"Just trying to even the balance of power," I said, as evenly as I could.
His eyes lit up, like he knew I was still trying to make amends. He pulled me into a hug. "Selfish, babe. You want cover for when you pretend you're partying." He rested his chin on the top of my head and whispered, "If you need a ride, call me."
Seth was a good guy. I returned his hug and blinked back tears.
Dakota
I got to school early, registered, paid my fee, and took a seat in the back of the class. My dad had chewed my ass off when I told him about the fine. He lectured me for half an hour on my stupidity. It had cost him real money. Dad hated paying for shit that could have been avoided.
My buddies at the frat were preparing for a night of first-class partying. Most of them hoping to get laid. And I was in school to learn all about the dangers of drinking. It was a joke. Until she walked in.
My pulse raced. My palms sweated. My dick went involuntarily hard. An absolutely stunning girl stood silhouetted in the doorway—blond, slim but with the kind of figure I found sexy as hell. Fresh-faced, no makeup. Her cheeks pink from the cold. Her eyes warm and bright with exercise and expectation. Her hair curled into the faux fur that rimmed the hood of her coat. She wore flat Ugg boots and yoga pants that left just enough to my imagination.
She hesitated at the door, like she was uncertain and nervous. My hero instincts kicked in. I liked her sweet vulnerability. Just as I was about to get out of my chair and play gentleman, introduce myself and see where things led, I stopped cold, recognizing her with a start.
Morgan Peterson? Without makeup. Shit.
You'd think my dick would have gone soft at the sight of her. The damn thing didn't. My pulse involuntarily sped up. What was it about Morgan Peterson that turned me on even when I was furious with her?
Morgan
He was here. Oh, crap, crap, and triple crapola!
Why? Why, why, why me? Of all the Alcohol and Drug Information School sessions in the world, why did he have to be sitting in mine? If I had had a cloak of invisibility, you can bet I would have used it.
My heart took a nosedive for my stomach and hit with a splash. On a scale of one to ten, it would have gotten a ten for style and the way it somersaulted and made my stomach turn over.
I hesitated in the doorway, looking over my classmates and fellow law-breaking, hard-drinking minors. My hopes of finding an anonymous, sympathetic crowd were dashed. I mean, if anyplace, this was the place for compassion and support, right? We'd all screwed up one way or another. And been dumb enough to get caught. But I didn't imagine any of the rest of them had almost been run over by one of our fellow classmates.
His eyes went round and wide. For half a second he looked like he had when he'd been perched over me, making love to me. His expression had been so sweet then. And passionate.
My breath caught involuntarily. Just like it did every time that stupid recollection sneaked up on me. If I could erase that particular memory, I would have. Of all the things I couldn't remember from that night, that was the one thing I couldn't forget.
He leaned forward in his chair, like he was about to rise out of it to greet me.
A spark of recognition crossed his face. He froze and fell back into his seat.
Screw you, Dakota Bradley.
I abandoned my plan to slip in almost invisibly and scoop up the least prominent spot to sit. I uncrossed my fingers. Stupid finger crossing had failed me. Crappy superstitions.
Nobody dissed me and got away with it. I was a lot of things, but I wasn't a coward. Dad had taught me not to cower before an enemy. Face them head-on.
I unzipped my coat, shook my hair, and walked straight toward Dakota until I stood directly over him. "Fancy meeting you here." I slid into the seat next to him with the full intent of making him uncomfortable. Damn him. He deserved it.
"Morgan." His voice was hard. "I almost didn't recognize you. Not wearing your war paint? What happened? Lose your makeup trowel?"
I laughed to put him in his place. "You silver-tongued devil!" I paused for effect. "Or are you just the devil? Sometimes it's hard to tell." I laughed again, drawing attention from a couple of guys sitting around us. "Following me around?"
"I was ordered by the prosecutor to attend this particular session." The look in his eyes was positively glowering. "You must be following me."
