A Kiss Like This (Kiss and Make Up #3)(7)

“Hmm. My first guess would be parent-related. But… since you’re obviously still wearing the same clothes you had on last night…” Her pert nose wrinkles with distaste and one skillfully plucked eyebrow arches into her hairline. “I’d say you just stumbled in.”

Meg flops onto her back next to me, giving Jenna a duh look. “Nice detective work, Einstein.”

Jenna ignores her. “Please tell us you finally gave it up to someone last night.”

Meg’s mouth falls open, and she props herself up on an elbow. “Do you have to go there? Immediately? Why is everything always about sex with you?”

“Because it’s always about sex with me.” Jenna rolls her eyes. “And because she’s twenty years old and hasn’t done it with a guy? Abby is still a virgin. I’m trying to help her.”

My cheeks flush as they continue talking about me like I’m not in the room.

Meg sighs. “Spare me. Not all of us lose our virginity when we’re fourteen, okay, hooker?”

“I never said there was anything wrong with being a virgin, just that she was one. Sheesh! And for the record, I lost mine when I was seventeen. And I was in love with the guy, but nice try.”

Jenna plops down in my desk chair, her large metal earrings jingling merrily around her face as she gives the chair a swivel. “Let’s try not to get off topic here.” She gives me a pointed look. “So? What’s the deal? Slamming and banging doors is so unlike you.”

Meg immediately turns her attention back to me, absent-mindedly giving a loose string on her sock monkey pajamas a few tugs. She snaps it free and lets it fall to my carpet.

“And it’s pretty obvious you didn’t come home last night, which is also very unlike you.”

Under her breath, Jenna mutters, “Unfortunately,” as Meg continues. “The only place you ever stay over at these days is Cece’s, and she’s too far away. You obviously couldn’t have gone there.”

Cece is my best friend, and she just moved back to the Midwest from California. Her boyfriend, Matthew, is a professional hockey player, and he was just traded to the Chicago Blackhawks. Which is great, because now, instead of being thirteen hundred miles away, Cece is only an hour car ride. And even though we rarely see each other, we text each other every day.

I scoff at Meg’s judgment of my evening. “Be serious. I would never have stayed at Cece’s in Chicago and made it home by now, you guys. On a Friday night? Not happening.” I cross my arms and stretch out on my bed next to Meg.

“Fine. Then the real question is, who was he?”

I roll my eyes, feigning ignorance. “Who was who?”

Both my roommates stare at me, waiting and determined to pry an explanation out of me.

I grab the pillow from under my head, sit up, and rest my back against the wall next to my bed. “You guys, it’s not a big deal. Remember how I popped in at the Kappa O party last night? I went with Maddie, Tabitha and Maria, not because I wanted to, but because my parents paid me to. Anyway, they left before I did, and you know my rule about walking anywhere alone at night. Long story short, I crashed in Tyler’s room.” I shrug as casually as my churning stomach will allow. “The end.”

Snidely, Jenna asks, “Wait, those bitches left you there? Alone? Typical.”

“You should have texted one of us,” Meg scolds. “I would have walked over to get you.”

“Yeah, but then you would have been alone in the dark,” Jenna points out.

“It was fine,” I interrupt before they start squabbling again. “I holed up in Tyler’s room. It was gross, but I survived.”

Jenna, who’s far more astute than people give her credit for, eyes me skeptically. “Right. Okay. So what’s with all the loud crashing and door slamming? What could your moron cousin possibly have done to annoy you this early in the morning? Did lover boy hog the covers?” She snickers and spins the chair around.

Worse. He drools.

“Yeah, real funny,” I grit out, crossing my arms and hugging a stuffed penguin to my chest. “For your information, Tyler didn’t do anything but drool all over himself.” I bite my lip. “I wasn’t pissed off until—”

I stop mid-sentence, causing my friends both to lean forward, waiting for me to continue.

“Until…?” Meg probes, giving me a nudge with her leg. “Until? Until?”

“Until your cousin touched you with his morning wood?” Jenna supplies optimistically.

Even Meg is horrified by that visual. “Oh my god, stop.”

“Well, out with it already. We don’t have all day,” Jenna intones, getting irritated. “Actually, I don’t have all day, but Meg does,” she jokes. “It’s only the three of us here. We promise not to tell anyone.”

I hesitate, so Jenna tries again, sweet-talking. “Look, we all know something upset you, and if it wasn’t Tyler’s weiner than it was someone else’s. So tell us who it was. You know you want to. And also, sorry I said weiner. I meant dick.”

As crude as Jenna is, she’s right; I was dying to tell them, not because I want them to be all up in my business, but I am curious to know if they know who Caleb is.

I lean back against the wall. “Do you remember the song they sing at the Kappa house when a girl tries to sneak out in the morning?”