Brightness burned into my closed eyelids. I blinked them open, then immediately squeezed them closed. My head. Oh, dear God, my freaking head. It felt like ten baby elephants were stomping around inside it.
“Ugh.” I heard a familiar voice grumble and carefully lifted one eyelid open, squinting across the living room to find Pippa asleep on the other side of the sectional. Right. Because we weren’t at home in our dorm.
Panic filled my stomach, making waves that traveled throughout my body and threatened to spill out of my mouth. “No. Oh, no.”
Jumping up way too quickly and grabbing my spinning head, I tossed the blanket someone had put on me and raced out of the room with a hand over my mouth. It took a few tries, laundry room, linen closet, but I finally found the downstairs toilet.
I heaved over it for a few minutes, feeling like I’d eaten something rotten and the taste was festering in my mouth, but nothing came up. I had a feeling I’d feel a lot better if it did but was too chicken shit to force it. So I did my business and flushed the toilet.
Moving to the sink to wash my hands, I searched the vanity and opened some mouthwash. I swished some around in my mouth, almost swallowing it when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror.
I looked like a Barbie doll that had been through a terrible makeover. Mascara smeared underneath my eyes, something red on my cheek, and my hair a fuzzy, teased beehive. The ends curling or straightened out at odd angles.
Trying not to whimper, I grabbed some tissue paper and wet it, doing my best to clean up the black smears on my face. And the red, I had no idea what that was. I’m guessing lip gloss gone wrong. But my hair, I couldn’t do much about that without some really good conditioner. Which was back at our dorm. A dorm we were locked out of.
This officially sucked.
Finding a hair elastic around my wrist, I threw my head forward and tossed my hair into an extra messy bun on top of my head before leaving the tiny bathroom.
Pippa was sitting up, staring at the blank television as if she couldn’t figure out what it was when I returned. “Hey,” I said, sitting down and pulling the blanket over my bare legs. I spied my glasses on the floor and leaned forward to pick them up, inspecting them before shoving them on. “Why are we only in dresses? It’s kind of cold.”
She shook her head, drawing in a deep breath and setting it free. “I don’t know. I don’t think we really cared. We were only worried about shoes.”
“Wanna walk back?” I offered, wanting to shake her out of her stillness. It was starting to freak me out.
“I think I’m gonna …”
Oh. “Third door down the hall.”
She was up and running, almost slamming into Toby, who watched her go before turning back to me with a raised brow. “You guys got pretty hammered last night, then.”
“Not really. We just don’t have much of a tolerance, I guess.”
He nodded, taking a seat on the arm of the couch. “So that’d be a no to coffee?”
I smiled. “No, thanks.”
He stared at me for a long beat, and I tried to hold his gaze. It was hard. He wasn’t the best-looking guy I’d ever seen, but he was definitely attractive in a dangerous, edgy, and mysterious kind of way. Crystal blue eyes and dark brown, almost black hair. A rugged jawline covered in stubble. Oh, and he was huge, too. Freaking football players.
“So you’re the girl. Hey.”
“I’m who?” I asked, averting my gaze and fidgeting with the knitted pattern in the blanket.
“The one who makes him look like he’s in a faraway place sometimes.”
I looked back at him, my brows furrowing. The front door opened, cutting off any chance I had to berate him with questions.
Alexis walked into the living room, and my heart fell into my unsettled stomach.
Toby glanced at us, whistling low. “Well, damn. Didn’t predict this happening. At all.” He got up, calling out, “Burnell!” Putting his coffee mug down, he mumbled something about Quinn probably being asleep.
“What are you doing here?” There wasn’t an all-out accusation in her voice, but it was still there. I think she was shocked more than anything.
I watched her move her sunglasses to the top of her perfectly styled head of hair and cleared my throat. Toby thankfully took pity and intervened. “Daisy and her friend were at the party last night. They got locked out of their dorm, so they slept here on the couch.”
Alexis twisted her lips, looking from Toby to the blankets strewn on the couch. “Her friend?”
“That’d be me,” Pippa said, scooting past her and dumping herself back on the couch.
Toby watched her every move as if she was about to perform a magic trick any second.
Then finally, Quinn arrived. “Ah, hey,” he said, tugging a shirt over his head.
Abs, holy abs. And fucking hipbones that had my jaw dropping. I snapped my mouth shut and made my eyes look away. They didn’t like it, but I could feel Alexis moving that feline-like gaze of hers over us, so it was best to be safe. “What’re you doing here?” he asked.
Alexis’s head reared back. “Oh, sorry. I came by to see you, my boyfriend, and found two girls on your couch. Why are you asking me questions right now? Because I’m a little bit fucking confused by that.”
