chapter Ten
The mixer was in full swing when we arrived. I glanced around the crowded bar, looking for my friends. I’d learned it was easier to find their boyfriends. Both guys, especially Reed, were huge. The first face I noticed wasn’t any of them. Colt smiled when he caught my eye. Unable to resist, I smiled back.
“What’s your drink?” Tanner asked.
“You don’t already know?” I said sarcastically.
“You want me to guess?”
“Sure. Surprise me.”
“All right. Be right back.” He walked over to the bar. I wandered into the crowd, determined to find someone I knew.
Colt found me first. “Hey, pumpkin.” He stopped inches in front of me.
“Hey.” I didn’t bother pretending I was unhappy to see him. He wouldn’t have bought it for a second. I didn’t want to lead him on, but I really wanted us to go back to being friends.
“How was dinner?”
“Oh.” I felt a wave of guilt but tried to shrug it off. I’d never pretended to have an interest in dating Colt. In fact, I’d been doing the opposite. Well, besides sleeping with him once.
“Oh?” He took a sip of his beer. “Is that all you have to say?”
“It was great.” I tried to smile to add believability.
“Great, huh?” He raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re going out with him again?” The unmistakable look of jealousy crossed his face.
“Maybe. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Decided what?” Tanner returned, slipping an arm around my waist as he handed me a glass with a clear liquid and mint leaves.
“Nothing.”
“Whether you’re getting another date.” Colt spoke at the same time as me.
I glared at him.
“Oh? And what did you decide?” Tanner’s arm tightened around me.
“Jury’s still out,” Colt filled in before I could.
“I wasn’t asking you, pledge.” Tanner turned to me. “What do you say?”
“I didn’t hear you ask me out again, so there’s no reason to think about it yet.” Our first date definitely hadn’t been amazing, but a second wasn’t ruled out completely.
“Oh yeah? Okay.” He grinned. “Want to go out again?”
“That depends.” I’d walked into the trap myself.
“On?”
I made my decision. I’d give him another chance, but I wasn’t going to outright admit it yet. “Whether you picked out a good drink.”
“Then take a sip. Don’t leave me hanging.”
I sipped the cool, refreshing liquid. “A mojito. Nice. I think I’ll see you again.”
“Glad I passed the test.” His lips tickled my earlobe as he leaned in.
Tanner looked up, like he’d just remembered Colt. “This is a mixer, pledge. Why don’t you go mix?”
“Yeah. Sure. See you later, Mal.” Colt didn’t appear interested in mixing.
“I wouldn’t wait up for her.” Tanner used his hand to lead me away.
“Getting cocky, huh?” I teased. “Anyway, what happened to you wanting meaningful sex?”
“Sex with you would be very meaningful.” His fingers gently stroked my hip.
“For who?”
“Both of us. I mean I already know your favorite color and middle name. What else do I need to know?”
I laughed. “Yeah, if you’re looking to get lucky, you should probably do some mixing of your own.”
“Trying to ditch me already? We just got here.”
“I need to find my friends.”
“And we can’t find them together?”
Man, he was clingy. I always complained about going to parties alone, but at least I didn’t have to worry about a guy following me around. I caught sight of Juliet talking to another one of my sorority sisters, Claire. “I’ll catch up with you later.” I tried to slip away.
His hand tightened slightly. “Is that a promise?”
“Maybe.” I pulled away and rushed off. Either he was hard up or we had very different definitions of how casual couples acted at these things.
“Mallory, hey!” Juliet waved.
“Hey, girls.”
“How was dinner?” Claire asked. Pretty much my entire house knew about the date. I guess Tanner’s return had been noticed by a lot of people.
“It was all right.”
Juliet made a strange face, and I was prepared to explain when I heard Colt’s voice from behind me. “All right? What happened to great?”
I groaned. “Eavesdropping on other people’s conversations isn’t cool.”
“Yeah? Well, neither is listening to you flirt with a jack ass.”
All three of us looked at him with surprise. Claire spoke first. “Are you really saying that about an active?”
“Like you girls never complained about actives when you were pledging?”
“Not in public.” In private, we did it tons. Especially when it came to our pledge mom, Amanda. That was one senior I was glad to see graduate.
“This isn’t public.”
“A bar isn’t public?” I gave him a disbelieving look.
“No. It’s a fascinating conversation with three beautiful women.”
Claire giggled. A wave of jealousy hit me, and I didn’t like it.
“Aside from the jack asses, how’s the pledging life going?” Juliet asked.
“Your boyfriend isn’t a jack ass, by the way.”
“No, only the ones who hit on Mallory are, right?”
