Unravelling (North University #2)

Chapter One Scarlett

“I don’t think asking someone their favorite sex position on a first date is a bad idea.”

Sometimes, I need at least two shots before engaging in conversation with my friends.

Especially if it’s with Wren and Kennedy, my best friends since high school.

They enable each other, and if I wasn’t already having a terrible morning, I’d probably be engaging in their shenanigans too.

And because I’ve been having a terrible morning every morning for the last month, I’ve had to get used to the fact that no matter how dismissive I pretend to be, it’s not going to stop either of them from prying.

“Ken, do you know how insane you sound?” I ask, rubbing my temples.

“I don’t think it’s insane,” Wren counters, shrugging as she fiddles with the whiteboard pen in her lap.

I give her a pointed look, and she holds up her hands in defense.

“I’m just saying, if you’re going to be so picky about who you date, you should get all the bad questions out on the first date. ”

“I’m not picky,” I scoff.

“Right . . .” Kennedy rolls her eyes with a dramatic huff, throwing a bundle of brown curls over her shoulder. “Guys just need at least seven figures in their bank account before they can even think about being let into your paradise.”

I can’t help the grin that crawls up my face at their teasing.

No attachments or commitments makes my life a thousand times easier. It helps me avoid the look on someone’s face when they realize I’m nothing like they imagined. Or worse, I’m exactly what they want.

I don’t want to be anybody’s dream girl.

The thought of someone meeting me once and thinking I’m this incredible, outgoing socialite that runs around with Daddy’s credit card and will jump into bed with them just to feel something makes me nauseous.

But when you’re the only daughter of the CEO of a billion-dollar franchise, most people have already made their mind up about you.

And, for some, dating someone like me would fit into some messed-up fantasy.

Therefore, dating has never been a priority of mine, or something I like to entertain.

Other than when I want to get a rise out of the girls by shutting down dates with perfectly eligible bachelors.

I raise my glass of lemonade toward Kennedy in a silent toast. “You might be right about one thing, Ken Doll.”

“Should I tell you another thing I’m right about?” I smile at her, knowing that I’m getting under her skin. “That nickname. It’s not going to happen. So, stop trying to make it happen.”

“Agree to disagree,” I say, shrugging. Wren’s constantly trying to keep the peace between us, so she just shakes her head, dropping her eyes back to her food. “Don’t you have practice today?”

Wren lets out a deep sigh, and I immediately wish I didn’t ask.

I’m lucky enough to be best friends with the best figure skater at North University, and this girl has put herself through hell and back by competing every season in the championships.

Even after a fall in freshman year, she turned it around last year and finally got the courage back that I missed seeing in my best friend’s eyes.

She might not have made it all the way to the championships like she had hoped, but she fell back in love with skating again and finally realized she was doing it for herself, not anyone else.

“No, but I’m meeting Miles at the gym instead,” she says, and she thinks we don’t all notice the little smile that pulls at her lips at the mention of her boyfriend. Her blue eyes meet mine, and she rolls them when she catches me smiling back at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” I say, shaking my head. “I just like seeing you happy, Wrenny girl.”

“I love seeing me happy, too,” she replies.

“God knows you deserve it,” Kennedy murmurs, and we all hum in agreement. “Can we get back to the topic of conversation? I really don’t know how you’re expecting me to start dating when none of you will give me any solid advice.”

“We do give you advice,” I groan. “You just don’t like taking it. You can’t go around believing that the universe is in charge of everything, Ken. Not if you want to start dating seriously.”

“Fine.” She sighs, rolling her pretty brown eyes at me. “I need some guidance. Wren just exists, and hot hockey players fall at her feet, and you’re rich, beautiful, and funny. You could get anyone you wanted if you weren’t so allergic to real relationships.”

I snort. “You’re overthinking things, Ken. You don’t need to rush into something if you’re not ready.”

“That’s the problem. I am ready. I’ve been ready.

I don’t know if I need to put a sign on my vagina that says, ‘Please fuck me,’ or what, because I’m running out of options.

” Wren’s and my drink spit right out of our mouths and onto the coffee table as our laughter takes over us.

No matter how much time I spend around this girl, I’ll never get used to her lack of filter.

She rolls her eyes, picking up a napkin and dabbing at our droplets on the table.

