by Anthology
Didn’t she get any credit, for crying out loud?
“Too bad she hasn’t known you since those glory days of braces and spiral perms,” Sharita teased. Sharita always had gorgeous hair, whether relaxed or natural, while Shelby had suffered for too many years under a chemically-dependent hair dresser.
“Oh, hush.” She curled up on her side and picked at the wrinkled Indian print blanket she draped over her bed every morning after making it. She might wish the fabric were nicer, but she’d liked the intricate pattern as soon as she’d spotted it at a vendor table in the campus center. “I hated those braces.”
“I wasn’t in love with them either, you know. I’m still scarred from the experience. My bikini waxer says I flinch more than anyone she’s ever waxed before.”
“Sorry,” Shelby giggled, as the laughter finally bubbled up.
“This new girl oughta be grateful she’s getting you now. I could tell her stories about your baby dyke days that’ll make her hair stand on end.”
“Yeah, you sure could.” A thought teased the edge of her brain. Shelby thrust herself up with a hand on the mattress. “Wait. Yeah, you could.”
She jumped off the bed and paced back and forth across her tiny room as her mind raced, coming to a halt at the battered wood dresser, grinning like a madwoman at herself in the mirror, because this was a great idea.
A great idea.
“Don’t use that tone with me, girl. What are you strategizing now?”
“Shariiiiiita,” she whined, making puppy dog eyes at herself in the mirror and knowing her ex-girlfriend could picture the pleading look perfectly well.
“Aw, hell no. I am not calling up some white girl I’ve never met and telling her about the time my pubes got stuck in your braces and I screamed bloody murder, just so you can get some pussy.”
Shelby settled in to wage a proper campaign.
When her phone rang at midnight, Shelby’s insides swooped and rolled in anticipation as she held her palm over the handset, imagining she could feel the vibrations of the loud ring against her skin.
Please let this be her.
She picked up the phone, and then had to clear her throat before she said, “Hello.”
“Sharita and Shelby, huh?”
Shelby closed her eyes in delight at the husky voice and sank back against the piles of her pillows. Never had a general been so proud of her troops.
Thank you, Sharita, honey. I owe you forever.
“Sounds like a Broadway song and dance duo, huh?”
“You two must’ve been damn cute.”
“Sharita’s bustier and curvier all over than I am. Mostly it felt like if some guy ever caught us in the act, we’d look like a couple of porn stars.”
Florence’s guffaw might have woken Shelby’s neighbors. “Well, ha. Yeah, I, uh, might pay money to see that.”
“You and every horndog this side of the Mississippi,” Shelby said dryly. “So, she talked to you?”
“If you can call being lectured to within an inch of my life ‘talked to’, yeah.”
“And?”
“I get it. I was being an asshole. You’re the biggest dyke that ever went down on girls in the boathouse at Camp Kickapoo or whatever.”
“The smell of moldy canvas gets me wet to this day.”
“Too bad you’re trying to assassinate me. I’d tell you to meet me at the boathouse.”
“Really?” Shelby sat up straight on her bed, like a puppet with its strings pulled tight.
“If I say yes, will you tell me what you’re wearing?”
Shelby eyed the sweatpants and Cowboys jersey she’d pulled from her dirty laundry basket because she didn’t give a damn what she smelled like. “I’m wearing a pair of emerald green silk panties.”
“And?”
“I’m wearing a pair—” She laid down and rolled over onto her back, reaching out to flick off the light clamped to her headboard. “—of emerald green silk panties.” In the dark, she could pretend Florence was stretched out next to her, smooth olive skin laid out for miles. Shelby couldn’t get over how hairless Florence was. It made her seem more naked than anyone else Shelby had ever seen without clothes.
Made her body so slick and slidey Shelby could just slip right inside her.
“Tell me what you’re wearing,” she murmured, and settled back, happiness spreading like melted butter over her skin.
