Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(30)

The beer is always free. The music is always loud.

The Alliance party has a soundtrack that brings out the inner ABBA in everybody—and also a lot of exhibitionist streaks. As far as I can tell, I’m the only person in the room in jeans and a T-shirt. Bridget’s got on a gold sequined tube top and tight black pants that flare out over platform shoes. She’s a disco queen.

She picks a spot at the edge of the dance floor just as “It’s Raining Men” comes on. Arms raised, jumping up and down, she hoots along with a hundred other people. “Dance with me!” she shouts.

I shake my head.

Then I drink the beer, downing it quickly so I can get away from her disappointment and grab another.

By the time we’ve cycled through half the soundtrack to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and all the good Gaga, the dance floor is roiling, and I’m relaxed enough to join in, bumping hips and slapping hands with Bridget. I smile to see Krishna come up behind her. He grinds on her, and she rolls her eyes, but she likes it. He pulls us into the group he’s dancing with—some people I don’t know, although I’m pretty sure one of the girls is named Quinn.

I recognize her because she hung out in Krishna and West’s room last year. She’s blond and big—a good four or five inches taller than me, with broad hips and a generous chest and a smile that seems to include a lot more teeth than it ought to. She keeps grabbing my hand to spin me, and I get sweaty and a little dizzy. Krishna fetches us another round of beers, and we drink them quick, licking the foam off our lips. He pulls out his phone. The screen lights up his face in the dark room, making him look mischievous and almost enchanted. He glances at me, grins, and types something.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting West.” He lifts the phone, and before I can stop him, he takes my picture.

I grab his arm, blinded by the flash and by my panic. “Don’t send that.” The sudden brightness sent me reeling back to my memory of that night with Nate. The surprise of the flash. His hand on my head, dick in my mouth, choking me so I had to concentrate to keep from gagging. “Krish, don’t.”

But he’s not listening. He’s grinning, jabbing at the screen, and I’m trying to wrest the phone out of his hand when I hear a little whoosh that means it’s sent.

“Damn it!” I punch him in the shoulder, frustrated and upset, frustrated with myself for being upset. It’s just a picture. It doesn’t matter.

Except that I’m crying.

“What’d I do?”

Quinn reaches out for me, but I’m already gone. I rush toward the door, pushing through bodies, the music and the lights pounding too loud. I had more to drink than I should have. I let my guard down, feeling safe, feeling okay, but there’s nothing okay about me.

Frozen on the screen of Krishna’s phone with my hair falling all around my face, my T-shirt scooped too low, askew, sweat shining on all that exposed skin—I look like a mistake waiting to happen.

Then I see Nate, and I remember I’m a mistake that’s already happened.

He’s between me and the door. By the time I realize it, he’s looking at me, and there’s nowhere to escape to. I can’t dance now. I have to get out. So I keep going, chin up, hoping my mascara isn’t streaky and pretending the men in my head aren’t shouting at full volume.

Let’s see that dirty *, baby. I want to eat it out. I’m going to rail the living f*ck out of you.

“Caroline!” Nate props his hand in the doorway so I can’t get past. He smiles his drunk smile. “Didn’t think I’d see you here.”

I think of West, leaning in the doorway at the bakery as he walked me out. Telling me to text him when I was home safe.

I look at Nate, blocking my exit. His eyes crawling down my shirt.

Was he always this way?

He’s got a beer in his other hand, and his sandy-brown hair is a little long, curling around his ears. He wears a polo that brings out the blue of his eyes over these horrible navy pants with tiny green whales on them that he loves to put on for parties. He insists he wears them ironically, but I always used to tell him it’s not possible to wear pants with irony. You put on whale pants, you’re wearing whale pants.

Douche, West says in my head.

“Why shouldn’t I be here?”

“You haven’t been around much.”

“I’ve been busy.” I try to look like West when he’s gone blank. Like I could give a f*ck about Nate.

“Josh said he saw you with that sketchy guy from across the hall last year. The dealer.”

“So?”

“So I’m worried about you, Caroline. First those pictures, and now you’re hanging out with him. … What’s going on with you?”

I’m speechless. I mean, literally, I can’t make words. There are so many, they jam up at the back of my tongue, and I don’t know which ones I’d say even if I could shake them loose.

The nerve of him. The nerve.

He hitches his arm up higher and takes a sip of his beer, as though we’re going to be here awhile, shooting the breeze. “We’re still friends,” he says. “We’ll always be friends, you know that. I just don’t want to see you getting hurt.”

That’s the thing that unlocks my throat. We’re still friends.