“No, babe,” Jaimie softly coos, lifting my head up with her pointer finger, a solemn smile crooked on her mouth. “You aren’t being a sad lump of mush tonight.”
“But the PJ’s,” I mewl, tugging at the purple cotton shirt she lent me for tonight. I just couldn’t stand being alone at the house without knowing what’s going on with Grey. Knowing that he’s alone with another girl…“I want to stab his balls with a rusty knife,” I gripe and gasp, covering my dirty mouth and sitting up. “That was nasty, I’m—”
“Shut up, I am proud of you!” She beams like a proud mother, eyes glimmering. She may look like a Miss World winner with her radiant smile, but the evil glint in her eyes says her hobby is killing past winners. Which can only mean one thing…
“No. Whatever your malevolent mind is thinking—forget about it!”
She pouts and whines, “But you didn’t even hear what I was going to say.”
“Just hear her out, you wimp.” Julia nudges my shoulder with a smug grin. Oh no, I see the same twinkle of trouble in her eyes. They are so perfect for each other. Too perfect. Why can’t Grey and I be like that, perfect and uncomplicated?
“Sure.” I shrug. It’s not like I have anything better to do other than wallow in worry and despair.
“Since it’s Halloween and you’re being a whiny bitch, I was thinking we go out—party, live like we’re in our twenties,” Jaimie suggests, and I turn her words in my head, ignoring the snide remark about me.
“Problem there,” I say.
“What?” Julia raises a brow.
“I’m nineteen. Not legal yet.”
Jaimie scoffs. “As if you haven’t drunk so much you blacked out.” I redden because she’s right, shamefully so. Geez, if the past Liv could see me now. Debating whether to go out and party and drink illegally. She would guffaw and return her attention to a nice novel, cozied up by a fireplace. That does sound very tempting…
“…I think you’d be hotter as a nurse, to be honest,” she mumbles, and I blink a few times to make sure I’m not imagining she’s holding up incredibly short, revealing costumes of a nurse’s outfit and a firefighter get-up.
“Um, should I be worried as to why you have sexy costumes at hand?” I look between Julia and her apprehensively.
Julia smirks. “I think you should let it go now, while you can.”
“But…but she just got them from nowhere,” I breathe, shifting my gaze to Jaimie.
She tsks and reaches over to pat my hand softly. “Don’t question it, babe. Just—just let it go.”
It all clicks, and I look at the costumes, then at Julia’s smirk, then Jaimie’s sympathetic nodding. “Yuck…”
“Like you’ve never role-played with Grey,” Julia scoffs, and I choke on air.
“We have not!” I protest. Does she really think that? Jaimie’s eyes widen in agreement. I gasp. “W-we have not—gross! Guys, that’s for you, but us—can we please change the subject?” I cross my arms. I sigh in resentment and brush my hair back, refraining from turning my lower lip, a stupid habit picked up by Grey. “I’m thinking of just staying in and reading, anyway.”
“Heck no! We’re going out!” Jaimie raises a finger like she’s making a declaration.
“But—” I begin to protest. Nothing sounds better than The Great Gatsby and lavender tea and fuzzy socks. And Grey jolting behind me, holding me as he watches his dumb fighting channel…
“No buts! Now—” She holds up the two choices of barely there outfits. “Saving people from fire or heart palpitations?”
I hold my breath and imagine Grey and Red, driving through states, alone…“Neither, but I am going out. I need to clear my mind, or I will end up burning all of his things.”
“Oh, we can always do that after we get trashed.” Jaimie winks devilishly.
***
Nurses. So many nurses fill the fraternity house. But it’s not just nurses. There are also vampires and bunnies and cat ladies and so much more. They are all revealing and more ridiculous than the last. I’m pretty sure I saw a girl in color-me-red lingerie and devil horns and high heels. I could have come dressed in nothing but a thong and said I was a sumo wrestler. I wouldn’t be surprised but utterly grossed out if I see a girl doing that. Like, ew. Cover up, please.
I am so glad I came dressed in something simple. A lacy white dress and high heels and a halo. All from Jaimie’s closet of sexy-times. Shudder.
