by Rose, L. A.
I spot Brooklyn across the room, a glass frozen in her fist. She whispers something to Sigrid, whose wide-eyed moment of surprise that I actually went through with it gives way to a cool, false mask of indignance. She surges over, her skin growing as livid as her hair as she sees that I’m smiling. Her sheer top and high-waisted Prada skirt run the risk of catching on fire. She grabs my arm, her polished fingernails digging into my bare skin. I’m one shaved head away from being a carbon copy of the girl she left in the desert. But I expected the fire-breather to come after me the moment I stepped into her den.
“What. Are. You. Wearing,” she grits out loud enough so that everyone can hear.
I’ll play her game. “Nothing! I figured this was the safest way to avoid showing up in the same outfit as someone else. Well, I guess one could say I’m wearing my birthday suit. But I don’t want people to think it’s my birthday. That’s not until February.” I pat her arm. “By the way, you shouldn’t speak through your teeth like that. Makes it awfully hard to understand you.”
Behind me, Iris knocks back two shots in quick succession. Poor girl. After a year with me as her roommate, she’ll be driven to alcoholism. Mags is hovering nearby with her hands up, like she’s at the scene of a shooting.
“You were instructed to dress modestly.” Still speaking loudly through her teeth. Bad habit.
“Oh no!” I clap my hand to my chest in an excellent approximation of horror, narrowly avoiding slapping myself in the tit. “I thought you said dress as sexy as possible, and I always feel sexiest when I’m like this, so that’s what I did! But I was wrong! Woe is me! You have to let me go home and don my nun habit.”
Broadway, here I come. I could totally star alongside Daniel Radcliffe in that naked horse play. Equus or something. As Iris chokes on her third shot, a smirk spreads over Sigrid’s face. “As punishment for not following directions, you won’t be allowed to put anything on all night.”
“Please, show mercy. Oh, the gods are cruel. Is that Kahlua over there?”
I waltz away as Sigrid glowers after me. Slowly, the party returns to its normal tempo, although stares still shoot toward me every few seconds. As they should. I consider the day a waste unless at least five longing looks are directed toward me before breakfast.
The gorgeous guy who face-planted outside approaches me as I pour myself a glass of Kahlua. “You’re naked,” he observes with the eloquence of a drunk athlete.
“Sure am, genius.” I glance down at my splendidly nude self and toss back half the glass before holding it out again. “Top me off, would you?”
Soon, I’m seated on the counter, the marble cool against my bare ass as I hold court with at least six boys. Iris and Mags hover nearby, unsure if they should be protecting me or not, but I don’t need protection.
“—And that’s when I joined the nudist colony,” I continue, my legs swinging. “Refill this, be a dear, would you, Damien? Anyway, after running away from home at the age of three and traveling the wilderness for years, you can imagine I was a little nervous to be around human beings again. But they soon realized how fantastic I looked naked, and it wasn’t long until they made me their queen.”
“You do look fantastic naked,” declares a boy who looks like he walked straight off the cover of Playgirl.
“You’re drooling, Calem, you should take care of that.”
“I’ll make you my queen,” offers a brown-eyed hunk. I study him. I could work with him.
“I have your drink!” Damien rushes back over, nearly spilling it.
“Why don’t you keep that, darling. I have to convene with my handmaiden,” I say. Iris has been sulking near the cooler and beckoning me—oddly enough, with her middle finger—for the last ten minutes. I slide out of my circle of boys and trip lightly over to her.
“You are loving this,” she growls as I loop an arm around her shoulders.
“As a matter of fact, I am. Damien just invited me to the Bahamas with him for winter break. His family has a house there. Can you believe that?”
“What I can believe is that Sigrid is about to skin you alive.” Iris jerks her chin in the direction of the fire-breather, whose eyes are like windows into hell itself. She is not enjoying the fact that I am enjoying myself.
“I’ve been basking in her glare for the last hour. Do you think I’m getting a tan?” I gesture down at myself. “At least I won’t have to worry about any tan lines.”
“Fiona, isn’t it?”
