Bethany drives us back after another couple hours of partying, hours I spent gritting my teeth and attempting to smile. That wink—that wink! The whole rest of the night I couldn’t unsee it. Couldn’t forget it. So, I drank…a lot, and when we get back to the dorm at two in the morning, I do a very stupid thing.

While Daphne is in the bathroom down the hall, I slip out of the dorm and walk to Garrett’s. I’m in a panic, crazy. I know it is wrong to go to him, now of all times, even through my hazy drunken thoughts I know this is a terrible idea, and what am I going to do once I get to his door, anyway? I have no clue. But my feet are carrying me to him without my permission, and a few minutes later I’m standing out in his yard shivering in the freezing night.

All is dark. No sputtering lights from the TV. No blond bombshell getting herself off in the front picture window. I stand there hyperventilating, trying to make myself turn around and go back to my dorm, but I’m sick, so damn sick in the head, I can’t do it—can’t do the sane thing.

Before I know it I’m rapping my knuckles against his door. And there is no answer, no answer, no answer, and my world is spinning because I need an answer I will fucking lose it if I don’t get an answer, I don’t fucking care, so I’m rapping and rapping, and then I’m banging with my fists like a lunatic: Motherfucker you come to this door, you terrible fucked-up motherfucker, and I think I might actually be yelling these things out loud, my psycho drunk-girl voice shattering the stillness of the night.

Then I hear feet clumping toward the door, and I’m so very glad that yes, finally, I’ll see his face, but oh, fuck, what have I done, he’s going to be pissed, isn’t he, or maybe he won’t be. Maybe he’ll pull me inside and fuck me after all. Maybe he’s done with her and he’ll be glad to see me and he’ll shove me down and spread me and make me beg for him. Maybe?

The door swings open and I take a step back, chest heaving with trepidation. Come on, Garrett, yank me inside, baby—tell me what a whore I am, come on.

He comes at me fast, clamps a hand around my throat and for a second I relax because I think he’s going to pull me to him, but no, he’s carrying me down the steps and around the house, and even though I can’t breathe, even though it hurts, his hands are on me and that makes me feel important…special. Why, god, why do I like this?

We are in the shadows now, under the carport. He slams me into the side of the house and my head cracks against the siding, shocking me awake. Fuck, fuck, fuck, this is not good.

“Don’t you ever come here uninvited, you nasty little cunt. Do you fucking hear me?”

His fingers are so tight around my throat I cannot even nod.

“You’re a fucking plaything.”

I begin to cry.

“You are nothing. You will come when I call you and only when I call you.”

Tears run down my face as I absorb his words, as I comprehend what I have done—I have let him in and now he’s stuck in my brain, feeding on me like a parasite. And I can’t get him out. I’m really fucked now, I am, because even with his hand around my throat my knees go soft at the thought of his voice calling me to him. I know I’ll come to him when he calls. I’ll do whatever he wants.

He releases me and I slide down the wall, gasping at the frigid air.

“Now go home,” he says. “We’ll discuss this when you get back from break.”

I nod, raising my eyes to him, shaking with the knowledge that I should not be relieved that he wants to discuss anything with me, ever. Why am I not running from this man?

“And while you’re away,” he says, taking my chin gently between his thumb and index finger, “I want you to remember all the times I made you come even when you didn’t want to. Remember how much you love being my dirty little whore.”

“You’re sick, Garrett. You’re really sick.” My words come out as choked sobs.

“And you’re even sicker for loving it so much, aren’t you?” He puts a hand between my legs and rubs me roughly. “Honestly, who gets wet over this shit?” He laughs.

I’m crying harder now, sobbing, because I know he’s right. He keeps his hand between my legs, though, manhandles me, leans in to kiss me, his tongue slithering into my mouth like a snake, pulling at me, enticing me, ensnaring me, and we’re in the shadows, he could fuck me right here and no one would see—but he stops and pulls away.

I can still see his smile in the darkness.

And I know why he’s smiling. I should have known right away, the way he flew out the front door at me. “That girl from the party’s still here, isn’t she?” My voice is tiny, squashed with the burden of understanding.

“I’m not finished with her. Now go home.”

I’m choking with shame, with disgust for myself. “Okay.” I turn and trudge back toward the dorm, somehow managing not to look back as Garrett goes inside and shuts the door.

---

I’ve got plenty of stupid left in me, so I take the elevator to Rome’s floor. The world is wobbling a lot less than before; Garrett’s hand around my throat must have sobered me up some. I need…something. A friend. A warm body. Tenderness.

Someone who will let me use him.

I knock lightly, hoping against hope that he’s awake.

I’m leaning my forehead on the cool doorframe outside Rome’s room when the door creaks quietly open and Rome emerges, shirtless and squinting in the light of the hallway. “Damn, girl, it’s like three in the morning. What the fuck happened to you?”

I shake my head. I’ve got my arms crossed over my chest and I’m shivering, but not from the cold.

He sighs and takes me gently by the elbow, pulls me into his room.

“Your roommate?” I whisper, searching for the shape of a man in the dark.

“Out. He’s got a girlfriend on the fifth floor he stays with all the time.”

