Cassie
I am totally cool.
The girls convinced me to come out of my study hole, even though classes haven’t even officially started, and join them for fraternity rush. I was just trying to get ahead of my classes, to get a jump start.
I was totally not avoiding Adam.
And now that the party has moved from the courtyard to the Alpha Sigma house, I’m totally cool!
My palms aren’t sweating at all, and though my swinging legs with my hands tucked under them might make me appear nervous, I’m actually completely fine.
I’m just sitting on the kitchen counter in the Alpha Sigma house in very close proximity to Adam and I’m not even concerned a little bit.
Totally cool.
Skyler, on the other hand, looks very concerned about the fact that there is a parade of sorority girls around the new transfer everyone is talking about.
I eye him from our vantage point in the kitchen, the steam from Skyler’s skin making me a little hot in my long-sleeve shirt.
It’s not hard to see why he’s causing a commotion — the kid is hot.
His blue eyes are almost as bright as my Big’s, his muscles lean and tanned, and his blond hair is tussled in that maybe I just had sex, maybe I just woke up, maybe I used a ton of hair product to get it this way, but you’ll never know kind of way.
He’s also sporting a pair of black-framed glasses that, for some odd reason, really do it for me — and apparently every other girl here, too.
Kip Jackson is the new, shiny toy at Palm South University, and also the newest pledge to Alpha Sigma.
And currently, he’s being circled like a bucket of chum, and the Zeta girls are the sharks.
“You know, I think I could rock those glasses he has on,” I say after a moment, trying to get Skyler to talk about the very obvious elephant in the room.
She hasn’t been able to get into much of a conversation with me ever since Kip walked into the party, and the way she’s staring at him, I know he’s gotten under her skin.
“I think he looks ridiculous.”
Liar, I think, but I just smirk.
“I love nerds. And do you see his arms? Something tells me he’s not just a book reading, chess playing kind of nerd.”
I know I’m pushing all the right buttons when Skyler bites her lip, leaning against the kitchen counter with her eyes still fixed on him. “I think you might be reading into this a little too much, Little Nug.”
“Maybe,” I agree. “But at least I’m not denying his hotness when I’m clearly affected.”
Skyler fights against a smile, but in the end, it cracks her face in half like an egg. She snatches a ping pong ball off the counter next to her and tosses it at me. “Shut up.”
I laugh, dodging her attack, but my feet keep swinging as I watch her digest her feelings. Suddenly, her eyes widen at a bottle of tequila sitting next to me, and she swipes it from the counter before heading toward the fridge.
“You know what?” she says. “You’re right. He is delicious — like a cool slice of key lime pie on a hot summer day. And have you ever known me to turn down key lime pie?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “Nope, never.”
“Exactly. Which is precisely why I can’t start now. After all, I have a very demanding sweet tooth.”
“Right,” I agree, tossing her the shaker of salt from behind me. “I mean, you have a reputation to uphold. You can’t let other girls go scamming on your pie.”
“Indeed.” Skyler winks at me, her feet already well on their way to the path toward the new kid. “I’m glad we talked this out, Little Nug. Thanks for being my voice of reason.”
“What are Littles for?”
With one last grin in my direction, Skyler turns, her eyes locked on Kip.
I can’t hear what’s said between them, but the next thing I know, the crowd is gathering around the two of them at the foosball table.
And I may not know exactly what game they’re playing yet, but I know without a doubt that there’s no way in hell my Big won’t be the one who wins in the end.
The crowd grows around where Kip and Skyler are setting up a game at the foosball table, so I hop down from the counter, making my way toward the commotion. But before I can get too close, the hairs on my arms stand at full attention, a familiar rush of emotion flooding me from head to toe.
I feel his eyes on me before I see them.
Swallowing, I lift my gaze to the table, and standing next to Jess in the center of the action is Adam.
His dark hair is flushed over in a soft wave, like he just ran his hands back through it, and those dark eyes I’ve been lost in more than once swallow me like a black hole from across the room.
His skin is still bronze, though not quite as tan as it was before he left for winter break, and as my eyes roam over the lean muscles of his arms, a flash of our last night together before break hits me like a strike of lightning.
I feel his body, hard and warm, wrapped around me under the sheets that smelled like him.