"In your dreams, Tau Psi. Wasn't your meeting with him just this week?" I stared Dakota down and kept my chin high. "I signed up last week." I tilted my head and studied him. "Did they order you to go to a victims' panel, too?"
He paled.
Yeah, I was a witch for bringing it up. But then, I had a reputation to maintain.
"Yeah." His voice was soft and almost sounded guilty. "I'm sure you knew that."
I shrugged. "No. Just a lucky guess." I smiled sweetly at him and made a point to look like I was thinking hard on something. "When did you say it is? I wonder if there's still time for me to apply to be one of the victims."
He paled. "Shit. Can't you let that go? I didn't hit you. Okay? I didn't even see you."
I took a deep breath. "Yeah, too bad for you. Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, right?"
"Morgan—"
The instructor walked in just then, along with a bunch of last-minute stragglers.
"Class! Everyone take a seat. We're on a tight schedule. I'm Dr. Smith. But you can call me Larry."
He was pale, stale, and middle-aged. I thought, Oh boy, this is going to be fun.
Every one of the twenty or so seats was full. Great, a full crowd. Of mostly guys. There were only two other girls. Mercifully, I didn't recognize anyone but Dakota.
Larry shut the door. "Nothing I like better than having a bully pulpit before a full house!" He grinned devilishly.
It was dead silent.
"Lighten up, people! This isn't torture. This is more like mildly boring punishment. It's irritating having to miss a night of drinking and partying, isn't it?" He reached into the bag he carried, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and handed the stack to the guy next to him. "Take one. Pass them around. Confidentiality agreements. Non-disclosures. Signing them is optional."
That wicked grin of Larry's deepened. "Participating in class without signing one is strictly prohibited. You're all ordered by courts to be here. Most of you are in college. You figure out what that means." He laughed.
"'In order to build the trust necessary to be honest about personal behaviors and experiences, participants must honor the confidentiality of all in attendance.'
"That's right out of the instructor's handbook. And absolutely true and essential. What goes on here stays here. If I, or the courts, get wind that any of you has violated the trust of another participant, any agreement you made for leniency and continuance will be voided. And you'll be at the mercy of the prosecutor and the courts.
"The university may seem large, but the community is actually very small. Don't push your luck." He handed around a box of cheap pens. Then he passed out workbooks like we were elementary school kids.
I signed the stupid confidentiality form with a flourish, realizing that it could be my salvation. If I was brave enough to take it. Or got the right opportunity.
Larry collected the signed forms and stuffed them in his bag. "'The mission of the Alcohol and Drug Information School, ADIS, is to promote public safety by reducing the number of injuries and fatalities due to driving under the influence of alcohol and other drugs.' That's a quote from the website.
"I'm here to teach you effective decision-making skills, with the goal of reducing recidivism. My job is to provide you with accurate information about alcohol and other drugs to assist you in making changes to your high-risk substance use behavior." Larry paused. "So much for the official part of my speech. Now for a pretest. You have ten minutes to complete it. Log in on your laptop or phone with the password you were issued when you registered…"
A stupid pretest. Just what I needed. As I
logged in and began taking it, it met my meager expectations. Lame. I glanced over at Dakota, wondering how he was answering the questions.
He was deep in thought. But when he caught me looking at him, he turned his back on me and covered his phone like I was trying to cheat off him. As if.
Question number one—have you ever blacked out after drinking too much?
No. I only went to sleep in an alley. Not the same thing.
Too bad it was only a yes-or-no question. No elaborating. This wasn't an essay test. I rocked at those.
Dakota
Morgan was trying to see my answers. The snoopy bitch. I turned my back on her. Morgan didn't have a hard-earned rep as the bitchiest of the Double Deltsies for nothing. She had a heart as hard as diamonds. Yeah, according to the scintillating materials science class I'd taken, diamonds were still the hardest substance on earth. The rock hounds hadn't met Morgan. She put diamonds to shame.
But nothing shamed her.
