Palm South University: Season 2 Box Set Read online

  “Fuck yeah it is!”

  “Not sure if your intention was to make little boys cry tonight but if it was, you’re spot on.” Ashlei shakes her head. “You’re going to be fighting them off all night.”

  I smirk. “My only goal right now is to finish this handle. You two want to help me get started?”

  “You know this is a wine mixer… meaning you’re supposed to get sloshed on wine,” Ashlei points out.

  Shrugging, I twist the top off the bottle and tilt it to my lips with a wink. “Whiskey works faster.”

  Bo and Ashlei exchange looks as I take three hits from the bottle without flinching, even though the shit burns like hell. It’s not that I never drink, it’s just that I usually stick to a few beers. Tipsy is about as far as I’ve ever gone, but that all changes tonight.

  Realizing Grayson isn’t anywhere near them as I wipe the corners of my mouth, careful not to smear my lipstick, I frown. “Did Grayson not show?”

  Ashlei chews her cheek, her fingers twisting in her long blonde hair. “Sorry, Cassie. We waited an extra twenty minutes before leaving the house but we didn’t hear from him.”

  My heart sinks a little. I set Grayson up to get here with Ashlei so I could finish getting ready and surprise him, too, tonight. Before the disappointment can wash in too much, I take another shot and offer the bottle to the girls, but they both decline and hold up their red plastic cups filled with white wine.

  “Wine pong?” I ask, nodding toward the tables set up outside. This jacket is just as hot as it makes me look, and luckily it’s chilly outside tonight. It’s probably the last cold night we’ll have until after fall, so we might as well enjoy it.

  The girls agree and we set up quickly, reeling in some random Omega Chi pledge to be my partner against Bo and Ashlei. I sink the first cup without even hitting the rim and that’s when I feel the whiskey settle in, the warmth spreading from my stomach to my toes.

  I can feel it, tonight’s going to be a good night.

  MATH AND SCIENCE HAVE ALWAYS been my strengths in school, which means I should have seen this coming.

  Half a bottle of whiskey plus countless plastic cups of wine equals a very drunk, very smiley Cassie McBee.

  Still, my makeup is holding up and I’m keeping myself together, heels and all, like a champ. The random Omega Chi pledge is actually a freshman like me. His name is Todd and we’ve been running the pong table ever since we stepped up to it. When we win our eighth straight game in a row, I climb onto the table on my knees and swing my hair around to the music, thumbing the strings of an air guitar like I’m Jimi Hendrix as the crowd gathered around us cheers.

  The moment his skin touches mine, I freeze.

  I don’t even have to turn around. I don’t even have to look down at the hand hooked around the crease of my elbow. I think I felt him before he even touched me, and that’s even scarier.

  Slowly, I climb off the table, fixing my hair as I come face to face with deep, chocolate brown eyes — eyes that are absolutely on fire.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Adam asks, scowling, his hand still on my arm. I shake it off and hang a hand on my hip.

  “Running the table. Want downs on the next ass-kicking?” I try my best not to slur my words, but I’m eighty-seven percent sure I fail.

  His frown deepens. “You’re drunk.”

  “And youuu are a buzz kill,” I say sweetly, booping his nose with my pointer finger before prancing off to my spot behind the table.

  Adam follows, hooking my arm again and pulling me away from the crowd as I protest.

  “Hey!”

  “You need water.”

  “I’m fine,” I argue, ripping my arm from his grasp once more. This time I stand firm, crossing my arms over my chest, trying hard to focus on his slightly-blurry face. “And, once again, I need to remind you that you’re not my boyfriend. Or my father, for that matter.”

  Adam sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t realize I had to be either of those to care about you.”

  I scoff, rolling my eyes as he lifts his to stare at me with more questions than I care to answer right now. “Whatever. Is this not enough, Adam? Am I not ring girl material yet? Want me to strip off this jacket and hold it over my head like a round three sign?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Hey, there you are.” Grayson slides up beside me, wrapping an arm around my waist and pulling me into him for a panty-melting kiss. My brain fuzzy from the alcohol, I let the kiss sink in, feeling it weakening every limb.

