Chapter 19 Clover
Clover
Daisy chauffeurs us around in her cherry-red Mini Cooper Club. We end up going to three different stores to stock up on all the supplies we’ll need.
We’re all plus size in one way or another, which makes it easier to trust that Daisy won’t do me dirty with whatever outfit she puts me in.
I’m short, but full of curves—including some that aren’t entirely even.
Daisy is all ass with a nipped-in waist, while Briar is tall and soft like a Botticelli—a sharp contrast to her prickly personality.
We stop for burrito bowls at a local place called BOB (Bowl Only Burritos), and the girl behind the counter with pink hair practically pries the debit card from my fingers because I’m so averse to spending money on food when I have to pay for a campus meal plan regardless.
However, she is so smitten with Briar that she gives us free chips and guac, so that does ease the pain of an eleven-dollar bowl of beans and rice.
When she asks if I’d like a fountain drink, I ask for a cup of water and she gives me a soda cup anyway before winking at Briar.
“You should get her number,” I tell Briar once we sit down.
“Not my type,” she says.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just—”
“No, no,” she continues. “The girl is cute, but no one is my type right now. At least not for the next four years. In reality, way too many people are my type. That girl for instance is a big yes, but so are the two guys in the kitchen. I just … I’m constantly one step away from being the fourth corner in a polycule, and three significant others require a lot of emotional labor.
” She sighs and sets her fork down. “I only have four years to graduate and that’s it. I’m on a timetable.”
“It’s doable,” I tell her. “But what’s with the strict timeline?”
“My grandparents. My dad is estranged, so I hardly know them, but they set aside a college fund for me that I could access if and only if I attended Wexley, their alma mater. I’m allotted four years of tuition because they’re scandalized by the idea that a four-year degree could take longer than four years.
It drove my dad batshit when their lawyer contacted us and he found out that there was all this money just sitting there—money that we could have really used and the only thing it’s good for is my education. ”
“Sounds like a smart use of funds to me,” I tell her.
“Concur,” Daisy says as she politely shields her mouth as she’s eating.
Briar sips on her cherry Coke. “Yeah, well, I was originally waitlisted, so I took last year off school and assumed I didn’t have a shot in hell until I got the acceptance letter a week before move-in day. Anyway, Daisy’s turn to jump in on this little sharing session.”
“My dad is a pastor,” she says shyly. “Just outside Vegas.”
“No offense,” I tell her. “I’m a scholarship kid myself, but isn’t this place a little rich for a pastor’s salary?”
Briar laughs. “Not if your dad is shelling the gospel like a used-car salesman on live TV every Sunday morning.”
“Oh,” I manage to say. That kind of pastor.
Daisy frowns.
“Can I please tell her the best part?” Briar pleads.
Daisy sighs, but nods.
“Daddy and Stepmommy have been led to believe that our sweet Daisy is attending Wexley’s seminary school, but she’s actually majoring in losing her virginity ASAP.”
I smack Daisy on the arm. “Hell yeah, girl.”
She grins down at her burrito bowl. “Thanks. They’re going to be so pissed when they find out I didn’t even apply to seminary school. My mom told me to, and I quote: Take their cursed money and run.”
Briar nods solemnly. “Sound advice.”
Daisy directs her attention to me. “What about you?”
“Nothing special here. Scholarship kid.”
“How about the married-at-eighteen part?” she asks, her eyebrows waggling. “What’s the story there?”
“Oh, that. Well, we just … we’ve known each other forever and…
” God, I really should have thought of some sort of backstory for Bennett and me to agree on that doesn’t involve a haunted house.
“He asked after my senior prom,” I say, looking for any details I can feed them, even if they’re not true.
Behind them is a poster of a churro. “He put the ring on a churro. And I said yes. He was always there when we were growing up, and I didn’t want that to ever change.
” I make a mental note to fill Bennett in on the churro plot device in this version of our engagement story.
Daisy’s lips tremble. “That’s so sweet. If it’s right, it’s right. Why wait?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because marriage is a sham,” Briar says, but then relents. “But you two do make a pretty cute couple.”
It turns out that Daisy is an artiste; foil is her canvas, and thanks to her dad’s credit card, we have plenty of it.
“I’m concerned about the lack of pockets,” Briar says as she sizes the three of us up in the narrow mirror hanging on the back of their dorm room door.
She throws back a glug of some absolutely vile cotton candy rum she scored off a guy a few floors down who ordered a grilled cheese last night before he realized he’d lost his wallet.
I take a little spin and eye myself from the back before taking a swig of the cotton-candy-flavored poison.
My throat rebels against the awful decision, but I manage to keep it down.
“I think our bras are the best we’re going to do in terms of storage.
” We all mutually decided that underwear and bras are a must and if we aren’t admitted because of that, then so be it.