I shuffle in behind Rome, afraid I’ll trip on something, until my knee bumps the mattress. Rome lies down in his bed and pulls me down with him like it’s the most natural thing in the world to do. I nuzzle into his chest with my arms still crossed over me, as if that bit of barrier will be enough not to give Rome the wrong idea. I don’t want him; I just want somebody. I just need someone who will touch me without hurting me.

“You gonna tell me what happened?”

“I went over there. Drunk. I’m fucking stupid.”

“He didn’t like that, huh?”

“He had a girl there.” My heart pounds in my ears as I remember Garrett pulling the blond with him out of the party. The wink. The taunting smile. And I still went after him, like a dumb fucking idiot.

“I’m sorry he hurt you, Malory.” His voice is low and gravelly. He brushes a strand of hair away from my face.

Remember all the times I made you come even when you didn’t want to. I cringe at the memory of Garrett’s hateful words as surely as if he’s just now spoken them into my ear.

My hands are against Rome’s bare chest, though I don’t remember putting them there, and his breathing is slowing like he’s falling asleep. No, not yet, please. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts. I move to press my lips against his—I want him to touch me again, like before. He is a counterweight to Garrett; he can balance me out.

But he shrinks from me. “You’re drunk, Malory.”

“I was earlier—not anymore.”

“I still smell the liquor on your breath. I don’t do that shit.”

I am drunk, he’s right. And now I’ve been rejected twice in one day and on top of it I am one of those crazy chicks who pounds on guys’ doors in the middle of the night. I’m a wreck. Crying again, and fucking hell, I can’t believe Rome puts up with me at all.

He sighs and wraps his arms around me, hugs me tight, and I untuck my arms from between us and hug him back. He is warm and solid and safe.

It is enough.

“In the morning, though,” he says, “when you’re sober? If you still want it, it’s on.”

I nuzzle my cheek against his bare chest and allow myself a tiny smile. “We’ll see.”

---

Judging from the strength of the light streaming through Rome’s window, the sun has been up for hours. Rome is still snoring lightly beside me, one arm thrown up over his head. He is not a superman like Garrett, no, but his walnut-brown skin is smooth and beautiful, and his short black curls are neat, chiseled with a clipper into a nice shape around his forehead. His eyelashes are a ridiculous kind of thick, like fuzzy caterpillars nestled against his cheek. I reach out and brush my knuckles against one of his eyes—just to feel how soft those lashes are. His chest is bare, nearly hairless, and though he’s not gym-buff like Garrett, I can tell he either takes care of himself or is lucky in the metabolism department.

Garrett. He invited me home with him and I rejected him. My stomach turns over as the rest of the night comes back to me like a slideshow, one painful, humiliating image after another.

I roll away from Rome and reach for my purse on the floor, dig for my phone. 10:22. Nothing from Garrett, of course, but several messages from Daphne:

WHERE R U?

ANSWER MY FUCKING TEXT.

GODDAMMIT MALORY!!!

Shit, I should have messaged her last night. I respond and tell her I slept in Rome’s room. I think she’s cool with Rome now, but even if she’s not, I don’t care. I tuck the phone in my purse and turn back to face Rome.

His eyes are open, barely, and he’s watching me. “You still want me?” he says, grinning.

I almost laugh, but I’m too sickened by the events of the night before. I cannot believe I went to Garrett’s after he deliberately taunted me by leaving with another girl. My fingers go to my throat, still tender where he grabbed me. I feel a throbbing in the back of my head, too, from when my skull hit the siding of Garrett’s house.

Rome’s brow furrows. “Hey, I’m just messing with you.”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“What I gotta do to get you away from that guy, huh?”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, Rome. I think…” I sit up, my hand again floating to my throat, as if my fingers are trying to convince my brain to make a rational decision for once. “I think I shouldn’t go back to him.”

“You think you shouldn’t?” He sits up too, and he’s making a face like he just sniffed a sunbaked carcass.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. I badly have to pee. “I know it doesn’t make sense, Rome. Something’s wrong with me.”

I wait for him to refute that, to argue, but he just looks down at the bed.

I don’t know what else to say. “Well…I’m gonna go shower and pack up. I’m driving home later on.” I reach for my purse and stand. My temples throb dully in protest against the sudden movement.

“I’ll be heading out too,” he says, pushing himself out of the bed. He’s only wearing boxers, and now, in the light, I have the decency to be embarrassed by his near-nakedness. He really is…ripped. God, you can’t tell when he wears his baggy clothes.

I drop my eyes to the floor. He isn’t Garrett with the immaculate house and the Superman dimple and the wintergreen breath. The…personality. I try to imagine Rome sending me to my knees and making me beg, and I can’t. At all. He’s too fucking nice. What am I supposed to do with nice? Holy shit, I’m fucking insane.

“Have an awesome Christmas down in Miami,” I say.

“Yeah, I will. I’ll see you next year, eh?” He extends his arms for a hug, and I lean in, careful not to touch too much of him, as if it matters—I just slept mashed against his chest. I let him go down on me the other night.

Garrett’s right. I am a slut.