Somewhere beneath that hard exterior she put on was a complicated, sensitive, passionate girl. That beautiful girl rarely came out. Only when Morgan was hurting and dropped her prickly crustaceous shell. And that was usually because of Zach. The only times she opened up to me were when he'd hurt her. Each time was like a sucker punch to my gut. I didn't know why the shit I was the guy who had to pick her up and put her back together. I didn't know why I put up with it.
Morgan and I had our own sorry past. If you can call it that. Is a one-sided love affair and a few hookups a past? Or is it just fucking stupidity in every sense?
The simple truth is, I fell hard for her our freshman year. Against all reason and common sense. Before I realized she was into Zach.
Shit, even at a university with over twenty thousand students, the one girl I'd wanted had already fallen for my ex-best friend. Zach and I had had a major falling out the summer before, just after we graduated from high school. That was before our recent patching up of all the shit between us.
Zach had just gotten a job as a houseboy at her sorority. Without it, he would have been SOL as far as paying for college. His parents didn't give a crap about him and refused to help pay for anything. The most popular guy from my high school class was now the Double Deltsies' servant. And I didn't give a damn.
On the other hand, through a stroke of luck, and a lot of schmoozing, I'd pledged the best frat on campus. My absolute top choice. This was a group of guys I would have connections to for life. Guys with connections. Guys going places. Guys who knew how to have fun. My future looked rosy, as my grandma would say. While Zach was struggling.
Even with Zach and my statuses reversed from high school, where I was always playing second to him, and roughly ten thousand girls to choose from, Zach had gotten Morgan's attention. And didn't want her.
The vision of Morgan the first time I saw her was forever written in my memory. Do you believe in love at first sight? I sure as hell didn't. But the moment the Double Deltsies walked into the first party my frat threw for them that fall, I fell for her like I'd never fallen before. Free fall with no parachute.
If you're an adrenaline junkie, you know the feeling. Like you can't breathe and all the colors of the world are more vibrant than they've ever been. Like your heart won't stop pounding and each beat is full of thrill and fear. Like you should back out of whatever dangerous dumbass thing you're doing. But you know you won't. Because you know you love the rush too much. But was it sustainable?
Nearly all the Deltsies were blonds of one shade or another, real or bleached. In early September, the heat was stifling during the day. In the evening, the air grew crisp. The Deltsies arrived right on time at sunset, a crowd of blonds with hair haloed by the setting sun. Short skirts. Crop tops. Flip-flops. Bodies that gave a guy a hard-on just thinking about them.
In that crowd, I don't know how Morgan stood out. Must have been that damn aura of charm and seduction that surrounded her. Or maybe it was her bright smile. Or her tinkling laugh that made her eyes sparkle. Or her naïve vulnerability. She wasn't jaded and desperate back then, like she was now. Just a fresh-faced freshman looking for a party and a good time.
I still remembered the way the setting sun lit her hair. The look of wonder on her face, like she couldn't believe her good luck to be a Deltsie partying with us. I can describe the skirt she wore in great detail, as if I were a fashion merchandising major or some shit.
I'd screwed up my courage and brought her a beer. "You look thirsty." It was a cheesy line.
She looked up at me from beneath impossibly long lashes. As she took the plastic cup from me, our fingers brushed. It was innocent and a turn-on at the same time.
She lifted the beer to her lips and took a great chug, leaving a white mustache of foam on her upper lip. I had to restrain myself from leaning over and licking it off. Instead, I watched with rapt attention while she slowly and deliberately licked it off herself.
"You're right. I was thirsty." She set the cup down, grabbed my hand, and pulled me to the dance floor.
Our first dance was a slow dance. I couldn't keep my hands from straying to her completely grab-able ass. She didn't push my hands away. I figured she liked it.
After the dance, she took my hand and pulled me out to the front lawn so we could watch the fading brilliance of the sunset. We talked and talked. The way she hung on everything I said, I thought she was really into me. She wanted to hear about my high school football career. I told her stories about me and Zach. Much later I realized she wasn't interested in me. She was pumping me for info about Zach.
