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  She gave Bonita a teasing grin, “It would be a chance to see River in his natural habitat, after all.”

  Bonita laughed. “I don’t know what you think is going on between River and me, but it’s nothing.”

  “Well, why not confirm it? This Friday you’ll learn all you need to know. I’m in Walker Hall. And before you ask, I don’t live off campus in my own snazzy apartment like most Gascony grads because daddums insisted I get the ‘full college experience.’” She made air quotes to emphasize the last bit.

  “Actually, it’s been pretty fun,” she said, looking up thoughtfully. Then she brought her attention back to Bonita. “I’m in room 111. Meet me at 8 o’clock sharp.”

  She began back-walking away from Bonita before she could protest any further. “Don’t disappoint me Bonita!” Marianne shouted with a smile.

  4

  “What in the world am I doing?” Bonita asked herself as she made her way to Walker Hall that Friday.

  Stacey had seemed slightly relieved when Bonita mentioned she would be heading out, no doubt hoping for some alone time with Bobby. Then she seemed slightly envious when Bonita explained the reason why. Apparently, the GA party was not only well-known, but the hottest ticket in town if you weren’t alumni.

  The wide, draped sleeves of Bonita’s buttercup yellow dress fluttered around her arms as she nervously tucked her hair along one arm of her glasses then behind her ear. She looked down at the knee-length twirl of her skirt that flared around her curvy hips. It was cinched in at her small waist with a ribbon belt tied in a bow.

  It was her favorite dress, best dress really. Marianne hadn’t said what sort of party this would be, but Bonita had made assumptions based on the Gascony title attached to the invite.

  Assumptions which were instantly proven horribly inaccurate as soon as Marianne opened the door to her dorm room.

  “Oh, well look at you, Tulip!” she said with an exaggerated drawl as she took in Bonita’s appearance with surprise. “Just like a bright yellow flower.”

  Marianne was wearing a denim mini skirt and a well-worn Hard Rock t-shirt from Stockholm. On her feet were the same green Converse shoes she’d been wearing to class.

  Bonita frowned down at her own white sandals and the toes that she had painted red specifically to look extra nice tonight. She wasn’t sure why she chose to focus on her feet. Her entire outfit, from the flat-ironed hair tucked behind a white headband on her head to the perfectly chip-free, red nail polish on her toes cried out: overdressed!

  “Yes, I’m a complete asshole,” Marianne confessed, no doubt reading Bonita’s mind. “I didn’t even think to tell you about the dress code. I’m just so used to not dressing up for these things, it never occurred to me that someone actually would.”

  “So it’s a casual thing?” Bonita asked incredulously.

  “Don’t worry,” Marianne said in her most reassuring voice. “Your dress? It’s perfect; You’re perfect.”

  Her words only slightly quelled the growing unease Bonita had about going to this party after all.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Marianne said, reading her mind once again and grabbing her arm to pull her into her dorm room. “You aren’t backing out on me now, sweetheart.

  “Sit right there while I powder my nose,” she said, flouncing off into another room.

  As she entered, Bonita looked around the room with awe. Walker Hall was populated with doubles, but Marianne seemed to have been afforded a two-for-one deal. There was no sign of a roommate. She obviously wasn’t getting the entire college experience; especially in the professionally decorated accommodations she was housed in. Bonita wasn’t aware college dorms could actually look cozy yet sophisticated.

  Marianne came back out with a tube of mascara and stood in front of a full length mirror.

  “Now before you go thinking you’re some prize show dog I’m bringing along to parade around,” she said, running the brush through one set of lashes, “I meant what I said about fresh meat. You’re obviously new. It would be a chance for you to get to know your fellow classmates. At least the ones most of the misguided souls at this school think are worth knowing. Frankly, it would also be good for them to be introduced to another species beyond WASP.”

  Bonita wasn’t quite sure how to take that, but she did develop even more of a growing unease about this party.

  “Voilà!” Marianne finally exclaimed looking at herself in the mirror.

  Without any further ado she simply held her hand out to Bonita. “Shall we?”

  Bonita just smiled, shaking her head, again wondering if she had fallen down some rabbit hole. Then she shrugged and accepted Marianne’s hand, getting up off the plush arm chair she had been sitting in.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be more scared of you than you are of them.” Marianne said, laughing as they left her dorm room.

  “Please tell me you’ve finally put Tiffany out of her misery and fucked her crazy already,” said Jeff Lawson, holding what had to be his tenth bottle of beer.

  River sipped from his own bottle, pacing himself. He swallowed and gave Jeff a look of contempt. “Even if I had, some of us have better taste than to kiss and tell.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes!” Jeff laughed. “Atta boy. So how the hell was it? That one seems crazy enough to be wild in the sack.”

  “Jesus, Jeff. When are you going to stop living vicariously through everyone else and get your own girl? Oh wait, I seem to recall the last one dumping you after you opened your big mouth about your little make out session. I think that’s a flashing neon sign for you right there, big boy.”

  The moniker was deserved. Although at 6’2” Jeff was the same height as River, he outweighed him by a good 50 pounds, mostly from the type of muscle that would go to fat as soon as Jeff hit his late twenties. It was a stark contrast to River’s body which had been honed and strengthened through actual, active training, rather than pushing up a barbell every once in a while.

  River patted him on the shoulder as a scowl came over Jeff’s face, then walked away completely unintimidated. It took a lot for any Gascony grad to have much of an effect on him, mostly because he honestly didn’t give a shit. He had a sneaking suspicion that was what had heralded his rise to the top of the totem pole among his fellow alumni. That and what had happened the second half of his junior year of high school. Once upon a time, someone like Jeff wouldn’t have even noticed someone like River, unless it was to harass and bully. How times had changed since then….

  He saw her as soon as she walked in.