“You look hot. Wanna dance?” A tall boy wearing camouflage pants and a tight brown shirt presses himself to me, flashing me horrible bedroom eyes. His eyes linger on my chest.
I gasp. “No, thank you.”
“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes and walks away, muttering, “Bitch.”
“Rude!” I stick my tongue out at him. I should have never come to this. I was just really upset at the time and thought this would clear my mind. All it’s doing is pissing me off with the rude guys asking to dance, when all they want is to move our “tango” to the bedroom. If Grey were here…ugh. Grey. Why do I keep thinking of him?
“Drink?” a low, male voice says behind me.
“No! I do not want a flipping drink or to dance. So just back off!” I snap, tired of this endless charade. I wheel around on my heels and gasp. Mateo raises his brows at me, a knowing smirk on his face. “What are you doing here?”
“I transferred here. I told you when we first met. Ouch, you don’t remember?” He whistles and puts a hand to his chest, but that smirk remains, unflinching.
Oh, yeah. He did mention that…
“What are you doing here here, then?” I ask. He doesn’t peg me as the sort of person who’d come to these lame parties.
He shrugs and glances around. “Bored. My roommate invited me. Plus I thought I’d find some company tonight.”
Company? There’s plenty all around us. It’s practically a gathering pit of companies.
“Came to fuck,” he says bluntly.
“Oh.” I widen my eyes.
He chuckles and looks intently over my shoulder. “And I think I found my company for the night. Milady.” He bows at me playfully, and I curtsy him. I blush as he rises to his full height, brushing past me to saunter over to a guy dressed in a caveman outfit. Hard stomach, light eyes, and a smirk as Mateo approaches.
“Oh,” I repeat, turning back around. He must still be reeling from his breakup with Mason. When I was in the hospital when he came to see me after That Night, he was so gut-wrenched over the horrible acts of Mason and his sister that he immediately broke up with him. He loved him. He didn’t say it, but I knew by the look in his eyes. Poor Mateo, looking for a random booty call to fix his broken heart. I wish I could just erase That Night from existence forever…
Tight throat, I look around, unsure of what to do. Finally, I decide to search for Jaimie and Julia. I find them in the kitchen doing a line of shots. There are a bunch of people surrounding Julia as Jaimie goes down a line of ten shots, never stopping at one. Guess I’m the designated driver tonight. I wasn’t in the mood for drinking anyway.
The night is filled with me overlooking the girls as they dance in the mosh pit of grinding bodies dressed in fur and leather. I look around and shake my head, disappointed with myself. I told myself I’d never come back here, to a frat party. They always, and I mean always, end up horribly. But I guess no one’s bothering me at the moment, and I am enjoying this cup of apple juice.
“Ungggg, but you can’t—I’m just gon’ sit mmm r’might here now. O-okay.” A mumbling girl with bright red hair, dressed in a slutty maid outfit drops onto my lap.
Ugh. Oh great.
“Um, excuse me.” I gently push her upright.
She burps and pushes her hair out of her face, facing me. “Oh, hey, Livvvvv.”
“Diana,” I gripe and turn away, focusing on a guy dressed as Scooby Doo grinding against a girl dressed as Velma. There goes my childhood.
“Yuck, you’re still a pruuuude,” she slurs, turning her skinny nose uprig
ht.
I roll my eyes. She’s drunk, still a bitch, but drunk. I decide to ignore her, not punch her. I need to stop doing that. It’s not who I am, seriously.
“Where’s your Grey?” she asks, her disgusting voice next to my ear.
I scoot over, waving the smell of hot dogs, vodka, and piss away. “None of your business.”
She giggles in a high-pitched voice, falling in the space I moved from, electric blue eyes shooting daggers through me. “He left you for a ‘notha girl, din’t he?” she speaks slowly, rubbing her head. How much did she drink? She can barely speak.
“No,” I say a little softer, sad for the poor…nurse.
She cackles like a witch, which, funnily enough, is twerking in the middle of the floor a few feet away from us. “He so did. I knew…knew—assshole, dude.” She makes this horrible gagging sounds and leans over the couch to the floor. She looks ready to puke. I bite my lip and sit up. I feel bad; she’s about to throw up. Should I help?