* * * * *
Jeremy strolled up behind a group of women heading toward Clapp hall. Shelby hung back, not too far—she needed to be close enough to sprint through the chaos once her team kicked it off—but with enough distance to scan the field of battle.
She couldn’t see Florence, but didn’t have any doubt the woman was hidden nearby. Florence would be certain Shelby was going to show up for this seminar—Shelby had been foolish enough to mention her respect for Lawson when she’d been lying in Florence’s bed that first night—and if Florence were smart, she’d have all of the entrances covered. A quick shout from a watcher at Shelby’s approach would bring Florence running,
And Florence had gotten damn tactical over the past couple of weeks.
Shelby’s one advantage was that Florence still couldn’t shoot for shit. Florence would need to get right on top of Shelby to tag her with a paintball, unless she got insanely lucky.
Florence might have started from a place of innocent fun—unlikely, given how competitive the woman was—but she wasn’t so innocent any more.
And Shelby never had been, despite appearances.
Shelby slid out from behind the hedge and scraped her shoes against the sidewalk pavement. Not even for the pleasure of tagging Florence Truong’s ass would she sacrifice cuteness in the face of enemy fire, but she’d gone over the slippery soles of her new hot pink flats with a wire brush, scuffing them up for traction.
Shelby was ready to run.
She was twenty feet from the door that led to the safety of her seminar when Florence burst around the corner of the building, charging at Shelby with her hot pink gun held between two hands and her face painted with camouflage makeup. A small branch with dark green leaves bouncing as Florence ran was stuck in the back strap of her ball cap.
Her battle cry rent the air.
Running and laughing, without peeing in her pants, was a damn challenge.
When her girl committed, she committed all the way.
“Holy shoot!” Shelby shouted, and caught the wicked grin that illuminated Florence’s face as her assassin screeched to a halt and planted her feet wide, dropping into the perfect shooter’s stance.
That Shelby had taught her, damn it.
“Any final words, darlin’?” Florence asked with a grin.
Students, some friendlies and some Florence’s allies, crowded close. The entire campus had gathered to witness their final shootout, it seemed.
“Just one, sweetie pie,” Shelby twanged, pushing the Texas hard in her voice because she knew it turned Florence on.
Florence lifted an eyebrow and waited.
A rookie commander’s move.
“Yippee-ki-yay!” Shelby shouted, pitching her voice up to the second story, where half-open windows flew up in their tracks as a dozen students leaned out, colorful round objects in both hands.
“Motherfucker!” came the resounding cry as hands opened and twenty-four water balloons were lobbed at the crowd, bursting and spraying water as they hit their marks.
Girls shrieked and boys roared and everyone scattered as Shelby’s battle unit reloaded from the bags of water balloons she’d given each visitor to her dorm room late last night. Florence shouted for room to aim as a balloon nailed her shoulder, sending her shot winging wide to nail a fleeing chem student in the back of her white lab coat.
Shelby ducked behind a group of boys yelling up at the battlements, thrusting their chests forward, offering Boston Red Sox and LA Lakers sports logos as targets to the girls—and Jeremy—who were laughing and throwing balloons as fast as they coul
d.
She worked her way around the group, hunched low and keeping an eye on Florence’s slim ankles through the redwood forest of hairy boys’ legs. A late surge in temperature had everyone on campus in clothes more suited to the summer than November’s chill.
“I see you, Shelby Summerfield.” Florence’s voice danced, laughing, through the crowd to find her and lick an imaginary stripe up Shelby’s ear. “You’re not getting away.”
Most of the student crowd had fled beyond the reach of the artillery. The wet-chested frat boys were having a fine old time being the obstacle in the middle around which two girls circled, on a murderous mission to the death.
“I’m the one who laid this trap, Florence, darlin’. You’re the one who isn’t gonna escape.” Shelby’s grin was almost as sharp as the fire she was ready to lay down in purple pain.
