Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(74)

“Caroline—”

I take a step back. I lose my footing, slip, and fall on my tailbone. The pain pushes up more tears. When West offers me his hand, I swat it away. “No. I’m fine. Enjoy your night.”

I lumber up, and if his eyes have thawed at last—if his expression is full of as much misery as I’m feeling—damn it, I’m not going to let it matter.

I’m going to walk away from him before all of it can catch up to me.

I walk fast, and then I start to jog, because I’m afraid if I let myself feel everything that’s in me right now, I’ll have to accept that he’s breaking my heart on purpose, and he won’t f*cking tell me why.



The rugby party is legendary.

It’s actually three parties. Starting right after dinner, there’s a pre-party in Rawlins lounge that’s just for the team. At nine, the whole-campus party kicks off in the Minnehan Center, which is always packed with bodies, because the rugby team throws the first big party after winter break, plays the best music, and never runs out of beer.

In between the two parties—well, that’s why it’s legendary. The blow-job contest.

Last year I missed it. I guess I was studying. But this time there’s no question I’m going. I helped Quinn with the planning, showed up to decorate Minnehan with paper cutouts of fierce rugby-playing women and this sort of oversize mural thing on the wall, which I think was supposed to be a life-size representation of a scrum but ended up looking like a giant lesbian orgy, all tongues and hands. Really we’re just lucky nobody from the college is paying attention to the decorations, because wow.

Wow.

Quinn says she’s going to save it and put it up in her dorm room after the party.

I made cheese-and-salsa dip and cookies, but nobody’s hungry. They’re thirsty. Quinn brought three gallons of fruit punch and three bottles of vodka. We mix the drinks right in the red plastic cups. Mine makes my stomach hurt—vodka always does—but I sip it, standing on the fringes, watching the others dance.

I don’t want to drink too much. I’m afraid I’ll do something stupid, like show up at West’s door and yell at him.

Like tell him that even though I know he doesn’t do parties, and he wants to back off this thing, I wish he were with me tonight.

So I could kick him.

And then probably kiss him.

I’d like to drink six drinks in a row, but that would be kind of dumb. So. Here I am, sipping my Solo cup of punch slowly and carefully like a good little girl, and when Quinn tries to get me to join her in an interpretive dance-off, I just smile and say, “No, thanks, I’ll watch.”

I’ll watch Bridget and Krishna laughing together on the other side of the room, my friends who aren’t officially supposed to be here, except they helped Quinn and me set up, and nobody cares, really.

I’ll watch Quinn undulate, pretending to be a jellyfish, because that’s her assigned interpretive-dance theme.

I’ll watch the door, even though he’s not coming, wasn’t invited to this party, would’ve said no if I invited him.

I’ll stand here and watch my life pass me by, because I’m a good daughter, a party planner, a brownnosing rule-following coward. And the way things are going, that’s all I’ll ever be.

We leave the lounge wrecked, put on jackets and hats, twine on scarves, stumble out into the overcast night. The temperature is in the high twenties, the snow thick and slushy. We slog toward the rugby field along the train tracks to a spot behind the Minnehan Center that Quinn and I diligently cleared off earlier. Forty feet of snow-free track gleaming in parallel lines.

Already, some people are milling around—mostly players’ friends, girlfriends, boyfriends. As we take bottles out of backpacks and unwrap disposable shot glasses to line them up along the tracks, the crowd grows. I’ve got a cloth envelope full of money. I’m supposed to be the cashier, but when Quinn sinks to her knees beside the tracks and says, “Let’s go, girls. Line ’em up!” I don’t want to anymore.

I don’t want to be on the outside, looking in.

I find Krishna’s head in the crowd and beckon him over. “You’re the cashier,” I tell him, pressing the envelope into his hand.

“Only if you do me for free.”

“Fine. You can be my first.” I catch Quinn’s eye. “I want in on this.”

“Sweet! We’ve got another virrrrgin!”

The idea that I’m a blow-job virgin is patently hilarious, but no one is mocking me here.

She makes some room beside her, gets me a shot, sets it up on the tracks in front of me. “All right!” she shouts, and the crowd starts to gather in around us. “You all know how this works! Ten bucks gets you two blow jobs—one for you, one for the awesome, amazing, ass-kicking rugger across the tracks. You pay your girl, she lets you stick your tenner down her shirt, it’s all very kinky. We all go on the same whistle. The drink goes on the tracks, and you have to drink it with your hands free in one try. If you choke or spit it all over your face like a loser, go to the back of the line. If your rugger chokes or gets it on herself, you can have your money back. If you both swallow like big kids, you can pay another ten and go again if you want. You all know Krishna?”

Eyes turn toward Krishna. Heads nod.

“Right. Everybody knows Krish. You need change, talk to Krish. I’m also appointing him the * referee. This is supposed to be fun to raise money for rugby. Yes, the shots are called blow jobs. Yes, it’s ever so naughty. But if you step over the line from fun and games to junk-grabbing or name-calling or any other form of small-minded *ry, Krish is going to give you the boot, and a dozen pissed-off ruggers are going to back him up. This is a safe space. For ev-ery-one. Got it?”