CHAPTER 1
Becca
I RAISED MY Diet Coke with a wry grin and clinked it against my friends’ glasses. The noise was barely discernible in the crowded bar.
Nicole shot me a sympathetic look. “Just a few more months, right?”
“Less than four. Not that I’m counting.” My brother and I were Irish twins, meaning his birthday was in January and mine was in December of the same year. My parents had forgotten the Irish part and raised us like we were actual twins, enrolling us in school at the same time. So I was always the last of my friends to reach new milestones, sometimes by over a year.
“Look on the bright side, Becca,” Evan said. “My twenty-first was lame because no one else could drink. You won’t have that problem.”
“Instead, people will be mourning the loss of their designated driver.” I was joking, but it was sort of true. However, the crowd I ran with wasn’t exactly wild and crazy. Case in point? It was nearly ten on a Saturday night, and Jian and Joey were already closing out their tabs. No doubt Chris would be close behind.
The six of us—Nicole, Evan, Jian, Joey, Chris, and me—were all that was left of our freshman-year engineering cohort. We’d started with fifteen, but the major was notorious for its high dropout and transfer rate. Some people referred to it as survival of the smartest, but more than likely, it was survival of the most stubborn. At least that was how I’d made it to my senior year.
A commotion toward the front of the bar caught my attention. When towering figures made of pure muscle filtered in, making the already crowded space seem instantly smaller, I cursed. I’d chosen this venue specifically to avoid this.
To avoid him.
I could turn away, but that wouldn’t make a difference. My sixth sense always knew when the guy I’d been in love with half my life was nearby.
Nicole nudged me. “Carson is over there.”
My friend had a grade-school-style crush on Carson, so I tried to keep her as far away from him as possible. She had no idea about my feelings for him, but that wasn’t why I kept her away. Nicole wasn’t his type. He preferred easy girls, ones who were satisfied with a one-night stand. If for some odd reason he did go for Nicole, he would chew her up, spit her out, and leave me to pick up the pieces. No, thank you.
I wouldn’t wish that on anyone—not my friend and not myself. Carson was firmly in the friend zone. If I had any intent on keeping my already compromised heart intact, that was where he needed to stay.
“Trust me,” I told her. “You want no part of that.”
Evan shot me a puzzled look. “Isn’t he your friend from home?”
While I sometimes joined Carson’s crowd, he rarely joined mine, so Evan had only met him a few times in the past three years. I caught the gist of what he was saying, though—he was wondering why I would talk smack about a friend. Maybe it was bad form, but I called them as I saw them.
“My brother’s best friend, yeah.”
During his teen years, Carson had spent more time at our house than his own, which didn’t make sense on the surface. His house was practically a mansion, complete with a media room, swimming pool, and home gym. Though once I’d met his parents, his desire to spend his time elsewhere became understandable. They were nice enough people, but the sheer intensity they radiated was enough to make the most secure person nervous.
Nicole flipped her hair over her shoulder. “What she’s trying to say is he’s way too hot for a nerd like me.”
I gasped. “That’s not what I meant.” Nicole was on the nerdy side, but then again, so was I. It came with the territory of being in the engineering program.
She put her hand up. “Let me revise. He’s way more than a nerd like me can handle. I know he’s out of my league, but a girl can dream, can’t she?”
“He’s not out of your league,” I corrected. “He’s a player.”
“Eh.” Nicole chewed on her straw as she watched him and his friends, who were most likely all football players for Virginia Valley University. “It might be nice to be played.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. It had never occurred to me that Nicole might want to dip her toe in the water of one-night stands. To each her own. Still, I didn’t know if my heart could handle Carson and Nicole hooking up. It was bad enough watching him with girls I didn’t know.
Evan drank the last swallow of his water. “On that note, I’m heading out.”
Nicole laughed. “We can talk about girls you want to play with if it makes you more comfortable. We’re equal opportunity.”
Evan balked. “I’m not uncomfortable. I’m just…” His mouth kept moving, but no words came out. “I got nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As soon as Evan left, Nicole put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to throw myself at Carson or anything.”
“I’m not worried.” All it would take was one word from me for Nicole to put Carson on her never-ever list, but not a soul knew about my feelings for him, and it was going to stay that way.
“With that expression, you’re either worried or constipated.”
My eyes widened, and my cheeks flushed. “Jesus, Nic.” I looked around to see if anyone had overheard her. Her lack of a filter was usually one of the things I liked about her, but at the moment, it had lost its appeal.
Laughing, she leaned forward on the table. “We’re seniors. Soon we’ll have to be responsible adults. Like real ones. Our window for random hookups is closing.”
“I don’t think we’re missing out on anything.” Plus, I didn’t believe there was a limited window for making mistakes. There were plenty of screwed-up adults who made questionable choices, not that that was something to aspire to.
Shrugging, Nicole looked longingly at Carson and his friends. “Maybe. Maybe not.” She patted my arm again. “But don’t worry. I would never hook up with Carson. I know that would be weird for you.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled. I could have told her it wouldn’t be weird for me, but that would’ve been a bold-faced lie. So I let her think it would be weird because he and I were old friends and not because I had my own eye on him.
“Come on.” Nicole drained the last of her drink and pushed it back on the table. “The boy nerds are gone. Let’s go mingle.”
Mingle? It was supposed to be a quiet night out to reconnect with our engineering friends whom we hadn’t seen all summer. Now all of a sudden, I was Nicole’s wing woman on her quest for a random hookup. Lord help me. I silently cursed my December birthday. I needed a drink.
I watched for a moment as Carson flashed a roguish grin at a girl who had sidled up to him. She was pretty and dressed appropriately for a night out, meaning her dress was tight and short, and her heels were high. In contrast, my outfit was geared more toward Sunday afternoon grocery shopping—shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals.
Carson was wearing the guy equivalent of my outfit, but it worked. Everything he wore worked because of his muscular physique. The bottom of his tattoo peeked out of the sleeve of his gray T-shirt, giving him a slight bad-boy appearance. Only slight, though, because that night, he was clean-shaven and had that all-American look nailed. But once he let his face get scruffy, he would leave all-American behind and claim badass status. He looked good no matter what persona he was trying to pull off, and the trouble was he knew it.