Foreplay (The Ivy Chronicles #1)(16)

I wasn’t as na?ve as Emerson claimed. He could have      kept me longer in that hall, said something more to fill that awkward stretch of      silence. For being such a player, he didn’t make any moves on me. He didn’t even      smile.

No. He wouldn’t call. This wasn’t me being      negative. I just knew.





Chapter 6

He didn’t call the next day, and despite convincing myself that he wouldn’t, I had hoped that just maybe Emerson was right.

Naturally, I blamed her. Em’s words niggled their way inside me and fed hope where there normally wouldn’t be. I couldn’t stop glaring at her as she stood in the center of my room, distracting me from reviewing my Abnormal Psych notes.

“Well, you know we gotta go back again tonight, right?”

“Uh. No, we don’t.”

She dropped down on the bed with me, landing on her stomach. “C’mon. You can’t vow to do this and then not give it a hundred percent.”

“I’m not training for a marathon here—”

“You are. That’s exactly what you’re doing.” She nodded, the light catching on the many sparkly clips she’d arranged at different angles through her short dark hair. “You’re training for Hunter. Look at him as your 5K.”

Biting on the inside of my cheek, I considered her words.

She must have seen me wavering because she pushed on. “C’mon. You’ve made an impression on him. Two nights in a row.” She waggled two fingers in front of my face. “We’ve got to go there tonight, too. We’ll round up some others to go with us this time. Georgia is going to that concert with Harris, so I’ll get Suzanne and Amy from down the hall. They’re always up for some fun.” Her gaze drilled into me. “Say yes, Pepper.”

With a sigh, I closed my notebook. “Fine. Yes.”

She clapped and jumped off the bed. “I’ll go get the others rounded up. You hit the shower. But don’t pick out your clothes yet.” She pointed a finger at me. “I’m supervising in that department.”

“Of course you are,” I called after her as she slammed out of my room. If she had her way, I’d leave here in fishnets.

Rising, I grabbed my shower caddy, robe, and towel, my stomach doing strange things. Butterflies, I guessed. Although I didn’t know why. I had barely spoken to Reece. He might have helped me out last night (and when my car broke down), but that was part of his job. Keeping order at Mulvaney’s. There hadn’t been anything personal in his actions.

Still, the memory of those pale blue eyes settling on me amid the dozens of others vying for his attention made my skin tingle. And they weren’t vying for his attention just because he was the guy serving up drinks. In addition to being sexy as hell, he had that strong, silent thing going for him. It was such a cliché and it shouldn’t work on me. But it did. I was a sucker for it. Like every other girl to stroll inside Mulvaney’s.

And this made me frown. I didn’t want to be like the rest of them. Interchangeable.

He might be accustomed to making out with countless women whose names and faces he couldn’t recall the next week, but I wanted to be different. Someone not like my mother.

Someone he remembered.

Emerson rounded up not only Suzanne and Amy, but a couple other girls from our floor. We totaled six, so we needed two cars. Someone decided Suzanne and I would drive—likely because we weren’t big drinkers. Fine by me. I liked being in control of my own transportation.

When we got to Mulvaney’s we walked in through the back door, past the food counter. My stomach growled and I remembered I hadn’t eaten since lunch. Emerson pulled me along when I hesitated, looking longingly at a basket of cheese-coated French fries someone had just ordered.

“C’mon. You can eat later. I’ll buy you the biggest burger on our way out.”

It was jam-packed tonight again, but I spotted Reece right away in his usual spot at the bar. Was he a student, too? What else did he do? Besides half the girls that trolled through here—if rumors were to be believed. He had to have something else going for him. Disappointment curled through me to think that there might be nothing more for him than this. No goals outside of tending bar.

Hunter was just one goal for me. One piece of the pie. If everything went as planned, I’d soon have a degree and a future working with children. That’s what I wanted. Something to enrich me, to make me feel better about the things in my life that I could never change.

“Here you go.” Emerson slapped some money into my hand. Suzanne and the others were already looking for a table. “We’ll start with two pitchers. I’ll be right behind you to help you carry them.” She shoved me in the direction of the bar.

I inched up to the bar, as close as I could get to him, already hating this moment that was starting to feel so redundant. He hadn’t spotted me yet and I wanted to run, certain he would know that I was here because of him—certain he would look right at me and call me the idiot that I felt like. Or worse. He could look at me and point and say: Hey, it’s my stalker girl!

My mother flashed across my mind. She was in a faded blue dress, strung out, her eyes glazed over as she sat on a man’s lap and toyed with his hair, desperate to win him over so she could score some money for her next fix. She was always desperate. A creature without pride. The memory left a sour taste in my mouth.