Toby snorted, making everyone’s eyes swing his way. “Sorry, sorry. Carry on,” he muttered, picking up his mug and taking a seat next to Pippa.
“Lex,” Quinn started, and oh how my heart pinched at hearing him give her a nickname.
“No.” She laughed. “What the hell?”
“I think we should go,” I said quietly, looking at Pippa.
“Seriously? And miss the fight?” Toby asked.
Pippa nodded in agreement. “Yeah, just wait a minute.” She waved her hand in a downward motion as I rose to stand.
I rolled my eyes, almost growling behind clenched teeth. “Come on. Please.”
Heading for the exit of the living room, I hesitated, waiting for either Quinn or Alexis to step back so I could pass without touching one of them. They didn’t move. Taking a quick peek, I found Quinn looking at the ground, and Alexis throwing her icy glare back and forth between me and Quinn.
Fine, then. I held my breath and walked between them, then realized I didn’t have my shoes.
God damn it.
“Got them,” Pippa said with a smirk, shouldering past Alexis and Quinn and dropping them to the floor so I could slip them on. Toby offered to drive us, but we declined, and he walked us back to our dorm instead.
“Do they fight much?” Pippa asked him as we walked outside, Alexis’s voice escaping the closed door.
Toby shrugged, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. “Not really. Which is surprising. That chick is pretty high strung.”
“He’s known her for a long time,” I said without thinking.
“So I guess he’d know how to handle her then.” Toby said what I didn’t say.
Pippa made a grunting sound. “She’s got a reason to be pissed, I guess. We aren’t just two random chicks sleeping on her boyfriend’s couch.”
Toby hummed. “You and Quinn, you went out then?”
“A long time ago,” I said even though it felt like mere months ago. I pulled my cardigan tighter around me as we walked across the grass, the morning dew still clinging to the deep green blades.
“It wasn’t that long ago. What, two years?” Pippa asked even though she knew.
“Yep. Which is a long time,” I added.
The campus was quiet, as it usually was early on a Saturday morning. I felt like I could sleep for the rest of the weekend. But the paper I had due on Monday morning kind of messed with that plan.
Toby looked thoughtful when I glanced over at him but remained quiet.
When we reached our dorm, I climbed the steps, knowing he wanted some time with Pippa. “Thanks for last night.”
He gave me a wink, and I went inside. After spending a few minutes arguing with the probably hungover desk clerk, that no, I didn’t lock myself out just to piss her off, she finally handed me a key. “Return it in two minutes.”
“Fine,” I mumbled. Yeesh. As if people locked themselves out just to make her life hell.
Once inside, I saw my set of keys on the floor by the dresser, right next to a discarded bottle of orange juice. Which was sitting next to the still opened bottle of vodka.
Crinkling my nose, I put the cap on the bottle quickly and hid it on a shelf at the top of the wardrobe before snatching my keys and returning the spare downstairs.
Pippa came in just as I headed back toward the stairs. “I need a shower, sleep, food, and then more sleep.”
“Agreed. What’s going on with Toby?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly, ducking her head as we reached the second landing.
I scoffed. “Don’t even try that.”
She kept me in suspense until we were back in our room, grabbing our stuff to take a shower. “He asked me to go to his game next week. He wants to hang out after.”
“Are you going to go?” I asked, making sure I had my conditioner.
“I told him I’d think about it, but if I went, it wasn’t to watch him.”
I laughed, leaning back against the dresser. “You’re going to play hard to get?”
She snickered, closing the drawer with her butt. “Nah, but a little hard work never hurt anybody.”
Showered and lying on my bed, I stared upside down at the painting I still had hanging above it. “Do you think it’s time I take it down?” I asked Pippa when she came back into the room. Even to my ears, my voice was almost childlike, as though I feared the answer I might get.
“You want my honest answer or a bullshit one to make you feel better?” I didn’t know, so I stayed quiet. “I think you should, if only to make it a little easier for you to move on.”
“I’m supposed to be doing that, aren’t I?”
“What, moving on?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yep. And no offense, but you’re kind of failing spectacularly at it.”
“I always aim high,” I tried to joke, my breath hitching on the last word.
My thoughts strayed, and I wondered if they were still fighting. If they’d even fought at all. A part of me was kind of happy that they still deemed me worthy enough of that kind of attention. And I didn’t even feel bad about that. I was sick and tired of feeling guilty for something I had no control over. I might never move on, but at least I was willing to be honest with myself.
Still looking at the picture of Quinn, I declared, “It can stay a while longer.”