“Are you talking to me?” He pointed at himself and looked around for good measure.
“Uh, yeah,” I answered because there was no one else around us. “Can you tell me were the bathroom is?”
“Um, there’s one right over on the other side of the house.”
Nodding, I started to turn away to look for that bathroom.
“Wait,” he said. Slowly, I stopped and turned around.
“Yes?” I asked.
I looked at him, and the more I stared at him, I wondered what he was doing in this place. He was a little dweeb-looking to be perfectly honest. He didn’t exactly scream sex and parties. Hell, who the fuck was I to judge?
“Would you…mind… It’s that I need…underwear.”
I stood there, so perplexed the Solo cup with my unfinished drink twitched in my hand. He did not just ask me that—what a dickwad.
I brought my cup up, ready to pour it in his head.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you seem nice. And I need to do this…all the pledges do. I know I can’t get one by hooking up.”
I stopped with my cup midair.
“You’re a pledge?”
The guy smiled and looked at me sheepishly. “My dad is a legacy and one of the biggest founders. They had to take me in.”
I brought my cup down. “What’s your name, kid?”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Isaac.”
“Freshman?” I asked.
“That obvious, huh?”
I was basically a freshman too, but I didn’t say that.
“Let me go pee, and I’ll meet you outside,” I told him.
The line for the bathroom wasn’t that long, for which I was grateful. It was weird when I slipped off my undies.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I mumbled, but I needed to live a little, and Isaac needed to impress his new frat brothers, so it was a win-win, right?
Before I opened the door, I heard laughter outside. I quickly recognized Jeff’s voice.
“Didn’t I leave you on bitch duty?”
“I…I’ll go back in a second.”
“I-I-I…do you always have to s-s-t-tutter?”
What a dick.
“Jeff.” There was a warning tone to the other guy’s voice. He obviously didn’t like Jeff picking on this kid, but he didn’t want to get in the middle of it either. Pussy.
“Listen, little fucker. You have until midnight to get some girl’s panties. If not, then your ass can start forgetting about—”
I didn’t let him finish. I opened the door to the bathroom. This guy pissed me off, and he was a fucking douchebag.
No one knew me. Here, I wasn’t another head case. Here, I was just some other girl at a party. Not an orphan or a cheater or a liar or a shitty friend. I was a nobody.
I held my black lace panties from my index finger.
“Here you go, Isaac.”
Sure, my voice didn’t have to drop to a sultry timber, but I was mad at this guy for the simple fact that he was an asshole.
Isaac looked at me like he didn’t believe I had just done what I did, but with shaky hands, he took my panties. I turned around to glare at Jeff, but the air left my lungs when I saw who was next to him.
This. Was. Not. Happening.
He was leaning on the wall but rose to his full height. The bored look he had on his gorgeous face turned into a scowl. He looked so different, yet the same. His face was still symmetrical, but there was a harshness that wasn’t there before, and he now had a neatly trimmed beard.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He gritted out the words.
Those were the first words Gavin said to me after three years.
Could I blame him? No. Did I deserve them? Maybe.
“You know her? She showed up with Auds.”
I closed my eyes, wondering why Audrey had brought me here, knowing he was here. This was some sort of sick nightmare.
Gavin’s eyes went from mine to the underwear Isaac held in his hands. The poor boy didn’t have the first clue about what was going on, but he was scared. Gavin snatched the underwear so fast from Isaacs’s grasp, and then he grabbed my arm and started dragging me back into the bathroom.
My heart palpitated heavily. His touch—his touch brought it all back. It brought back the butterflies and the tremors. The feeling like I could finally breathe again, except this time it was laced with betrayal.
Gavin slammed the door to the bathroom so hard it made me flinch. It was a miracle he didn’t break it off its hinges.
He breathed heavily like a bull ready to strike, those silver eyes dark and penetrating. I backed away until I hit the sink. I knew I had nowhere to go. Our attraction had always been this way. Powerful enough to consume you.
“Gav—” I started to say, but he cut me off.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” He repeated the same words.
They tugged at me. They were sharp, and they cut me.
“I go to school here now,” I whispered, but he heard me.
His nostrils flared. Taking a step toward me, he didn’t stop until his hands were on either side of my hips, caging me in by the sink.
His proximity was too much. I didn’t want to blink, or else I would remember the way he’d worshipped my body on prom night, how he’d kept telling me to give him one more.
One more kiss.
One more orgasm.
And he took it all.
“Did you come looking for round two?”
“W-what?”
“I remember everything about that night, Scar. Let me tell you something. Fucking you? It wasn’t that special.”
I couldn’t help but flinch.
He backed away, holding my panties in his fingers before he gave me an evil smirk and walked out of the bathroom.
I needed to get the fuck out of here; I couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t prepared to see him. Even if I had been, I don’t think I would have handled it any different.
When I stepped out of the bathroom, no one was there.
Gavin Dunn could still make my world stop. Of that, I was sure.
Once outside, I closed my eyes, and I brought it all back: that night, and everything else in between.
Gavin
I sat in the corner with some chick on my lap as I watched her leave. It took everything in me not to run after her.
I wanted to kiss her and make her forget. She didn’t remember, but I did. That’s why her words cut like a jagged knife.
Her body was still the stuff wet dreams were made of. She had curves and lots of them. That fucking skirt should be illegal. I wanted to curse all of my brothers for looking at her, but I couldn’t blame them.
Scarlett was not meant to be mine. I’d known that all along. She’d told me on countless occasions, but as soon as our lips touched and we were skin to skin, everything that was said ceased to exist.
“You okay, man?” Quincy asked.
He was my teammate and friend, and he knew I was anything but okay right now. He was my quarterback, and I was his wide receiver. He was used to knowing my tells, and right now, my body screamed that I was anything but okay.
“Yes,” I lied because opening my mouth to say the truth wouldn’t do anyone good.
I could feel his eyes boring into me. Surprisingly, he let it go.
I looked at the door again once I was sure I wasn’t dreaming and that the pain I felt in my chest was real. Scarlett fucking Davis was back, and I hated her for it, because seeing her again opened a wound in my chest that I wanted to go away. Seeing her again reminded me of everything that happened after she left.