  “You came,” I whisper against his lips.

  Grayson pulls back, smiling, his blue eyes hot on mine. “I came.” Adam clears his throat and Grayson turns to shake his hand, but his other arm stays fixed around me. “Hey man, nice to see you again.”

  “Likewise,” Adam says, but his eyes don’t move from where they’ve pinned me. “Cassie, please, drink some water. Just a little and I’ll leave you alone. You don’t need to be stumbling around in this with all these horny pledges around.” He gestures toward my outfit, pain etched in his forehead for reasons unbeknownst to me.

  “I think she looks hot,” Grayson says, grip tightening on my hip. “And I’m pretty sure I can handle any asshole who even thinks about touching her. And I do mean any asshole.” With that last line he glares pointedly at Adam. Adam’s jaw tenses and Grayson stands taller.

  And now we’re in a pissing contest.

  “Grayson, can you grab me a cup of water from the kitchen? I’ll meet you in there.” I say the words softly, but it does nothing to pull his icy stare from Adam. Framing his face in my hands, I press my lips to his and make him look at me, instead. “I’m right behind you. Promise.”

  With that he relaxes, kissing me back with purpose before finally letting me go and making his way inside. When my eyes find Adam again, a sharp, tiny pang shoots through my chest. Why is it so hard to breathe?

  “I’ll grab a water, and then I need to get back to the table.”

  I make to turn, but Adam stops me, gripping both my arms in his rough hands. “Cassie, look at me.” I don’t. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I look down at my freshly manicured toes, instead. “Look. At. Me,” he demands again, but the moment I do, I wish I wouldn’t have. I’ve never had eyes look straight through me before. Adam takes a breath, one that takes mine with it, and then he says what we both know to be true.

  “This isn’t you.”

  Swallowing, I stand as straight as I can. “Don’t act like you know who I am.”

  “Oh, but he does?” he gestures to where Grayson just disappeared in the crowd without taking his eyes off mine. “I call bullshit.”

  “Well, he doesn’t confuse me.”

  “And I do?”

  My ears fuzzy, I answer only the way an intoxicated, uninhibited girl can.

  “No one confuses me more.”

  Adam’s hands drop from my arms, and I watch as the number of questions in his eyes multiplies at my words.

  “Goodnight, Adam.”

  With that, I spin on my heels and walk with shaky ankles into the house, wondering if it was the leather jacket or the alcohol that gave me the balls to say what I just did. Maybe it was both.

  Or maybe I had just lost the resolve to hold it back any longer.

  IT’S JUST AFTER FOUR IN THE MORNING by the time Grayson and I crash through the door of his dorm room, all tangled arms and heavy breaths. The alcohol still buzzing through me intensifies every touch, every kiss, and I try as hard as I can but I can’t seem to take a full breath.

  Grayson pulls me back to his room, pushing me against his door to close it behind us before dragging his tongue along the skin of my neck. I moan, tiny alarms sounding in my head to no avail — his touch is too loud for me to hear anything else.

  Breaking from our kiss, Grayson leans his forehead against mine. “You are so sexy in that outfit,” he breathes and my confidence disappears, a blush breaking on my cheeks. “But I bet you
can’t wait to change.”

  I laugh. “These pants are the worst.”

  Smirking, Grayson pushes off the door and yanks open the first drawer on his tall dresser, tossing me a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. Rolling the fabric in my hands, I chew my bottom lip, trying to decipher my next move. My hands trembling, I drop the clothes on the edge of his bed and slip out of my jacket, letting it fall to the floor where my eyes are fixed. Slowly, button by button, I undo my pants, finally finding the nerve to flick my eyes to Grayson. His blue pools are on my fingertips, nostrils flaring. When my hands find the hem of my crop top and I pull it up and over my head, my hair falling against my naked back, he pushes a long breath from his lips and squeezes his eyes shut.

  “God, why do I have to be a gentleman?”

  I pause, my voice just above a whisper. “What do you mean?”