Before Florence had the chance to regroup, Shelby pushed the stakes higher.
“Fair’s fair. We count to three, these kind gentlemen scatter, and I’ll give you an extra second to get off one good shot.”
She could practically hear the gears whirring in Florence’s brain from the far side of the gaggle of boys. Holding her breath, she waited for Florence’s answer.
“Deal.”
Heart thumping. Mouth split wide with a grin.
This was it. The pure joy of the hunt, the chase, the final shootout.
“Okay, boys,” she called out to the crowd that milled between her and Florence. “On the count of three, you head for the hills. Got it?”
Nods all around.
“One.” She kicked off the count, Florence’s voice chiming in to echo hers on, “Two…”
The hulking guy she’d been hiding behind juked early, spinning around to stand behind Shelby—a friend of Florence’s maybe—blocking her retreat.
Shelby had no intention of retreating.
“Three!” she shouted, and stood still and straight, the WWF-wrestler-sized boy behind her nudging her forward, her eyes locked on Florence who raised her gun fast to shoulder height.
Too fast.
Even before Florence’s finger tightened on the trigger, Shelby could tell the shot was going to miss. But not by much.
A quick buzz hummed near her ear and something tugged gently at her hair.
“Ow. Damn it!” The outraged yelp behind Shelby’s shoulder made her laugh hard enough to jog her aim. “Florence, you dumb ass. You’re supposed to shoot her, not me!”
Shelby cracked up and brushed paint-spattered hair off her temple from the close call, cursing her shaky aim as the giggles refused to settle. She shook her head, biting her bottom lip between her teeth and going in for the kill.
Florence shrieked and laughed and sprinted for the door to the building, a valiant but futile gesture. Shelby’s troops were watching from above and nailed her with half a dozen projectiles that had her dancing back toward Shelby, who just smiled and settled into her shooting stance.
“No, wait!” Florence shouted, hands thrust toward Shelby as she backed away. “I promise I’ll—”
Florence lifted her paint ball gun as she spoke.
Too late.
Shelby finger on the trigger never flinched as she tugged it back as smoothly as a kid’s cheap plastic toy allowed.
The bloom of purple paint spattered across Florence’s back as she whirled at the last second to sprint away.
By the time Shelby made it over to her girlfriend—because she wasn’t going to accept any arguments about that, damn it, not after everything—Florence was laughing and attempt to peel the paint-stained fabric away from her back.
Shelby wrapped her arms about Florence’s waist and rubbed her face against her neck.
“I feel really bad about that shirt,” she whispered.
“No, you don’t,” Florence countered, laughing and squeezing her back. She bit Shelby’s earlobe, both teasing and making a promise. “You can have it as a souvenir.”
“Only if I get to peel it off you.”
“Oh, sure. You kill me, then you want to strip me naked.” Florence shook her head ruefully, fooling no one.
“I said I wanted to be your girlfriend,” Shelby said, and a shiver crawled on little cat feet up her spine as Florence plunged her fingers into Shelby’s hair and combed out the tangled purple strands, pushing them behind Shelby’s ear. She must look a fright. “I didn’t say anything about letting you win.”
“I should’ve known.” Florence grinned and grabbed her hand, fingers smearing purple paint over the both of them as she lifted Shelby’s hand into the air like the referee with the winner of a boxing match. Cheers erupted from the laughing, dripping students spilling out of the doors of Clapp Hall and circling back in from the safe zone at the edge of the pavement.
Shelby leaned into Florence’s shoulder and pressed a kiss to the corner of her smiling mouth. Brushing her lips across Florence’s cheek, she zeroed in on her ear to whisper.
“You know, darlin’, you really should have.”
* * * * *
The winners of the longest-running game of Assassin ever held on campus threw a party at Egon’s to celebrate, with trivia and lots of women dancing in their bras.
By the time the sun came up, the Southern belle and the BDOC knew who was the real winner in their competition.
But they weren’t telling.