Like that time when she helped lead you to believe she and Grey slept with each other, multiple times?
Her gagging becomes more apparent.
“Oh, geez Louise.” I am too nice for my own good. I stand up and pull at her hands, making her face me, red lipstick smearing on the leather couch. “Come on. Get up.”
“Don’—why, though?” She groans, slowly staggering to her feet.
“Because—” She is so heavy, but she’s so small, why? I wrap her arm around my shoulder and hold her up on her six-inch heels. “You are too drunk to be out here with these hormonal frat assholes.”
“No, leave me.” She pushes my face and tries to escape my grasp as we near the stairs.
“Will you—come on—stop it!” I drag her up one step, already exhausted. She is so freaking annoying, especially trashed-drunk.
“No, you’re annoying. No angel,” she slurs.
I roll my eyes and ignore her. We make it to the top of the stairs after what feels like an eternity. I drag her from room to room, each being…used. I pray the last one is unoccupied, or else I’ll have to throw her in a supply closet and hope no one makes a spill on the floor.
I slowly open the door and “Thank God!” it’s empty.
I dump her on one of the twin beds to the right of the room. She groans and moves around like a worm, trying to find a nice spot. Finding one by the wall, she falls asleep at a snap of my fingers. Finally. I cover her body with the blue comforter and look around to make sure she’s alone. Coming up empty except her very loud snoring, I lock the door behind me and slump against the door.
After that, I am exhausted and want my bed more than ever. I want to get the girls and head home. They were hesitant when I told them we should leave, but Julia agreed on her girl’s behalf when she threw up on a guy dressed as Barney. And I mean, he had the entire suit. Can you say creepy? Because I sure can. Shudder.
Finally, after an hour of dropping them off and going back home, I get to fall on my warm bed. But I have to get up early in the morning to drive Jaimie’s car back to her and take the bus going to the program. I just want to sleep and never get up for another century. I might call in sick for this one day, because something tells me I won’t be able to function tomorrow.
Just before I fall under the blanket of exhaustion, I hear voices. More like mumbling and shuffling. I sit up in bed, heart pumping rapidly. What the hell was that? Maybe Grey’s back. I smile before I remember he was gone for a few days with a girl, someone I barely know. A scowl rips its way across my face as I jump out of bed and storm out of the room.
“You have a lot of explaining to d—” I begin to rant, flipping on the switch. I gasp. “Noah?”
Noah shields from the light like a sewer rat. He grimaces and leans against a wall. “Red,” he mumbles with shame, pointing to a bruise under his right eye.
Red?
Red…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Come on, let’s sit you down and ice that,” I say, gesturing to his eye. He nods and lets me help him to the couch, moaning the whole way there. She must have gotten him pretty bad, or good in her perspective. But how? I didn’t know they even knew each other. What a small world…but how could she have done this if she’s God knows where with Grey…? I have so many questions and I think Noah can help answer some.
“What are you doing here in Pennsylvania?” I ask my first question from the batch I have lodged in my head. I listen for his answer as I leave him to get a frozen pack of peas in the freezer. They’re usually used for Grey when he comes up from fights or decides to flip that mental switch in his brain to crazy.
“I came looking for her,” he says. I furrow my brows in confusion. “She works here at some bar a few times out of the week. Apparently, she gets paid good money and is friends with the owner?”
So that’s why he was so dead-set on not giving me her number.
“We are talking about Red Red, right?” I walk over to him and sit next to him, crisscrossed legs. “Blonde hair, blue eyes, frightening scowl?”
He laughs fondly, licking his lips. “Yup. That’s my Red.” Then he sighs and winces as I gently press the peas to his eye.
My Red? Licking his lips?
“Are you two dating?” I gasp.
Redness seeps up from his collarbone to his cheeks. “I wouldn’t say ‘dating.’”
“So what would you say?” I tease a little, and he narrows his eyes at me. I smile.
“It’s something…complicated.” He sighs again and rolls his shoulders, obviously worked up over some unknown issue between him and her. But I can relate. Grey and I were “complicated” when we first started out.