  Grayson opens his eyes just enough to grab the shirt and boxers on the bed and press them into my hands, covering my chest, though his hands hover there for a moment while he tries to steady his breathing. “Cassie, I want nothing more than to take you right now. Right here. In my bed, on this floor, in that shower…” he trails off, releasing his grip on the clothes to run a hand through his hair. “But you’re drunk. I’m drunk. And I don’t want my first time with you to be tainted with alcohol.”

  My first instinct is to be upset, but the way he’s looking at me, blue eyes pained, heart beating hard enough for me to hear it — I know it’s as hard for him to say no as it is for me to hear it.

  “My bathroom is right there,” he says, gesturing to the door behind me. “Get changed and then come back in here so I can hold you.”

  My heart leaps and I smile, stepping up on my toes to kiss him quickly before escaping to the bathroom. I don’t catch my breath as I change, so when I join him again, crawling into his sheets as he turns down the lights, I feel like I may explode if he doesn’t touch me.

  As if he can sense it, Grayson pulls me into him, my back against his chest, and a flash memory of being in Adam’s bed assaults me in the darkness. Twisting in his arms to face him, I shake the thought, focusing on the man with his arms around me, instead. We lie with our eyes locked, his fingers lazily tracing the hem of his boxers on my hip bone.

  “I think I might really like you, Grayson Anderson,” I whisper in the darkness.

  He swallows, taking his hand from my hip just long enough to run it back through my hair and pull me in for a kiss. “Likewise, Cassie McBee.”

  And just like that, another player is added to the game.

  MY FIRST THOUGHT IS THAT it’s hot as balls in my room.

  Kicking the covers off, I blindly reach for my phone and squint through the sunlight filling my small room to peek at the time.

  Two o’clock.

  PM.

  Mouth dry, I pull a pillow over my head to block out the light, groaning. When a small, warm body snuggles up next to me, my eyes fly open. Peeking under the pillow, I spot bright purple tendrils sprawled on my chest and I sigh, smiling, pulling Shawna in closer.

  “Morning,” she says, her voice hoarse.

  I chuckle. “Morning.”

  “I stayed the night.”

  “You stayed the night.”

  She pauses for a moment, thinking, then plants a kiss on my chest. “I’m hungry.”

  I laugh just as my door swings open and Skyler bounds through.

  “Scoot over,” she says, crawling into bed on the other side of me before I have the chance to say otherwise. When she notices the other girl in the bed, she smiles, blue eyes bright. “Oh my God, you must be Shawna! I’m Skyler, Bear’s Little. I’ve heard so much about you!”

  “Same here, chica!”

  “I brought bagels again,” Skyler says, tossing the bag in my lap. I’m still trying to process the fact that I have two girls in my bed right now.

  “You da real MVP,” Shawna says, rummaging through it like a raccoon, hair a mess, mascara smeared from having my dick rammed down her throat last night.

  Again, still processing here.

  “How was the tournament?” I ask Skyler, propping my pillow up behind me.

  “Long, but I won.” She waggles her eyebrows and I throw her a high five. “More importantly, how was the fucking Fratalina Wine Mixer?! Tell me everything.”

  “Well, let’s see.” I rub my chin, the pieces of last night slowly coming together. “We had slap the bag tournaments. Ashlei and Bo actually won, believe it or not.”

  “Those girls can drink some wine.”

  “Indeed. And your Little showed up with that dude who bought her at the auction. She was dressed way differently than she usually is — all black, leather jacket, crazy makeup. Turned a lot of heads.”

  “My Little?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cassie.”

  “Cassie.”

  Skyler chews on that for a moment. “Interesting.”

  “Yeah. Your boyfriend was here, too,” I add, shifting a bit.

  “Really? That’s awesome. I was afraid he wouldn’t come since I didn’t.”

  “I think he enjoyed himself.”

  She smiles. “That’s good.”

  What I don’t tell her is that I didn’t just see Adam. In fact, I had a pretty drunken heart-to-heart with him after seeing the scene between him and Cassie unfold. I don’t know where the kid’s head is at, but I know for fucking sure that I’m not going to sit back and watch him dick Skyler or Cassie around — and I told him that. He assured me he would never hurt either of them, but I could see it on his face — confusion. Adam Brooks is caught up in a game I’m not even sure he knows he’s playing. By the time he left, I know I had his wheels spinning. I just hope he takes the time to think about what he wants right now.