Iris’s back suddenly goes ramrod-straight. I turn and Brooklyn is next to me, a slightly weary smile on her lips. She’s absolutely stunning in a long silver gown, her hair gathered into a knot at her crown. “Let me guess. Everything’s in the laundry?”
“Oh yeah. All the machines are always filled on Sundays and I figured this would be my best chance to get it all done,” I say brightly. She really doesn’t know about Sigrid after all.
“Be careful, Fiona.” Brooklyn shakes her head. “There’s nothing wrong with going a little crazy your first few weeks at school—a lot of girls do—but you don’t want to get yourself in any dangerous situations. You’ll have to keep an eye on her.”
She nods at Iris, who turns pale and stammers, “Right. Yes. Okay.”
“How’s your sister doing?” Brooklyn smiles. “She and I are good friends, you know.”
“Oh, she’s great! We talk all the time. Every day,” Iris babbles. I choke on my drink, remembering how quickly Iris hung up on Daisy.
“We were all very proud of her when she graduated early for that senator internship. She’s a smart girl, your sister. You’ve got a lot to live up to.”
“Don’t I know it,” says Iris quietly. I glance at her, but just then, Amber rushes over. She definitely went overboard on the modesty thing—she looks like she raided my Aunt Caroline’s closet. But Aunt Caroline has probably never worn such an expression of excitement and panic in her life.
“He’s coming! Brookie, he’s coming to this party! I just got a text from Sarah who heard from Chelsea that he was stopping by!”
Exasperation flashes across Brooklyn’s face before she regains her composure. “Ah. Sigrid must be beside herself.”
“Who’s ‘he’?” I ask, though I have a sinking feeling I already know the answer.
Amber takes a good few seconds to giggle meanly at my nakedness before answering. “James Reid. Duh.”
There’s a heartbeat of silence, and then Iris grabs my arm and drags me into the kitchen.
“You have to leave the party.” She gives me a little shake. In the living room, an excited hum rises as the truth spreads. “Now. Before he gets here.”
“But Sigrid said I had to stay at least three hours! And I’m having so much fun.” I shake free and pop open the fridge, suddenly hungry. “Do you think they have pickles, I’m craving a pickle—ew, that tuna salad has been in here at least a week.”
“Fiona!” Iris slams the fridge shut, nearly taking off my hand, and puts her hands on my shoulders. She’s genuinely concerned about me. It’s kind of cute. “How much do you trust this guy not to make it obvious that you two have slept together?”
I remember the fire alarm. James saw what he wanted, and he took it. And there’s no way he wouldn’t want me tonight. “Not very.”
“Then you have to hide.” She pushes me toward the staircase. “Upstairs. Now. You’d be better jumping out the window than Sigrid seeing James hit on you. I’ll text you updates for what’s going on downstairs.”
For once in my life, I have to admit that she’s right. I head up the stairs as sneakily as I can and dart into the nearest bedroom, shutting the door behind me. The smell hits me in a wave of gross old socks and Axe. I choke, kick a pile of dirty laundry into the closet, and shut the door. The owner of this bedroom will thank me later.
I’m a little drunker than I thought. I weave toward the open window and look down. The drop wouldn’t kill me. Probably. There’s a lovely bush I could land in.
Tex
t from Iris: Okay, Sigrid is demanding all the girls assemble downstairs so she can keep an eye on them when James gets here. She’s asking where you are.
There’s no way I can hide in the closet. I just kicked a pile of dirty laundry in there. If anyone comes looking for me, I won’t have anywhere to run.
~8~
Life is all about making choices.
At this particular moment, my choice is between A: jumping naked into a bush from a second-story window and B: getting torn to shreds by a gorgeous girl in Prada.
The devil really does wear it.
Text from Iris: Amber says that if you’re not downstairs in 3.5333 seconds she’s coming to get you.
It’s funny how jumping out of a window suddenly becomes a good idea when you’re drunk. I run one finger under the sill. Mildew. That’s the problem with frat houses. No upkeep. Dust and mold and debauchery piling up everywhere.
Text from Iris: Don’t jump out the window yet.
