Crash

It was a good life, and I felt guilty for thinking it, but I knew it could be better.

“Lucy, are you going to put that earring in or caress it all night long?” India, my roommate, hollered over at me, giving herself one final once over in the mirror.

“You’re dragging me where again?” I asked, sliding the silver hoop into place.

Rolling her eyes, she tossed my purse at me. “To a party at Syracuse. There’s guys and booze and music. It’s meant to be fun.” India was the queen of fun, for real. Her family had patented something like twenty board games, driving the family fun night trend. As a perk, she had an innate sense of adventure, could turn an early morning pop-quiz into a good time, and was invited to any and every party in the state.

“And you need me to go because?”

Another bonus to being a wealthy ambassador of fun? You never had to worry about rolling solo to anything unless you wanted to.

“Because you work too hard and play too little and that kind of a Lutheran work ethic is seriously messing with our room’s zen.”

Grabbing my jacket hung over the chair, I followed her out the door. “Forgive me for mistaking college for something as taboo as hard work,” I said, bumping my shoulder into her as we walked down the hall. “How can I set our room’s sacred zen right?”

She grinned over at me. “You can get tipsy. You can get up on a table and shake your ass. And you can get laid by the finest, sweetest man God had the audacity to make.”

“Oh,” I said, waving my hand in the air, “if that’s all.”

“Sometimes I swear,” she said as we left the dorm, “the creator forgot to install a fun button in you.” India clicked her keychain, and the lights of her car flashed. Another benefit to growing up in a family of entrepreneur millionaires? You got to drive whatever the hell you wanted.

“And someone forgot to install a filter in you,” I said, opening the passenger door and crawling in.

India groaned, pulling out of the parking lot. “Good thing it’s a short drive because you, my friend, are in serious need of some tipsy, table dancing, sweet love making tonight.”

“Well,” I said, leaning my head against the headrest, “drive fast.”

It was like stating the obvious because India did everything fast, most of all driving and, on this trip, she didn’t disappoint. At the rate we went, we could have been to Canada in under an hour.

“So,” I said, looking over at her, “who’s the guy?” I’d only known India for a few weeks, but it hadn’t taken long for me to figure out if we were going somewhere, a guy was always involved. India held a firm belief that men were the spice of life. Based on the men I’d seen her with, she liked her life spicy.

She shrugged a shoulder, staring out the window like she had something she was dying to say.

“You’ll see,” she replied.

Her mysterious act was all kinds of annoying. “Well, if you’re driving to see him, he’s gotta to be hot. Possibly the hottest guy to ever be ogled by women.”

She flattened her lips out, making a maybe face.

“But because you are who you are, you don’t just roll out the India carpet for a pretty face. So he’s got to be smart, witty, and wealthy as a sheik.”

She lifted a finger. “Wealth isn’t a requirement,” she said, like it was offensive I’d even imply it. “Wealth can be created. Wit and intelligence can’t.”

“All right, Freud,” I said as we rolled into Syracuse. “And here I thought you were majoring in music.”

Braking to a stop, India killed the ignition outside what looked to be a dorm hall. “Just get out of the car, will ya?” she said, opening her door. “Before you screw with my baby’s zen too.”

I stepped out and waited for India to come around the car. “What is this?” I asked, watching students trickle inside the building, where neon lights blinked in the first level windows.

“It’s some sort of beginning of the year student mixer,” she explained, grabbing my arm and pulling me behind her.

“You brought me to some lame mixer?” I said, ready to turn and run for the hills. “I thought the reason we graduated from high school was so we didn’t have to suffer through any more of these things.”

“They’re a little different in college,” she said, walking up to the entrance.

“Really?” I said. “So there won’t be any horn-dog guys trying to grind up on anything that moves?”

She shot me a sheepish smile.

“And there won’t be any lame brain music that doesn’t carry even a hint of a beat to dance to?”

A more pronounced sheepish smile.

“Eh, India,” I groaned. “If I wanted to go to hell, I’d just go up to the front door and ask Satan.”

“Why is my roommate so damn difficult?” she said as we started weaving our way through the packed building. “You’ll like this mixer,” she yelled back at me over the, yep, lame music with no beat to dance to. “Trust me on this.”

Breaking through the hallway where, yep, some horn-dog guy slid up to me and starting humping my leg before I could shove him aside, I yelled, “I can’t give you trust until you earn it, Indie!”

“God, I need a drink,” she said, pulling me along behind her as she beelined for what I guessed was the beverage table.