PROLOGUE
Poppy
“Is all this necessary?” I ask my roommate, Bonnie, while staring in the narrow mirror attached to the back of my closet door.
“Yes,” she says, smoothing out the fresh curls she just blew out for me.
“I don’t feel like myself,” I admit as I look in the mirror and see a girl with long auburn hair that’s smooth, and very unlike my wavy unruly hair, looking back at me. And my eyes. . . they really pop with all the mascara and eyeliner Bonnie applied. “I look like a rocker,” I snicker.
“You look stunning,” she corrects, using a brush to apply some blush.
I’ve been at Westfall U all of two weeks. That’s one week of student orientation and one week of classes. I met Bonnie about two weeks ago when I moved into this two-person dorm. I normally keep to myself and don’t make friends easily, but I promised myself before I started at Westfall that I’d make a solid effort to be more outgoing, to find some confidence, and make new friends. Not an easy feat for me but if I want to succeed at journalism, I need to crack myself out of my comfortable shell.
“Remember why you signed up for the dating app.” She grins looking me up and down like she’s proud of herself. Truth is, she’s done a phenomenal job with my makeover. I feel beautiful not hiding behind my usual baggy clothes.
“Maybe it isn’t so important to meet a guy anymore,” I say as an inkling of self-doubt rears its ugly head. I’m a work in progress and right now it feels like I’ve surpassed baby steps and am taking a try at a marathon with this sexy outfit and makeup. The dress I’m wearing is the color of merlot wine and it’s slinky and formfitting. Although I’m way out of my comfort zone, I like what I see in the mirror and that usually doesn’t happen to me.
“Really?” She cocks her brow and juts out her hip. “So getting your first kiss has moved down on your bucket list?” Oh dear. I admitted to Bonnie that I’ve never kissed a boy. I kind of regretted it afterward but we were each in our beds late at night chatting, and we got to talking about life. Bonnie told me about her wanting to take a dream trip to Paris and I let it slip that I had never been kissed. Maybe it wasn’t really a slip though. I think I admitted it to Bonnie because she is so beautiful and confident, I was hoping for some guidance from her. She hasn’t disappointed because my admission was followed by a loud gasp from Bonnie, who immediately flung herself out of bed, sat upright, and grabbed her phone. “You have to sign up for a dating app,” she insisted punching away on her cell.
So what did I do? I signed up for College Pro, a dating site used by Westfall students exclusively. She assured me there were lots of hot guys on College Pro and she wasn’t wrong.
“It hasn’t moved down on my bucket list,” I admit. “In fact it’s all I can think about lately.” I mean this is college. Students are attending parties, meeting cute boys, having fun, having sex. . . of course I want those things too. “How many eighteen-year-olds have you met who haven’t been kissed?”
“Just meet the guy at the bar. Have a drink. Flirt. Let’s hope he leans in for a kiss and if he doesn’t because he may be shy, then you take the reins and go in,” she says, repeating the plan for the fifth time tonight. She didn’t actually answer my question, which leads me to believe I am the only eighteen-year-old she knows who hasn’t been kissed yet. Just great.
“You make it sound so easy,” I sigh. Because you are confident unlike me who spent most of high school in the shadows.
“It is,” she nods.
“I’m awkward. I don’t know how to flirt and what if the guy isn’t good-looking?” I say, spewing all of my fears.
“Please.” She waves me off, pulling her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. She opens the College Pro app and pulls up the profile of the guy I’m meeting at a bar called Black Market off campus. “He’s super hot.” She lifts her phone for me to see his picture.
The guy is hot. She isn’t wrong. His blue eyes are enticing. His chocolate brown hair looks a little wavy and his smile is warm. His dimples are definitely an added bonus and the beanie he’s wearing makes him look down-to-earth, but then again what do I know? I’ve had zero experience with guys.
“Fine, you’re right.” I smooth the dress over my body that Bonnie lent me. Time to put your big girl panties on, Poppy. “I just feel like this whole look is a little much for a guy I’ve never met before.”
“You look stunning. This Cage guy is going to totally be in to you,” she says. “He looks so hot and his name is totally sexy.”
Right. I forgot his name is Cage. What kind of name is that anyway?
She passes me her little black purse since I don’t own any going-out clothes. I slip my cell phone inside, along with a twenty and my bank card.
“I should take a jacket. I can’t walk out of here like this,” I say, feeling self-conscious. This dress has spaghetti straps. I feel naked. I walk over to the closet and take my jean jacket. The fit is a little on the big side but that’s how I like to wear my clothes, loose and comfortable.
“Uh uh.” She shakes her head. “You aren’t draping that thing on you tonight.”
I frown. She passes me her little black, vegan leather biker jacket.
“Wear this,” she says and she removes my jean jacket off my shoulders. I help her by shrugging out of it as I repeat in my head, I can do this, over and over again.
With the jacket on I feel a little less self-conscious and I take one last glance in the mirror. She’s right. It looks good. I just need to have the self-esteem to own it and walk out of here with my head held high. I don’t.
“Thanks for everything,” I say to Bonnie and lean in and hug her, but she shakes her head again. What now?
“You aren’t leaving here wearing those glasses,” she orders. My frames are the same ones I’ve had since freshman year of high school, even though the prescription has changed. “You said you have contacts.”
“Did I say that?” I ask playfully.
She nods. “Put on the contacts, Poppy. Sheesh, you aren’t easy. I thought you’d like getting dressed up. That you’d be excited to go out and meet a handsome boy.”
“My stomach is swimming with butterflies.”
“That’s good,” she assures me.
I walk over to the bathroom that we share in our room. At least I was lucky to get a dorm room that had its own bathroom. The next building over has communal bathrooms and I could never imagine having to shower with guys around.
I take off my glasses and put in the contacts. This guy isn’t going to know the real me because I look nothing like myself right now.
I walk out of the bathroom and Bonnie’s jaw drops. “Damn, you clean up nice.”
“Thanks?” My face scrunches up.
She moves her head back and forth. “No, you need to smile and say thank you. Batting your eyelashes a little will help too. You want to come off confident.”
“You do realize I lack confidence, right?” I remind Bonnie. I don’t have a problem admitting my shortcomings. I just don’t know how to fix the problem either. I’m a journalism major and if I want to get ahead while I’m here, confidence is kind of a necessity. The journalism program is majorly competitive and after freshman year it’s well known that certain students find internships working with some of the larger newspapers and broadcasting stations in Boston. That is part of the reason I’m pushing myself out of my comfort zone tonight. It’s not only about being kissed, it’s also about me finding my backbone.