“How did you guys meet?” He led me to believe that he was traveling the world. Did they meet while sky-diving in Taiwan?
His cheeks get even darker, and he rubs his neck. “Um, she was at the fraternity I’m staying at. She was kind of intimidating at first, but then I got to know her. We go to the same school,” he explains; there’s more with the way he is red as a meadow of bursting cherries.
“Sure…” I ignore the itch to smile. I am not in the state to tease about a complex relationship when mine is in shambles, because of my Grey and his Red. His Red…I never would have thought the two would cross paths, forget about dating. They’re just so…different.
Remind of you two people…?
I clear my throat, gesturing to the peas.
“And the bruise? Does she…hurt you often?” I ask softly.
Chuckling as if I’m insane, he waves his free hand. “She doesn’t hurt me. If I were in an abusive relationship, I would be dead first. No.” He shakes his head and clears his throat, shifting uncomfortably until he sighs and says in a low voice, “I said a really nasty thing to her because, well, she and Grey have become close, and I just thought the worst when I found out they’ve been…on the road. Which—” He looks at me incredulously. “How are you fine with that?”
“I’m not. Keep going.” I smile, strained.
His brows clunk together, mouth twisting up to the right, concern dripping from his vivid green eyes. I give him a look of begging to continue before I burst into a ball of frustrated tears. Oh no. Julia and Jaimie were right; I am pathetic.
“Anyway, she swung the meanest right hook and gave me Ed.” He taps the pack of peas, a sad smile tugging his lips down. “My bruise.”
“Ed?” I laugh. “Why Ed of all names?”
“Oh, I’m sorry my name-picking abilities aren’t superb right after being punched.” He does this little chuckle and eye roll that makes me snort in laughter, throwing my head back and tapping his shoulder. I give him a little push, and he pulls my big toe playfully.
“Hey, don’t injure me just because you are.” I try to pull my foot away, but he grabs the whole thing and glides his fingers around, bringing my tickling senses to life.
“If I’m suffering, so are you,” he says with the biggest smile on his face. The light purple bruise surrounding his shocking
green eyes looks weird, like it doesn’t belong there on his handsome face. But he wears it kind of proudly, as if to say, “My girl has a temper, but at least she’s mine.”
“Tell me more about you and Red.” I sit up suddenly, pulling my feet under me.
“You’re no fun.” He rests his head on the headrest, lips jutted in a forlorn frown. I rest my head on the headrest too and let the smile overtake my features.
“Shut up and tell me about your Red.”
He sighs subtly in relief like he’s been waiting to talk about her. And talk he did. He went on and on about how they met, how she first hated him, how she grew warmer toward him. He told me about some nose-touching thing they did, didn’t understand it, but he laughed it off and smiled a blushed, dimpled smile because it’s their secret thing. Just…everything. A grin glided across his face, and his eyes shone with adoration and excitement. He was out of breath when he finally finished.
“So, do you know why they just up and left?” he asks, calming down slightly from his Red rampage.
My turn to talk, huh?
I lean my chin on my brought-up knees, twist my charm, while tugging my bottom lip with my tongue. “No. I just came home one day, and he was gone…” I don’t even attempt to hide the dejection in my voice. He vanished into the wind without telling me if something was wrong, and I know there was a missing part in his little note. I threw that stupid note out, and I wish I could do the same with him. Who just does that? And if Red is back, where is he…?
A light touch on my hand makes me perk up. Noah’s eyes are like refined daggers, strong and bold, but his lips are curved and soft. “You guys will figure it out. You’ve been through hell and back, so I’m sure this is nothing.”
“It’s just…I don’t know. Maybe he’s hiding something from me, but that wouldn’t make sense. We’ve been on the straight and narrow for a while. A few bumps here and there, but we were solid as far as I knew. I just wished I didn’t have to worry about what else will get in our way, waiting for the next heartache. I want more than anything for him to come to me for anything. Not leave me and go God knows where with some girl,” I add quickly, apologetic.
Grey: New Beginnings (Spectrum Series Book 5) Page 25