I shrug my shoulders as I scan the party and find the needy chick making her way down the stairs. I nod toward her. “That one and…” I continue scanning in search of the wild one.
“And?” Jesse cuts me off. “At the same time or have you just been really busy?”
“Same time.”
Jesse nods. He’s certainly no stranger to a threesome, but I’d dare say he hasn’t had the pleasure of having one in a while. “And considering you’re about to drown yourself if bourbon, I’m assuming it didn’t work?”
I shake my head, bringing the shot to my lips and throwing it back.
“Fuck, man,” Jess says with a heavy sigh as he helps himself to a beer. “You’re going to have to find a way to get over Bry at some point. She’s not fucking interested. She’s halfway across the country at Yale and will be for years.”
I groan, helping myself to another shot. Usually, the boys let me wallow in my own pity, knowing it’s a sore spot, but apparently, tonight Jesse actually wants to talk about the fact that I couldn’t close the deal with the one chick who actually mattered.
Brylee Fucking Anderson.
She was my fucking world. I was obsessed, in fact, I think I still am and over the course of my junior year, while the rest of our friends were coupling up, Bry and I fucked around and she was absolutely perfect. The only issue was that she wasn’t interested in dating, especially dating a junior who was only interested in fucking around and partying.
Brylee was down for occasional hot as fuck sex and wanted to focus the rest of her time on her studies. She has high aspirations in life which I completely understand. Her dream was to get into Yale, and while I hate that she’s all the way over there, I’m so fucking proud of her for making it happen.
She turned me down time and time again and it got to the point where I just stopped asking. I would have traded in all my filthy ways for her. She was my game changer, but unfortunately, she wasn’t interested in changing my game.
It was a hard pill to swallow, especially considering that I fell fucking hard for her. She’s everything. She’s the kind of girl who could get any man to cave to her will. She’s a fucking fire-cracker and now she’s halfway across the country, probably giving some ivy league douchebag everything that I considered to be mine.
That very thought has me raising a third shot to my lips.
This year is supposed to be our year. We’re seniors and at the top of the food chain. I should be living it up instead of drowning in my sorrows. Jesse’s right. It’s time to move on, but the question is how? Moving on from a girl like Brylee isn’t going to be an easy task. She’s not interested and I’m wasting away what should be incredible nights making memories by opting for getting drunk off bourbon, hoping to forget her for just a moment.
Jesse grunts and I realize that I’ve just missed his whole lecture while my mind has been caught on Brylee. He shakes his head in annoyance, but instead of leaving me to it as other guys would do, he does what he does best and grabs a shot glass for himself.
He fills it to the brim before throwing it back and instantly refilling it to play catch-up. “Well, I guess we’re getting messy tonight.”
The corners of my lips lift into a grin and I grab my shot glass before clinking it against Jesse’s. “Damn fucking straight we are.”
We down our shots and before we know it, the bottle of bourbon is empty and we’ve worked out that Australian singer, Sia, was onto something. The chandelier can more than carry our weight and swinging from it isn’t such a bad idea after all. At least, we didn’t think so until some prick from Haven Falls decided to ruin all the fun by copying and fucking it up. He broke his arm in three places and just like that, the party was shut down, leaving me and Jesse to a very pissed off momma Ryder.
Chapter 2
Brylee
A yawn rips through me first thing in the morning as I roll over and check the time. Shit. 8:43 am. If I don’t get up now and get myself going, then it’s never going to happen. College life is so much more than I had thought. Sure, I knew it would be hard work, but I didn’t expect how tired I’d be. I’m up every night studying and making sure I’m always at the top of my classes. I didn’t come here to fuck around. I want to make something of myself and I want to do it in a big way.
I throw my blankets off and stretch out my arms before giving my legs a good stretch too. Today is different. I’m not waking up and rushing around for my usual classes and busily being the teacher’s pet to all of my professors. Today, I get to go home.
It’s been way too long. Well, by that it’s only been a few months, but still. That’s a lot longer than I’ve ever gone away from my family and friends. God, I miss them so much. I usually have too much studying to get through and it helps to keep my mind off them, but I got everything done last night to ensure that I can actually enjoy my time in Broken Hill, but the second the work was out of the way, it all hit me.
I miss my home. I miss Courtney and her ridiculous blabbering. I miss Elle and her skanky comments. I miss watching Tora get her ass handed to her by Nate. I even miss all the boys, but there’s one boy in particular that I miss the most and well, I have absolutely no idea how that’s going to go down. I’ll only be home for a few days so there’s a possibility that I won’t even see him, but the one thing I do know is that under no circumstances am I to fall into bed with him.
Tyson Wilder is a dangerous game. He comes with the body, the panty-dropping smirk, and the bad boy persona. Did I mention that he also has the ability to say exactly what a girl wants to hear that has her desperate to pull on a cowboy hat, scream ‘Yeehaw’ and ride him until the sun comes up?
As I said, Tyson Wilder is dangerous.
I get out of bed and get myself ready for a run. I’ve been seriously lacking in the exercise department lately. I tell myself that I’ll run every night after my studying gets done, but by the time I finish, I’m collapsing into bed, completely exhausted. Not to mention, I talk myself out of it, convinced that the one time I actually do run in the middle of the night, something awful will happen to me. I seriously doubt it. A place like this would be one of the safest campuses in the country, but I can’t help my female brain taking me there.
Today is the day. My flight back home isn’t for another three hours, so I have just enough time to get in a quick run before making sure I’ve packed everything and then finding my way to the airport.
My run is exhausting, just as it should be, and helps me clear my head of all my school work and get in the holiday spirit. I have three days at home, and I plan on making every last minute of it count.
I somehow get to the airport with plenty of time to spare and stand at the big window, staring out at the tarmac while taking in the big plane that’s about to take me home. I hate flying. I’m not a great flyer at all. I get panic attacks and anxiety while always thinking the worst, and don’t get me started on turbulence. That shit is a bitch despite it being perfectly safe.
Forty minutes later, my flight is called and that’s when the nerves really set in. God, I wish I had someone flying with me. Mom knows just how bad my anxiety is and offered to fly here just to help me get back and in a moment of dreaming that I was a badass bitch, I told her no, thinking I could handle it. I’ve never been so wrong.