Colt smiled. “Exactly. But it’s been okay. Keeping me busy.”
“I bet. It’s only for a few months though.” There went Juliet with all the glass half-full stuff again.
“Yeah, and it’s nice that I still have time to see my favorite girl.” He winked at me.
“See me? If you mean bother then sure.”
“I’m not bothering you.” He took a half step toward me. “I notice the way your eyes light up when you see me.”
“Are you sure they’re not lighting up with anger?”
Juliet and Claire both laughed.
“Nah, they light up the same way during sex.”
I took in a sharp breath. “It happened once, Colt. You’re not an expert on how I am during sex.”
“On that note, we’re leaving.” Juliet tugged on Claire’s arm and walked away. She was in so much trouble.
I turned to follow, but Colt put a hand on my shoulder. “Afraid to talk to me alone?”
I shook my head.
“You sure?”
“Why would I be afraid?” I crossed my arms.
“I don’t know. Maybe you’re afraid you can’t control yourself around me.”
I cough-laughed. “Ah, no. That’s not an issue.”
“Oh?”
“Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?”
“Play this game.” I dropped my arms to my sides. “I’d like to stay friends with you.”
“Stay friends?”
“Yeah. I don’t want us to end up hating each other.”
“I could never hate you, but I promise you we’re already a hell of a lot more than friends. I have some amazing memories to prove it.” He leaned over and kissed my cheek before I could react. “Have fun, pumpkin.” He walked off into the crowd.
“Grrrr.”
“Doing all right, hun?” Cara put a hand on my shoulder. She had her blonde curls tied up for once. She usually wore her hair down.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” I downed the rest of my drink.
“Where’s your date?”
“I’m not sure. I needed some air.”
She laughed. “You complain about being single, yet you can’t handle a date for a night?”
“I just like my independence.”
“He had a good time at dinner, by the way.” She sipped her drink.
“Oh yeah?” I looked down at my empty glass. I hoped my fake ID worked just as well this year, because I wasn’t hunting Tanner down just to get another drink.
“He’s smitten.”
“Smitten, huh? I haven’t heard that word lately.”
“What word should I use?”
“Maybe just he’s into me?”
“I like smitten.”
“Of course you do.”
“Dare I ask what you’re implying?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Nothing my English major love.”
“Being an English major somehow defines my vocabulary choices?”
“No, but it makes you nerdy about words.” I set my glass down on a table.
“Whatever that means.”
“Hey, ladies.” Aaron joined us.
“Hey.”
“Has Tanner found you?”
“Was he looking for me?”
“Why does that surprise you? A guy’s supposed to look for his date. Cara was supposed to be going to the bathroom, not sure how she got lost.”
“I didn’t get lost.” She put a hand on her hip. “I found Mallory.”
“I was kidding, babe.” He kissed her, and she smiled up at him with that sickeningly sweet smile she only gave him.
“I’ll catch you guys later.” I half waved, but before I could leave, Tanner found us.
“Why hello there.” He grinned.
“Hey.”
“You finished your drink.” He gestured to my empty hand.
“Great observation.”
“Want another of the same?”
I figured it couldn’t hurt. Besides, it meant I didn’t have to take a chance with my ID. “Sure.”
“You’re coming with me.”
“Am I?”
“You’re not wandering off on me again.”
“Are you trying to buy my company through drinks, Tanner?”
“No. I already got the promise of another date. I’m just saving myself the time of hunting you down.”
“You don’t like the hunt?” I needed to stay friendly, even if his clinginess was annoying me.
“I do, but I like the catch better.” He ran his fingers over my cheek. “And I’ve already caught you.”
“That’s what you think.”
“Oh yeah? Are you going to run off on me again? Maybe go flirt with your ex, for what the third time tonight?” Tanner let his jealous side show, and it wasn’t pretty.
“He’s not my ex,” I snapped.
“Calm down. It was a joke.”
“Oh. Yeah. Right.”
“I think you need that drink.” He led me over to the bar.
“A mojito, and a Jack and Coke,” Tanner ordered.
“IDs,” the female bartender said automatically.
Tanner turned to me nervously.
I fished mine out of my wallet. “Here.”
The bartender studied the ID before returning it and looking over at Tanner’s. After returning his, she made our drinks.
I waited until we were out of the bartender’s ear shot to turn to him. “In the future, don’t look at me that way when I’m getting carded.”
“Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I just wasn’t sure if you had one.”
“That’s probably something to ask before you drag me over to the bar with you.”
“I’m not used to dating younger girls.”
“Have you ever?”
“Dated a younger girl?”
“Yeah.” I turned my glass in my hand.