It was a fucking shame, too. At the time, I was dating Jordan. I had every intention of being faithful to her. Until I got to school and saw all the hot babes. Even then, I remained true. Until Morgan led me on.
I broke up with Jordan for Morgan. I couldn't stand the guilt of leading Jordan on when I was falling for someone else.
Morgan and I even hooked up a couple of times. Right now, sitting in ADIS, I didn't dare think about the mind-blowing sex we'd had.
Like a young, stupid freshman, I'd thought we had a thing going. Until I realized Morgan was using me to learn about Zach and make him jealous. She'd used me again. But this time, we'd used each other. I felt totally shitty about it. Somehow Zach had still come out the hero. Being hero was his gig, not mine.
I'd slept with Morgan that night, thinking I could get her out of my system. Half amazed she was still in it. I'd taken advantage of her weakness and vulnerability. And she'd taken advantage of me. We were even. But somehow, we weren't.
I caught a whiff of her perfume and flashed back to holding her in my arms as she cried over my best friend, just as Larry called time.
"That's it for the pretest. It's mostly for the state's information. They use it to see how effective these classes are. You'll take a posttest last thing tomorrow before you leave." Larry grabbed the chair behind the podium upfront and pulled it to the front of the room. "Now that the formalities are over, let's all get to know each other before we start the meat of the class. Grab your chairs and make a circle around me."
If I thought I could escape Morgan, I was wrong. She and her chair stuck with me. When I set mine down, she put hers indecently close to mine. Like she was trying to get a rise out of me. And she sure as hell was.
"Let's start by introducing yourselves and telling us how you ended up here. And anything else you care to share. Who wants to start? Raise your hand."
When no one volunteered, Larry homed in on Morgan. Of course he did. She was the hottest chick in the session. And she looked so damned deceptively vulnerable and sweet. Like a lost puppy who'd been accidentally rounded up with the wolves. And the wolves were literally circling.
"You." Larry pointed at her. "Morgan, isn't it?"
She nodded, looking at him like he was a mind reader. "How did you know?"
"I had a one in three chance of guessing right." Larry was a real trip. "I heard him say your name." He pointed at me. "There's a story here," he said. "
Why don't you tell it? How did you get here?"
I froze as the rest of the class stared at Morgan.
When she chose to use it, Morgan had a smile that could melt a guy's heart. She flashed it at Larry, using all her Double Deltsie charisma. "I drank too much."
"Go figure," Larry said.
The class laughed.
"Why don't you elaborate? We're listening." Larry rested his elbow on his knee, and his head in his hand, like he was all attentive ears.
Morgan rolled her eyes. That got a laugh. She followed it by licking her lips and gnawing them like she was nervous. "Everything here is completely confidential?"
I froze. Damn her. She better not—
"Absolutely, Morgan." Larry leaned forward in his chair like he was completely attuned to her. "Anything you share is safe here. It won't leave this room."
She nodded and glanced sideways at me.
Ah, shit. I felt the crap about to hit the fan, and there was no way to stop it.
"It was the Friday night of Homecoming Weekend. My sorority and Mr. University's frat—" She pointed at me.
I was supremely embarrassed about being a beauty king, and Morgan knew it. It was a joke, not an honor. That was the way the guys saw it. I'd taken my share of ribbing over it.
"—had just won the powder puff football competition," she said. "And with it, the Greek Homecoming competition. The Tau Psis threw a victory party." She looked directly at me. Her eyes misted over and her lips trembled.
I looked like the biggest douchebag in the world. I'd only competed for Mr. University because Morgan's sorority insisted. Our team got points for every guy who entered the competition. The win was a surprise and a joke. The judges had picked me as a way of thumbing their noses at the university. I'd just been picked up for driving under the influence the night before.
"I got bombed. We got bombed." She paused, and my heart stopped. "And hooked up." She made it sound like in her right mind that would never have happened.