Good Girl Complex(Avalon Bay #1)(27)

“Lock up your good jewelry, Mac,” Seb Marlow advises me. He’s from Florida, where his family is a major defense contractor for the government. It’s all very serious and secret. I’ d have to kill you, and all that. Or that’s the line he uses at parties, at least. “He was this close to throwing down his Rolex to buy back into the game.”

Stifling a laugh, I question Pres. “Please tell me he’s joking.”

He shrugs, because the money means nothing to him, and he’s got more watches than he knows what to do with. “How about you try me at pool?” he scoffs at his friends. “That’s a real gentleman’s game.”

Benji looks at Seb and smirks. “Double or nothing?”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Preston is all too eager. “You’re on.”

The guys push back from the table as Preston gives me a parting kiss on the cheek.

“One game,” he says. “Back in a flash.”

“Don’t lose your car,” I warn. “I need a ride back to campus.”

“Don’t worry,” Benji calls over his shoulder. “I got you.”

Pres just rolls his eyes before sauntering after his buddies. Another thing I appreciate about him is that he’s a good sport. I’ve never seen him get bent out of shape over a stupid game, even when his wallet is a little light at the end of the night. Granted, it’s easy to get over losing when there’s a seemingly endless supply of someone else’s money to play with.

“Now that the boys are gone …” Melissa, Benji’s girlfriend, pushes the collection of water glasses aside to lean in toward me and Seb’s girlfriend Chrissy.

I don’t know anything about Melissa other than she sails, and I know even less about Chrissy. I wish I had more in common with these girls other than the size of our parents’ bank accounts.

Truth be told, I don’t have too many female friends. And these past few weeks have confirmed that I still suck at building connections with my female peers. I love Bonnie to bits, but she feels more like a younger sister than a friend. I had girlfriends in high school, but nobody I’d consider a ride-or-die type of friend. The only one who comes closest to being my “best friend” is my old camp friend Sara, who I raised hell with every summer until I turned eighteen. We still text periodically, but she lives in Oregon and it’s been a couple years since I’ve seen her.

My social group now consists of my roommate, my boyfriend, and my boyfriend’s friends, who waste no time bending their heads together to gossip.

“So what did you find out about that Snapchat girl?” Melissa demands.

Chrissy takes a deep breath like she’s about to dive to the bottom of a pool for a pair of Jimmy Choos. “It was some sophomore chick who’s at Garnet on scholarship. I found her roommate’s best friend on Instagram and DMed her. She said her friend told her that her roommate said they met at a boat party and made out.”

“So they only kissed?” Melissa asks, as though she’s disappointed in the answer.

Chrissy shrugs. “Supposedly someone at the boat party walked in on someone getting a BJ. Maybe it was Seb, maybe not. Doesn’t really matter.”

If I’d known my mother in college, I imagine she’d have been a lot like Chrissy. Prim, put together, and unflappable. Not a hair or eyelash out of place. So the fact that she would entertain something as messy as cheating strikes me as antithetical.

“Wait,” I interject, “your boyfriend is cheating on you, and you don’t care?”

The girls both stare at me as though I haven’t been paying attention.

“Two former presidents of the United States and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia were at his father’s birthday party in the Seychelles last year,” Chrissy says flatly. “You don’t break up with guys like Sebastian over something as trifling as infidelity. He’s the man you marry.”

I frown at her. “You’d marry someone you know is cheating on you?”

She doesn’t answer, just looks at me, blinking. Is an expectation of monogamy so banal and old-fashioned? I thought I was fairly open-minded, but apparently my beliefs about love and romance are scandalous.

“It’s hardly even considered cheating,” Melissa scoffs, waving a dismissive hand. “Seb hooked up with a scholarship chick? Who cares. Now, if it was a wifey, that’s a whole other story. A real reason to worry.”

“A wifey?” I echo.

Chrissy gives me a condescending look. “For men like Seb and Benji and Preston, there are two kinds of women. A wifey and a Marilyn. The ones you marry, and the ones you screw.”

Can’t you screw the one you marry? Or marry the one you screw? I swallow the questions. Because what’s the point?

“Don’t worry,” Melissa says. She reaches across the table to put her hand on mine, in what she must think is a comforting gesture. “You’re definitely wifey material. Preston knows that. All you need to worry about is locking that down and getting the ring. Everything else is …” She glances at Chrissy for the word. “Extracurricular.”

That is the most depressing relationship advice I’ve ever heard. These women have their own family money and small empires—they don’t need strategic marital alliances. So why do they sell themselves into loveless arrangements?