“I’m sorry, Ken, but that was just ridiculous,” Wren says, shaking with silent laughter. “Seriously, though, the right person will find you. You’ve got enough going on this year with your classes and photography. You don’t need a stupid boy thrown into the mix.”

“I agree. Boys ruin everything,” I grumble.

I just turned twenty last week, and I can’t think of anything worse than letting a boy ruin my schedule and my goals.

I catch the sadness in Kennedy’s eyes, and I add, “There’s no harm in fooling around with people if you’re just looking for sex.

Just be careful who you let into your wonderland. ”

“I know,” she says, still a little glumly. “I just wish my sex life existed, and I didn’t have to overhear you both getting boned every night.”

“It was one time,” Wren and I say at the same time, flashing each other a smirk.

“Whatever. I just don’t want to be missing out. These are my prime sex-having years, and I’m getting nada,” Kennedy explains.

I feel for her. I do. But her heart is too good for anyone, and Wren and I have been trying to protect our little angel baby for years. And if anyone hurts her, I’m not too sure I’m ready to go to jail just yet.

Just as I’m about to launch into my ten-minute rant about how amazing and special she is, my phone buzzes on the table, flashing my mom’s contact.

My heart lurches in my throat, but I swallow back the anxiety, turning my phone face-down on the coffee table.

“Okay, now we really need to get back to the topic at hand. This was supposed to be a study session,” I say, tapping my pen against my notebook for extra emphasis, and Wren scrambles from the couch as if she’s just remembered the whole reason we’re having a meeting in our living room.

The apartment that we moved into the summer after freshman year has become our sanctuary.

It’s part of a quiet complex not too far from campus, spacious bedrooms, a kitchen/living area of our dreams, and a slightly mangled bookshelf that’s pushed up against the wall behind the couch I’m sitting on.

Most of our furniture has been thrifted and upcycled, so nothing really looks put-together, but that’s what I love about it.

The coffee table is filled with purple candies and usually some sort of cereal dust that Kennedy trails in here after digging her hand into a cereal box and collapsing on the couch.

It smells like the burn of cookies that Wren stress-baked last night and the burritos we ordered to cheer her up.

A lavender diffuser that we all silently agreed on not changing.

The faint smell of weed. Fresh laundry. The distinct smell of secondhand book pages that have probably travelled more places than we have.

It’s a weird combination and a little off-putting but this place is ours, and it’s perfect.

Wren returns to her position in front of The Whiteboard we’ve wheeled into the living room. Compared to the six-foot board, she’s not that much shorter than it, but she stands a little straighter anyway, pushing her blonde hair over her shoulder.

“Well, we were helping you study, but you definitely weren’t listening,” Wren argues.

I sigh heavily. “I am listening.”

“Really? Then what was the last thing I said?” I open my mouth, about to make a snarky remark about the literal last thing she said, but she pins me with a look. “Before all the sex position talk.”

“Something about numbers . . . ?”

Kennedy gives my arm a chaste slap as she stage-whispers, “Oh my God. Scarlett Voss has no idea what she’s talking about.”

“Now can you tell how badly I need this study session?” I groan out the words before I press the heels of my palms to my eyes.

Sticking my face into a pile of textbooks and overwhelming myself with stats and business plans is usually the only thing that can calm me down. It soothes my brain in a way nothing else can. But since the middle of last semester, my usual cure has become like something foreign to me.

My friends are clearly concerned by my lack of motivation to study, which is why Wren agreed to host an intervention—or, as she calls it, study session—to help me prepare for my fashion and business module this semester.

Kennedy insisted she’d help too, but has been too busy fussing over the right snacks to be of much help.

Neither of them are majoring in business analytics like I am, but Wren’s convinced her skills from her English degree and Kennedy’s skills from communications will help.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I say quietly, lifting my head out of my hands. “Can you go through that last part one more time?”

Wren juts out her bottom lip, dropping the pen into the holder at the bottom of The Whiteboard with a sigh before sitting on the edge of the coffee table in front me.

Okay. I guess we’re giving up.

It’s official. I’m a lost cause.

I drop my head onto the back of the couch with a dramatic thud, hitting my head a couple more times to get the message across that I am absolutely fucked.