Chapter One
S O P H I A
“Carter.”
He didn’t answer, even as I put my hand on his shoulder to shake him. It felt weird to touch him—like I was invading his privacy—even though he was lying on my bed, drooling from the right side of his mouth onto my Vera Bradley comforter. It didn’t get more intimate than that.
“Carter!” I whisper-screamed into his ear, and he jolted. “You gotta get out of here.”
He rubbed a hand down his face, which was somehow still boyishly handsome even though the right side held indentations from where my sheets had bunched under him.
“Sorry, Sophia. I must’ve fallen asleep.”
“It’s fine. I think the other girls are still asleep. It’s early.”
Looking at his watch, he said, “Let’s go back to sleep. I don’t have class for another two hours.” He let his head fall back onto the bed, eyes already closed, his floppy light-brown hair falling over them.
I grabbed his hand and tugged, trying my hardest to pull him off the bed.
“Get up!” I tried one more time with all my strength but was only able to slide his body a few inches. Damn athletes. It was like trying to drag a bag of rocks.
He flashed an impish smile, and I gave him a shove.
“I’m serious. Aamee’s gonna kill me if she sees you here.”
“Screw Aamee.”
“She’d like you to do that, I’m sure,” I said with a chuckle.
“I’m not interested.”
“Don’t tell her that. Don’t tell her anything. Just get out before she sees you.”
Finally, he seemed ready to comply, his long limbs spreading into a morning stretch. He moved around the room—albeit slowly for a wide receiver—packing up his bag with the books we used last night.
“What’s the big deal? We were studying.”
“I know that. Aamee will think differently, though, if she sees you leaving in the morning instead of last night.”
“Aamee, Aamee, Aamee,” he said with a laugh. “She doesn’t even spell her name right. Who cares what she thinks?”
I tried my best to convey the severity of the situation through my expression, but Carter Blaine wasn’t known for taking much of anything seriously other than football and Bud Light.
“I do. She’s the sorority president.”
“It’s not like she can kick you out for having a guy spend the night. Coed sleepovers are like…one of the foundations of Greek life.”
“They’re really not,” I said dryly.
I opened my door a crack, listened for footsteps, chatter, or the sound of the water running in the bathroom. When I didn’t hear anything, I grabbed his hand again and ushered him toward the hallway.
We were halfway down the stairs when Aamee walked from the kitchen to the front door and spun to face us, her dark-green eyes narrowing and her blond hair whipping around. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
I looked to Carter, his bright-blue eyes widening as he looked from me to Aamee and back again. “Sorry.”
“For what exactly?” Aamee asked.
“For…coming over so early. When I left last night, I thought I understood all that psychology stuff. Then I got home and realized I’d forgotten most of it. So I came back over here super early. I didn’t mean to wake anyone up, but we have a test today—”
“Bullshit.” Aamee crossed her arms.
“We do. You wanna see the syllabus?” Bless Carter’s heart for trying. He was already going into his phone to log in to the course.
All she said to him was “Don’t bother” before turning to address me. “I’ll talk to you after Carter leaves.”
I tried to disguise the heavy sigh, but my defeat was evident. And to further cement my spot at the top of Aamee Allen’s Shit List—a real list she kept on her phone—Carter gave me a kiss on the forehead and said, “Thanks for last night.”
I’d done my best to avoid Aamee for the remainder of the morning, and thankfully, when I’d returned from class this afternoon, only a few of the other girls were in the house.
I was Aamee-free until she got home from work around five p.m. I’d expected her to be thrumming with excitement as she prepared herself to dole out my consequence, but instead she said she was going to take time to think about it. I had a feeling that had more to do with her wanting to cause me anxiety than it did her need to give it any serious thought, but I was happy not to speak to her all the same.
I was lying on my bed with my headphones on when my roommate, Gina, came in and sat down on her bed. “I heard about what happened this morning with Carter.”
“Well, with how news travels in this house, I’m not really surprised,” I said with a laugh.
“Right.” She took a brush from her bedside table and began running it through her long dark hair. “Well, Aamee’s a bitch.”
“Obviously.”
“She’s worse with this stuff when it comes to guys, and she’s liked Carter for four years, since they were freshmen. I bet it’ll all blow over once she moves on to whatever or whoever she has an issue with next. Just give it a little time.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “I’m not so sure. She told me she was going to think about my consequence and she’d let me know what kind of trouble I’m in later tonight.”
“Ugh.” Gina lay back against her pillows and stared up blankly, like she was trying to make out the solution to my problem in the popcorn ceiling. “I wish she’d calm down with this shit. She’s not making any friends by pointing out every little thing all of us do wrong.”
“She still has her groupies.” I shrugged.
“Ew, don’t call them that. She’s not Justin Bieber.”
At least Gina always had a way of making me laugh, even if I might not be laughing later when Aamee dished out my punishment like a crotchety grandmother serving someone’s second helping of dinner. She really wouldn’t give a fuck whether I wanted it or not.
“I gotta admit,” I said, “I’m actually a little scared. Aamee is no doubt going to make me pay for this.”
“Maybe she’s gonna make you walk naked through the streets while we all point at you and yell, ‘Shame,’ like you’re Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones.”
I laughed again. “I think I might actually prefer that to what Aamee probably has in store for me.”
Gina looked over at me, her expression serious for the first time since she’d entered our room. “Seriously though, what’s the worst that can happen?”
“Sophia Mason, you are here in the presence of your sisters to atone for your sins.”
“I think ‘sins’ is a little extreme, Aamee,” someone said.
It might have been Gina, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t see anything in the dark room except the blinding flashlight of Aamee’s iPhone shining in my face.
“Shut up, Gina,” someone confirmed.
Aamee got closer to me, bringing the light with her. It was like I was heading toward my inevitable death, but instead of feeling a peaceful calm as I sat surrounded by loved ones, I was battling a power-hungry college senior who was permanently PMSing.