I hear his voice whispering my name, telling me it will all be okay, groaning against the urge to have me the way he wanted to.
I see his dark, long lashes on the apples of his cheeks as I peeked my eyes open mid-kiss, his lips still on mine, his hands gripping my hips like he had to hold onto them for dear life so he wouldn’t move those hands anywhere else.
We’d given in. He was right about Grayson, about the man I’d trusted with my heart, with my body, but he hadn’t taken the opportunity to say I told you so.
Instead, he’d held me, and kissed me, and cherished me like I was so precious, so fragile, that every move had to be planned and plotted and practiced before he could ever actually make it.
I’d always loved him, and I’d finally admitted it.
But after that amazing night, after he swore he was never letting go of me again, he disappeared.
I hadn’t heard from him since.
The room snaps back like a warped rubber band and I take in a sharp breath, inhaling a burning gulp of oxygen with my eyes finding Adam’s again.
There’s a pained bend in his eyebrows, an apology behind his eyes — or perhaps an explanation?
He holds my gaze as long as he can, saying more in that silent stretch of time than he did all break.
That’s the way it has always been with us — we spoke in longing glances, in soft, seemingly innocent touches, in the quietest of moments. Words could never say what we needed to so we let our actions and our eyes be our voices.
I can’t be sure how much time passes as we stand there, staring across the room at one another like there’s still some barrier between us, but after a few moments, or maybe a few years, Adam’s expression softens.
And he smiles.
That smile, that soft, slow spread of his lips over his mesmerizing face, it’s all I need to feel every tight muscle in my body unwind at the same time.
I exhale, smiling in return, the weight on my chest lifted like a cement block turned to a helium balloon in the snap of his fingers. He holds my eyes, that smile still in place, and holds up one finger, letting me know we’ll talk when the game is over.
I still feel a slight pressure, the same one I always feel in his proximity, as he holds up the little white ball between Kip and Skyler. He drops it in after a moment, and the game begins.
I should be watching Skyler in her element as she whoops the new guy’s butt in a game of foosball, should be laughing and cheering with the rest of the crowd, but I can’t take my eyes off Adam.
I can’t stop the parade of questions storming through me, like his smile released the flood gates I hadn’t even noticed were holding so much back.
How was his break? What did he do? Where did he go?
Did he think of me?
What are we now?
Are we anything at all?
It’s not until the very last score that I even register what’s happening, and I blink back into the moment just in time to see Skyler throw her hands up in victory.
I rush to her, Jess and I engulfing her in a group hug at the same time as I finally tear my attention away from Adam — at least, for the moment.
Skyler won — and now, it’s time for Kip Jackson to take a shot of tequila and accept his defeat.
“Grab me a knife, will you, Little Nug?” Skyler says, the bottle of tequila and a lime in her hands.
I skip off to the kitchen, returning to find my Big sitting on one of the tables that was just being used for beer pong. There are empty, red Solo cups scattered on the floor all around her, and Kip is just staring at her with one brow cocked in question.
Oh boy, this poor kid has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.
Skyler takes the knife from me with a smirk still firmly in place. She slices the lime into four equal wedges, and then like no one else is in the room, she takes Kip’s hand and licks the skin between his pointer finger and thumb with her eyes locked on his.
I swear, the guy practically falls to his knees right then and there.
“I said you had to take a shot of tequila if you lost,” she says, lying back on the table. “I didn’t say you’d get to shoot it out of a shot glass.”
She pops one of the lime wedges in her mouth as the room erupts into a fit of cheers, and Kip just stands there with his mouth open.
Jess and I start our sorority chant, the guys hooping and hollering as Skyler lifts her shirt up and tucks it under her bra, revealing her tight, toned stomach.
She pours the tequila over her exposed skin, the liquid pooling in her navel, and once the bottle is back on the table, all eyes are on Kip.
He seems to be stuck in some sort of spell, standing there over Skyler, and I can’t say I blame the poor sucker.
I’ve seen my Big in action, both with Adam and plenty of other guys on campus, and I know how impossible it is for anyone — especially of the male persuasion — to say no to her.
When one of his brothers smacks him on the arm, it seems to jolt him back to the moment, and he licks his hand to another roar from the crowd.