“Nope. I’ve always been with girls my age, I guess.”
I thought of Jana. “Oh.”
“Was that high school boyfriend of yours older?”
“Yeah, by a year.” Sometimes I wondered if his age was why I was so excited to date Jack in the first place. There was something exciting about dating someone older, and at least in theory, more mature than guys my age, even if it was just a year.
“I still can’t believe he was your only boyfriend.” Tanner sipped his drink but kept his eyes trained on my face.
“Why not?”
“You’re hot and confident. That usually means a lot of dating.” Tanner’s voice sounded a little off, but he couldn’t have been drunk yet.
“Not always.”
He laughed. “See, there’s the confidence. Some girls would be all ‘I’m not hot.’”
“I’m not one of those girls.” It’s not that I had amazing self-confidence, but I certainly wasn’t going to let a guy like Tanner see an ounce of self-doubt come from me.
“I get that.”
“If I asked you to get out of here, would you get the wrong impression?” He studied my face.
“That depends on what you wanted to do.”
“I don’t know.” He put his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Walk.”
“You want to go for a walk?”
“Are you in?”
“I need to finish my drink.” I held up my nearly untouched glass.
“Take your time.”
I took it. I didn’t want to seem overeager, because I wasn’t. Tanner wasn’t a bad guy, and he was definitely attractive, but I doubted it was going to go anywhere. Still, there was a chance it could work and that was enough to warrant spending more time with him. At least, that’s what I tried to convince myself so I wouldn’t feel like a horrible person for leading him on. I sipped my drink slowly, watching the crowd.
“The pledges left. Aaron sent them out.”
“Oh.” Had he figured out what I was doing? “I wasn’t looking for them.”
“Sure you weren’t.”
“I wasn’t.” I set down my now mostly empty glass. “Still want to take that walk?”
“Definitely.” He set aside his drink and took my hand.
When I didn’t see Cara or Juliet, I sent them a quick text to let them know I was leaving—and going home to our room. Tanner pushed open the door, and we walked out.
“We don’t have to go too far. I know your shoes aren’t the most practical.”
I glanced at my heels. “But they are cute.”
He looked down at them, and then at my legs. “Very cute.”
“And my feet aren’t hurting so bad.”
“Maybe the drinks are helping.”
“I only had two.” I didn’t need him thinking I was a lightweight.
“How many drinks does it usually take for you to feel them?” He put an arm around my shoulders.
“A few.”
“That doesn’t help.”
I laughed. “Is it supposed to be an exact science or something?”
He adjusted his hand on my arm. “I need something more to go on than just a few.”
“Why?” I wondered why he cared so much.
“Because I need to make sure you don’t get sick or anything.”
“First of all, that implies we’ll be going out a lot. Second of all, that’s kind of patronizing.”
“You already agreed to another date, and it’s just called caring.”
“I’m an adult. I can decide how much I drink.” I pulled away from him.
“Ah, there’s that look in your eyes again.”
“Are you trying to make me fight with you?”
“I wasn’t, but hey, it’s kind of fun.”
I walked away, assuming he’d follow. I’m all about girl power, but walking around a city alone at night while wearing a short dress isn’t the smartest thing.
He caught up with me and spun me around into his arms. “I like you, Mallory.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But I don’t want to play games.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re the one riling me up.”
“Are you into Colt or not? I’m not fighting with a freshman for your attention.”
“I’m not into Colt.” I wished my body agreed with the statement.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Positive.” I tried to convince my heart and mind of it too.
“Good.” He brushed his lips against me.
I stepped back, not wanting the light kiss to go further. He didn’t get that. He closed the space between us and really kissed me this time. His lips moved against mine slowly, and then a little faster. I slipped away before he could deepen it.
He didn’t move to stop me, but he left his hands resting on my hips. “You are really good at this whole distraction thing.”
I shrugged. “Glad you think so.” Had he missed the fact that I wasn’t into the kiss?
He laughed. “So when are we going out again?”
“I don’t know. When are we?” I’d already agreed to another date. I wasn’t going to cancel. So I wasn’t into kissing him, maybe that could change.
“I’m going to a house party Saturday that some of my friends from my freshman floor are throwing. You want to come?”
“A house party. Romantic.”
“Oh, now you want romantic?”
“No. Not at all.”
“If you say so.” He moved his hands from around me, but quickly picked up my hand. “Ready to head back?”
“Not to your place.”
“I figured that.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. And you’ll be worth the wait.”
“Think the sex will be meaningful enough for you?” I tried to play along.
He leaned over to whisper in my ear, “Oh, it will be very meaningful.”
I shook my head. “Keep telling yourself that.”