I do my best to concentrate, as I answer Mama and peel our orange, but I can feel it churning inside me. Anxiety. Fear. I’m terrified she’s dying and lying to me. I’m desperate to hope everything’s as fine as it seems—Mama doing her crossword, Dr. B strolling out breezily.
It’s chaos in my head, a hurricane in my heart. Emotions collide, intensifying into frantic energy. I’m a building storm, the first bolt of singeing electricity about to touch down.
There are two proven methods to diffuse Willa Sutter when she’s about to erupt: long, excruciating runs, and getting shit-faced. Both work the same way. They wreak havoc on my system until that furious energy is grounded and drained. Until I’m empty, so numb and dissociated, that I crumple into unconsciousness.
I know. I didn’t say they were healthy coping mechanisms, just that they were proven effective.
My body’s spent from practice today. If I try to run, my legs will collapse from underneath me long before I’m adequately wrung out. Running won’t work. Which means tonight’s a night to pickle my liver.
Swiping open my phone, I find Rooney’s number and text her. Neither of us party, but in a rare crisis, we’re there for each other, prepared to do what’s necessary, even if that includes alcohol. I don’t drink much, and I never do it without paying the price, but we have a rare rest day tomorrow, so I can spend it hungover and recovering.
Maybe in my lazy day tomorrow, I’ll figure out how to retaliate after Ryder’s latest trickery. He got me back for sexually torturing him during notecard studying and costing him twenty bucks. His mature response was a whoopie cushion he set on my chair in Business Math. As usual, I was a little late. After a sprint right to my seat, I dropped down, shattering the silence held for Mac’s lecture with an echoing “fart.”
It took him ten minutes to get the class in order.
That motherfucker. Ryder had to turn and hide his face in his arm those whole ten minutes before he could look me in the eye and not fall into hysterics. His eyes glittered with tears from laughing so hard, and beneath all that beard, I caught a wide smile. If his prank hadn’t been beyond humiliating as well as annoyingly clever, I would have been almost happy that I put such a giddy look on that smartass tree-hugger’s face. Almost.
In summary: I owe him. Big. Time.
Maybe it’s because I’m stewing about the whoopie cushion still, as I make plans with Rooney, but a brilliant thought comes to me. At some point after I met Ryder’s two roommates, I told Rooney about them. She made the small-world connection that she and Becks have chemistry together. Did not see that one coming. Becks strikes me as lots of things, smart not being one of them.
I text Rooney my sinister plan. It’s a stretch because I’m not sure how friendly she and Becks are beyond being lab mates.
She responds immediately. I’ll text him. He’ll know where to go. Be there in thirty. Is it a little red dress night?
I stare at my phone, debating. Bad, bad things happen in the little red dress, dress being a generous term for that garment. It’s more like an extended tube top. But tonight, I want to forget about being responsible and self-respecting. I want to be stupid and careless and not worried about biopsies and GPA and my average goals per game. I want to be twenty-one and carefree and reckless. I want to dance with my friend and sexually punish a particular overly bearded vengeful lumberjack.
Yes, I type back. And bring my hooker shoes while you’re at it.
Ryder
Playlist: “Sugar on My Tongue,” Talking Heads
Willa’s trying to kill me. It’s the only explanation for what’s been going on between us the past few weeks. First the shirt in Business Math. I’ve never seen a woman wear that color and not look like her kidneys were failing, but yellow made Willa light up like a ray of sunshine.
Her hair was combed out and wild. Thick, wavy tendrils coiled around each other that fell down her shoulders, faint wisps teasing along all that cleavage.
I can’t figure out what prompted her to do it, what could possibly make her dress herself up like that. That’s not Willa, not the Willa I know. Even though I was confused by her behavior, even though I missed those oversized sweatpants and her frizzy bun, I had a hard time not responding to the seductive appearance of her body, and she damn well knew it.
I might have come back with a vengeance the next time I was at her place. At first, when she was fretting over that soup, I had the irrational need to soothe her, to tell her I didn’t give a shit if dinner was a little scorched. But I resisted and stuck to my plan. I cornered her, leaned in, touched her until she was a lusty mess in my arms. I wasn’t planning on kissing her, not really. I planned to get so close, so very close, until our lips almost met—
My phone buzzes, snapping me out of my thoughts. I drop the loaded-up barbell I’m lifting in our makeshift basement gym in the house, and swipe it open.
It’s a video from Becks. It’s hard to see at first, so I tilt it to avoid glare and increase my screen brightness. Dark shadows, strobe lights. It’s obviously a club, which isn’t surprising. That’s where Becks lives most nights. Two women dance, writhing against each other. One’s tall, legs for miles, a sheet of blonde hair drifting down her back. The other’s shorter, more compact, light striking the defined muscles of her thighs that trail down to strong calves and sky-high black stilettos. She wears a short red dress. Jesus, is that even a dress? Her hair’s wild, misbehaved curls, caramel brown under the lights.
Wait.
Before I can text him, Becks sends another message. Isn’t that Willa? She’s wrecked, man.
I swear mentally, sprint up the steps and take the fastest shower of my life. Where are you? I text him while I hop into jeans, madly running a hand through my wet hair.
He answers immediately, Club Folle.
Shit. That’s a nice one. I take a quick look at my beard and try to comb it a little. I should probably trim the thing at some point. No time now. Scrounging around in the closet, I find a wrinkle-free button-up and throw it on. Keys, phone, wallet, then I’m in the Explorer, flying down the 405 for Culver City. It’s not far but it feels eternal, driving to find her.
Willa hasn’t been herself the past few weeks, and I’m worried. I know she’s under a lot of pressure with grades and the team. I certainly don’t make her life easier. Working with her on our project, though, I’ve tried to lighten up, to present my issues with gentler language. I served her cookies and tea. I finally gave her the entire semester’s notes. I’ve tried not to be an absolute dick. I know I can be a bit rough around the edges, and I can see Willa has a lot on her plate. Besides the weirdly seductive, sabotaging one-upmanship we’ve been dabbling in the past two weeks, I’ve tried to be decent to her.
Was the whoopie cushion taking it too far? I mean, I owed her. She made me look like a horndog fool with those notecards, scrambling my brain with sensual touches so I couldn’t even recall the inventory shrinkage formula. No part of me was shrinking when she pulled that stunt.
And in retaliation, I embarrassed her in front of like…four hundred people.
Maybe not a reasonable response.
Before I can think about it any further, I pull up to the club, tossing the valet my keys, and jogging to the entrance. I’m waved in because this is Becks’s kingdom and if you’re in with Becks, you’re in at Club Folle.