“What?” Keene shrugged, not understanding my disbelief. “I like sharing myself freely with whatever woman needs a little snack.”
“I’m not hungry, thanks,” I said firmly even as I gently pushed away his hand that held out the number for me. “But I would like to know what drink I can get for you?”
“Coke,” he answered with a depressed sigh as he shoved the number into his own pocket, “and Alec over here wants an Orange Crush.” He tipped his head toward the tall, curly headed one before returning right back to the subject at hand. “I’m guessing Hannah didn’t tell you what I can do with my tongue, did she?”
I winked at him and smiled. “She did actually, and I’m still not interested. But I’ll be right back with your sodas, ’kay?”
As I turned away, Foster laughed, claiming, “Oh, I like her.”
While Keene called after me. “Is this because of Hudson? Because you’re, like, in love with Ivey or something?”
“Seriously?” I whirled back to scowl at the irritating persistent pest. “I don’t even know who the fuck Hudson Ivey is.”
“Yo,” a voice said from behind me near the entrance of the room. “Someone say my name?”
I whirled around, growing more irritated by the second. “I’m not—” I started to insist to the newcomer, so he’d know straight from the get-go that I wasn’t interested in him either, or anyone else, only to realize who I was actually looking at.
“Oh, for shit’s sake!” I ended up blurting instead. “God hates me.”
Slapping the serving tray to my chest in order to hide behind it, I gaped at the gorgeous boy in the doorway in petrified mortification.
Because my sinking suspicions had been correct: Hudson Ivey was none other than the object of my every desire…and my enemy’s boyfriend.
Of course.