Other books by Amy Jo Cousins
Bend or Break Series
Off Campus
Nothing Like Paris
The Girl Next Door
Level Hands
Real World
Five Dates
Full Exposure
The Taste of Coffee and Cream (in How We Began)
Dance Hall Days (in All in a Day’s Work)
The Rain in Spain (in Summer Rain)
Play It Again Series
Callie, Unwrapped
The Tylers Series
At Your Service
Sleeping Arrangements
Calling His Bluff
When the Lights Go Down
Little Red Thong
Jennifer Blackwood
Emily Jones is ready to embark on the most epic spring break trip of her college career. She’s just scored four free passes to a week-long cruise to Mexico. So it’s a no brainer that she invites her bestie, twin brother, and her brother’s best friend. Chase has always been the boy next door, but college can change a lot of things…like the fact that he’s transformed from Screech to Slater status, and has the muscles and panty-melting dimples to prove it.
Chase has been in love with Emily since the eighth grade when she kicked his ass in laser tag. When she invites him on a tropical cruise, he decides he’s not going to piss away his chance to tell her how he feels, especially since they’ll be moving to separate ends of the country after graduation. And when the group decides to play a game of Spring Break BINGO that involves body shots, a red thong, and secret hookups, this is the perfect catalyst to get him out of the friend zone.
But as things get heated, they have to decide if twenty years of friendship is worth putting in jeopardy because of a game, and what will happen when they hit dry land.
The Thong Song by Sisqo (1999)
Chapter 1
Emily
The second we plopped down on four vacant lawn chairs on the sun deck, my roommate Melissa dug a stack of papers out of her pink striped Victoria’s Secret bag and dispensed them to each member of the group.
I unfolded the crisp paper and stared down at a cluster of squares, each one filled out with pink cursive writing that could only be Melissa’s. Spring Break Cruise Ship Bingo ‘99. I shook my head. Really, she’d outdone herself this time.
“Think you’re up for the challenge, guys?” she asked, picking at the frayed fabric of her cutoffs, her bleach-blond hair whipping in the wind.
“Hell yeah,” said Drew. Not at all surprising, he was the first to jump in. My twin brother was always up for anything involving a bet or wager. Heck, this list wa
s tame compared to half the shit that had landed him in the hospital when we were younger.
“Let me get this straight.” Chase, the fourth member of our group and my brother’s best friend, studied the paper, one eyebrow rising as he read. “The winner doesn’t have to pay for any drinks on the room tab at the end of the trip?”
“Yep.” Melissa gave a self-satisfied smile. Probably in her mind, she’d already won. Lack of confidence wasn’t what got her a Miss Teen USA title or an upcoming internship at the U.N. as soon as we graduated in May. Not to say that I’d complain if she toned it down for our four-day cruise. Plus, she didn’t know how competitive my brother was—this could be an all-out bloodbath, even over something as trivial as drink expenditures.
The trip itself was at an all-time-high price of zero dollars, since I’d scored us tickets to the MBC annual spring break cruise. Airfare and room expenses were covered; the only thing we had to contribute was drinks and excursions. Seeing as this was the Gulf of Mexico and our last college spring break, there would be lots of imbibing. Probably enough to make up for the cost of a cruise ticket.
Drew slammed the paper down on his lawn chair and smiled. “I’m kicking everyone’s ass.”
I pointed to the square in the middle, the paper folding over as a gust of wind ripped across the deck. “Wait. What is this about hooking up with someone in the group?”
Melissa shrugged and tucked a loose strand of her blonde hair behind her ear, avoiding direct eye-contact with me. “Take that as you will.”
Oh, girl. So not cool.
She’d be hearing more about this when we had some one-on-one time in the room later today.
My hair lashed against my cheeks and neck. I grabbed a scrunchie off my wrist and pulled my curls back into a bun before I started to resemble Cousin It. “That’s cheap. I’m related to one of the group members.”