Going commando and sitting on surfaces at a college party feels like an invitation for things that I’d rather my vagina didn’t come into contact with.
“We look like burritos,” Briar says.
“I think what you mean is hot aliens,” Daisy points out. “Or cheerleaders from the future.”
She’s not wrong. Daisy has crafted us skirts that even have a few pleats over our left thighs.
We each have a different style crop top to accommodate our varying sizes of boobs.
I’m in a bra top that has been molded to my actual balconette bra.
Daisy is in a tube top, and Briar is in a sports bra–like top that is structurally sound enough that I’m starting to think Daisy could double major in fashion design and engineering if she really wanted to.
“Okay, I just need to grab the card to get us in and then we’re ready to go,” I say after we all pass around the bottle once more.
I dart across the hall to my room, immediately go over to my desk, and begin to dig through my purse for the essentials.
“Let me guess. An ABC party.”
With a start, I drop my bag on the floor, the contents spilling everywhere. “What the hell?”
Bennett sits on the bed in black sweatpants and no shirt, his legs crossed and a thick textbook draped across his torso. I didn’t even notice him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” His voice is low and agitated, eyes roaming over my ridiculous outfit.
I attempt to squat down and pick up the contents of my purse, but I freeze upon hearing the sound of foil ripping. “Shit.”
He tosses his book to the side and hops up. “Let me help.”
I watch as he grabs my purse—a vintage Celine bag his mom gave me from her personal collection—and begins to grab my lip balm and tampons and—“Oh, I need that!”
He holds the card for the party between his fingers, clicking his tongue, and turns it over before pocketing it. “No, you don’t.”
“Ha, ha. Funny,” I tell him. “Come on. Give it here.” He ducks out of the way before I can reach into his pocket. “I’m going to a party tonight and I need that to get in.”
“You are not going to a party at 1919 Hemphill,” he says plainly.
I pause, confused and taken aback. “Don’t be a dick. I gotta go. Briar and Daisy are waiting on me. I’ll be back later. Maybe we can watch a movie.”
He picks up the rest of my stuff and hands me my purse, sans card.
When he turns around to return to his book, I stomp my foot and reach for a paperback on my desk, launching it at the back of his head and missing by an embarrassing margin. “What the hell, Bennett?”
He practically growls in response and whirls around. “What the fuck?”
“Listen, living together has finally become manageable. Easy, even! And I’m thankful for that. But when, over the course of our long history together, have I ever led you to believe that you could tell me what I can and cannot do?”
It’s like he’s that smug high school boy all over again. “I guess this is me cashing in my one-time token, then, because you’re not going to 1919 Hemphill. It’s a bunch of pompous-ass rich boys and they treat every person who walks through their door like they’re disposable.”
“Oh, so you’re jealous that you didn’t make the pompous-ass cut? Is that it? Give me the card back, Bennett. Now.”
“No.” He crosses his arms, and I have to look away before I start thinking about what the veins that stretch across his biceps do to my brain. “I’m not about to let you become just another notch on their first-year body count scoreboard. Which is a real thing, by the way.”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at the absolute cliché of it all.
Even if this little scoreboard is real, I’m not dumb enough to end up on it.
“I’m pretty sure you forfeited your right to have an opinion about what college parties I choose to go to years ago.
It doesn’t even matter. I can just text my friend who gave it to me and get another one. ”
“Your friend, huh? Don’t tell me you’re talking about Tate. I wasn’t kidding when I said that guy is not safe.” I don’t know what the deal is with him and Tate, but I’m not about to let him make me a chess piece in their little dispute.
I hold my lips tight for a moment, and then say, “You told me not to tell you. This is me not telling you.”
He closes his eyes for a moment on a deep inhale and then exhales through his nose. “Will you at least share your location with me? Because that’s the only way I’m about to give this card back to you.”
The whine that leaves my mouth is the single brattiest noise I have ever heard in my life, but I need that card and it feels like an innocent enough ask.
“Fine,” I tell him as I unlock my phone and add him behind Mom and Marianne as the third person on the short list of people who can track my phone.
His phone pings in response and after accepting the request, he reaches into his pocket for the card. “Here. Just be careful, and for fuck’s sake, keep your phone on you at all times.”
Of course, he makes no effort to move or come closer, so I’m forced to walk around his side of the bed until we’re only a breath apart.
I yank the card out of his hand with enough force to rip it, and he practically snarls at me, his gaze hungry as his eyes travel the length of my body.
I’m tempted to tell him that there is one way he could make me stay, but I’m worried I might actually mean it.
Before I flirt a little too close to the sun, I stomp out the door to where Daisy and Briar are waiting for me.
“Lovers’ quarrel?” asks Briar.
“It’s not anything that I’m going to let ruin my night.”
Daisy squeals and claps her hands together. “To the slutty college party we go!”