Even the music pulsing from the living room has dimmed. The mockingbird in the tree across the yard has shut up. Anticipation is as thick in the air as pot smoke. He’s coming. He’s selected this particular house party on this particular night to attend, and we’re all more important because of it.
Text from Iris: Okay, no, she’s leaving to find you. Window is best option. Tuck and roll.
I squint at the bush. Maybe it’s the darkness and the drunkenness, but it doesn’t look too uncomfortable. I bet California hobos sleep there all the time. With any luck, not right now.
I close my eyes and count to twenty.
On twenty-one, someone pounds on the bedroom door.
“Uh, we’re having hot drunk sex in here,” I grunt in my best impression of a wasted frat boy.
“Fiona, I know that’s you. Open the door or I’m breaking it down. This is not behavior worthy of our sisterhood.”
Neither is breaking down doors, but that’s not going to stop her. Keeping my eyes shut, I imagine the bush as a large, comfortable creature, somewhere between the Cookie Monster and the Pillsbury Doughboy, waiting to catch me with open arms. No Prada in sight. I swing my other bare leg over the sill and jump the only way I know how—all at once.
I’m falling and pinwheeling and realizing at the worst possible moment that I forgot to take off my stripper heels, and then the bush catches me. Except it’s less Pillsbury Doughboy and more Hardbury Muscleman. And it’s less of a catch and more of a smashing both of us into the ground.
“Fuck,” someone groans beneath me. It’s not a bush, it’s a man, and to my endless regret, it’s not the first time I’ve straddled him naked.
James Reid.
Even with my life in dire peril, the sensation of his body beneath me turns my thighs to jelly. His dark blonde hair is swept off his forehead, his eyes a reminder of what a stormy sky looks like when it’s noon in Colorado. My hands are on the hard contours of his chest, my nose inches from his shocked expression, and thanks to the positioning of my lady parts, I can feel exactly what happens when he notices how very naked I am.
“Are you okay?” he asks, which is not the first thing I expected to hear from the mouth of doesn’t-care-about-nobody, too-good-for-everybody James Reid.
“Since you caught me, yes,” I manage.
He nods, still beneath me, the damp grass soaking into my knees. “Good. Now get the fuck off and try not to fall out of the sky next time someone’s walking below you.”
There it is. The assholery he’s famous for, the kind the press loves to burn him for but he still gets away with it because he’s such a damn fine actor. And because he’s so damn fine.
I’m about to tell him exactly why I’ve plotted his murder eight different ways since last week when Amber sticks her head out the window.
If she sees me naked on top of James Reid in the beer-soaked grass, she will break several world records in how quickly it takes to decapitate someone.
I spin James in front of me and shove him into the bush. Fortunately, there are no thorns or hobos. Just facefuls of branches and leaves. James is too stunned to speak—it’s not every day that a world-famous actor gets shoved into a bush by a naked college freshman—and I take advantage of his silence, pushing him into the dirt on his back and covering his mouth with my hand.
“Fiona?” Amber yells above us, blood in her voice.
I took further advantage of James’s involuntary silence to tell him off. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me who you were. Do you have any idea how much trouble you got me into?” I hiss just loudly enough for him to hear.
“Are you down there, Fiona? Everyone’s waiting for you.”
I stab my thumb upwards. “Do you hear that? That is the sound of my death. If she finds out I slept with you, I am fucked. And not the good kind.”
Amber finally lets out a frustrated grunt and lets the window slam shut. I take my hand from James’s mouth. He sits up slowly, still cover-photo gorgeous even with twigs in his messy dark-blonde hair. His storm-blue eyes are burning, and when he opens his mouth, I know that I’m about to get it.
Instead, he kisses me.
Hard, like fire, like a whiplash, his lips sear into mine, knocking the breath from me. Like lightning he has me on my back, pinning me into the dirt like how I had him barely seconds ago. His mouth ranges over my neck, toward my breasts, and as my head falls back and I gasp, as I fumble to feel him with my free hand and we tear at each other like two starving lions finally loosed, I realize that life really is all about choices.