  “What about Ex?” Skyler asks as Shawna passes her the bagel bag, licking cream cheese spread off her fingers.

  Focus, Bear.

  “Yeah she was here for a while. She mostly hung around that dude from the auction.”

  “She’s been weird lately. Distant. More controlling than normal.”

  I laugh. “Is that possible?”

  Skyler shakes her head. “I wish I was joking.”

  The girls start talking about how Skyler got into poker and I take my opportunity to relieve myself. When I’m behind the bathroom door, I remember the interaction between Erin and me last night. She practically avoided me all night, which isn’t anything out of the normal, really, but when we did end up in the same place and I tried talking to her, she teared up, running out of the room without so much as a word.

  And she was worried about me after we hooked up.

  There’s a reason everyone calls her Ex.

  I wash my hands and make my way back into my room, casually picking up the random trash from the night before. Skyler and Shawna are cuddled up, staring at something on Shawna’s phone and laughing.

  “Are you cleaning?” Shawna asks.

  “Just picking up a little.”

  “Oh, can you put on a little apron?” Shawna sits up in bed, excited.

  “Maybe use one of those little feather dusters?” Skyler adds.

  “Yes! And talk with a French accent.”

  They high five and I just stand there gaping.

  “Shit,” I murmur, scrubbing my hands down my face. “I’m in real trouble with you two, aren’t I?”

  They both giggle and settle back into the sheets, their direction fixed on the phone again. I shake my head just as a loud knock sounds at the front door.

  “No making out while I’m gone.” I say pointedly, mostly to Skyler.

  “No promises.” She winks and Shawna holds up two fingers, lewdly waving her tongue between them.

  Lord help me.

  I can’t quite shake that image from my head as I walk down the hall, but when I wade through the brothers sleeping on the floor and the trash spread everywhere and find Alec on the other side of the peep hole, my stomach drops.

  Squinting at the su
n as I open the door just a fraction, hoping to hide the mess inside from the one alumni who’s managed to shut us down for half a semester, I force a smile.

  “Hey, Alec. What brings you by?”

  His jaw is set, mouth in a thin line, and it dawns on me that I probably don’t want to know the answer to my own question.

  “We need to talk.”

  I’M DYING.

  Death by sinus infection.

  Rest in peace. And mounds of tissues.

  When I woke up yesterday morning with a stiff jaw and heavy head, I knew I couldn’t push off going to the doctor any longer. If my voice wasn’t an indication that there was way too much mucus happening in my head, my puffy cheeks definitely were. So, after I helped Cassie channel her inner Christina Aguilera circa 2002, I dragged my snotty ass down to the health clinic and faced my verdict.

  Severe sinus infection.

  And, because my luck is just the best, I made it to the campus pharmacy six minutes after they’d closed for a mid-semester celebration, whatever the fuck that means. So not only did I have to miss the Fratalina Wine Mixer because I felt like shit, but I also couldn’t even get the meds started to make me feel better.

  Perfect.

  But, finally, here I am — in line to pay for my antibiotics and a can of condensed soup so I can start getting my life back on track. Spring Break is in a week, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a snot head in a bikini come then.

  “Jess?”

  Shit.

  Shit shit shit.

  I don’t even want to turn around, but at this point, I’m busted. Moving slowly as if I’m in the presence of a poisonous snake, I force a smile, cringing simultaneously at the thought of what I look like right now just as Jarrett’s face comes into view.

  Pissed is an understatement.

  I wait for him to yell, scream, ask me why the hell I’ve been ignoring him — but instead, his eyes rake over my body, catching on the pharmacy bag clutched in my right hand.

  “You’re sick.”

  I chew my lip in response and he blows out a breath, closing his eyes for a short moment before springing into action. Snatching the soup from my hand, he walks it back to its place on the shelf with me trailing behind.