At this particular moment, my choice is between A: getting hazed to death and B: getting it on with James Reid. Again.
Then again, sometimes your body makes choices for you.
I let my head fall back, gasping as branches press into my back and James Reid presses into my front. The sight of me naked has put a wild look in his eyes. And the sight of that wild look fills me with fire. I forget about Sigrid, forget about everybody. All I want is his hands, his skin on my skin. Yet again, he’s flicked my crazy switch.
But no. I swore I wouldn’t do this again.
“Get off me, you crazy bastard,” I grunt, gearing up for a shove, but he notes my resistance and sits back immediately. There are twigs in his more-tousled-than-usual hair, and the moonlight lines his whole body with silver. My mouth waters, but I slurp the saliva back. Stop it, Fiona.
He actually gives his head a little shake, like a punch-drunk dog trying to get water out of its ears. It’s adorable and unexpected. And I realize that he’s as much of a victim to this insane force between us as I am.
“Why are you naked?” he finally asks, his eyes narrowing. “Put some damn clothes on.”
“I’ll be naked if I want to be naked, thank you very much.”
He starts to stand, but I grab his collar and pull him back down.
“Listen to me, and listen to me good. You can’t tell anyone we slept together. You can’t even hint at it. Because if word gets out, I’m good as dead. I’m a member of Phi Delta Chi. Got it?”
“Should have known,” he says coolly, though his eyes betray his desperate hunger for my body. “You’re too hot and too crazy not to be.”
“Damn straight. Do I have your word?”
“You have it, as well as my medical bill for several cracked bones.” He extends his arm experimentally. I snort.
“You’re fine. I’m a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
Before he can retort, I hop out of the bush and brush myself off. We can’t go in together, so I hurry ahead of him, popping through the front door. Sigrid spots me immediately. She’s practically frothing at the mouth.
“There you are,” Amber growls, halfway down the stairs. In her spot beside the cooler, I notice Iris gazing at me in shock. I pick a few twigs out of my hair as Sigrid flies over to me.
“Get out of here now,” she hisses. I smirk. She didn’t know James was coming tonight, and no doubt she doesn’t want him to see how good I look naked.
“But m
y three hours aren’t up,” I whine, and proceed to waltz back over to my circle of boys, who seem to know exactly why all the girls are flipping out and look thoroughly displeased about it.
By the time James walks through the front door, I’m back on the counter, regaling them with more of Fiona’s Nudist Colony Adventures.
I make a point not to notice him, although I could have heard Sigrid purring at him from a million miles away. I chance one glance over my shoulder and she’s apparently finding it difficult to hand him a beer without wrapping herself around him first. So much for no touching.
Now that James is here, the party notches up. The music gets louder, everyone gets a little drunker as soon as possible. Suddenly all the girls are dancing and shoving away any boy who tries to join them, tossing looks over their shoulder at James. But James, I am pleased to see, isn’t looking at any of them.
He’s only looking at me.
Buck naked and surrounded by hot men.
And the next time I chance a glance over, he’s heading straight in my direction, with a fuming Sigrid in the background. He muscles straight into the center of my harem, earning himself disgusted looks from every single member.
I look him up and down, feigning disinterest. “Jared, isn’t it? No, James. Jim. Jimmy. Jimothy. Can I call you Jimothy?”
“I told you to put some clothes on,” he says darkly.
“And I told you to fuck off, but you didn’t listen to me, so why should I listen to you?”
“You haven’t told me to fuck off.”
“I have now,” I say lightly. Damien and Calem high-five. James spares them such an icy look that their arms wilt downward like flowers.
“Leave,” he growls at them.
Damien puffs himself up like the world’s lamest chicken. “We’ll leave if Fiona wants us to.”
“Leave,” James repeats. The word sweeps over the room like an icy cold breeze from the asscrack of Antarctica. He’s really got the serial killer vibe going on. Even I have to resist the urge to jump up and run for the hills. I don’t blame my harem for scattering, leaving me sitting naked and undefended on the counter, at the mercy of James Reid.