  How could he not? That yellow dress was like a damn beacon signaling his heart to stop beating. He paused to stare at her. She looked even more spectacular than she had in the bookstore, that yellow dress hugging each delightful curve with a feminine flair.

  Bonita Jackson.

  She was with Marianne, who came dressed in the blatantly casual garb that was the unwritten rule of the GA party, a symbolic middle finger to the uniforms they’d had to wear in school. Apparently Marianne hadn’t given Bonita the memo.

  God bless her.

  She felt his eyes the instant she walked through the door.

  Dark lashes fluttered behind her frames as her eyes blinked in his direction. A momentary flash of recognition, followed by a quick diversion elsewhere. Anywhere but on him.

  Bonita wasn’t sure why she was surprised. Of course River would be here. Marianne, cunning little fox that she was, had pretty much used him as the selling point. And really, wasn’t there a tiny part of her that came because he would be here?

  Then she remembered he was taken; best to stay far away from that one.

  Still, in that brief glimpse, she’d seen the lean muscles of his arms and shoulders bulging under the worn gray t-shirt as he crossed his arms over his chest. He’d stared at her so piercingly as she walked in with Marianne that it was disconcerting. She could actually see the green of his eyes from all the way across the foyer.

  Now, more than ever, t
he pretty, yellow dress seemed even more glaring. She could have just as easily worn her second best dress. Or left her toes unpainted. Or kept her hair in its naturally curly state. Or—

  “Marianne! Thank God you’re here.” A brunette with large brown eyes and lips that seemed to exist in a permanent state of pouty sneer assaulted them before they could even go five feet. She was wearing a hot pink hoodie edged with rhinestones and shorts that were…short. Her perfectly pedicured feet were in flip flops.

  What kind of party was this?

  Looking around Bonita saw that everyone was pretty much dressed as though they were ready to veg out in front of the TV with nachos and beer. T-shirts, jogging shorts, flip flops, sneakers, sweat pants, basketball shorts, even pajama bottoms.

  “ ‘Oh, hello Marianne. Thank you so much for coming to my party’,” Marianne mimicked. “ ‘I see you’ve brought a friend, why don’t you introduce her?’ Why yes Deirdre, this is—”

  “Ugh! No one has time for your smart-assedness, Marianne! It’s Bethany—being Bethany.” An accusatory frown, those lips in their full pouting glory. “She’s your friend, you deal with her!”

  Marianne seemed completely relaxed, amused even. “Why is it when she’s acting up, she’s my friend all of a sudden?”

  The pouty sneer became more pout than sneer. “Mar-i-anne!” Deirdre pleaded, actually bouncing her body like a 5-year-old on the verge of having a temper tantrum in the middle of Toys-R-Us.

  Marianne just smiled with a sigh. Then she turned to Bonita. “Welcome to the jungle. Stay right here, I’ll be back in two shakes.”

  She walked off then turned back to Bonita. “Or, if you’re feeling adventurous,” she said with a wicked grin and a wink, “take yourself on a little safari.”

  And with that she was gone to deal with “Bethany—being Bethany.”

  Bonita tucked an imaginary strand of hair along the arm of her glasses and past her ear, her usual nervous habit. Her eyes made a turn around the foyer of the townhouse. The crowd was already spilling over into this area from the adjoining rooms, creating enough of a buffer between her and the now advancing River Wright.

  River Wright whose girlfriend, Tiffany Brookstone, had just found him and clung to his arm while he blatantly stared at Bonita. It was appalling. She actually found herself feeling sorry for the girl.

  Bonita tried to find something to focus on; anything but him. Her eye was captured by a snippet of something down the corridor and grew wide with excitement. A library!

  River watched her eyes deliberately avoid him.

  It really must have been some bad first impression he’d made in the bookstore. The reminder hit home when Tiffany found him and grabbed on to his arm.

  “There you are,” she said coyly, in an ever so slightly slurred voice. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to avoid me.”

  He had in fact been trying to avoid her. Rejection was a foreign concept to Tiffany. Even now, he ignored her tugging on his arm as he watched Bonita give him one final dismissive glance, then wander off toward the library in back.

  With Bonita gone, River turned his attention to Tiffany. This was a situation he’d have to deal with. Tonight seemed as good a time as any. Especially with a much more tempting prize waiting in the wings.

  Tiffany had spent all summer being embarrassingly blatant with what had in prior years been merely subtle hints: she wanted River Wright. In retrospect, he was certain it had been a bit of finagling on her part to have him, out of all of their friends, escort her from the cab they’d caught at Grand Central that night he had met Bonita at the bookstore. It was getting pretty late and she had been in no condition to walk back to her off-campus apartment alone.

  They had just come back to New York from Peter Lansing’s place up in Connecticut. Actually, it was his parent’s place, but those cats had been in the south of France for the past month, leaving all the little mice to play. It had been a last hurrah before senior year began and they’d stayed right up to the weekend before classes started.

  Tiffany had absconded the Lansing’s second residence with what was left of the Jack Daniels, and finished it off on the train.

  On the way to her place, they had passed by the university bookstore, reminding River that he had yet to buy any books for classes. Tiffany had grudgingly—or rather, poutingly and foot-stompingly—agreed to join him while he collected the materials he needed for class. He had hinted that maybe she should be purchasing her own books for class, but when you were a Brookstone, a college education was merely a formality.

  Actually, the same was true for River as a Wright, but that was something he preferred not to spend too much time thinking about.

  Right now he was thinking about Bonita and how he could find a way to, well for starters find out if she really did have tan lines. He smiled to himself.

  He grabbed Tiffany lightly by the shoulders. “We should talk. Let’s go find someplace private.”

  Her instant smile told him that she had entirely the wrong idea about this, but that would be resolved soon enough. He didn’t want to completely humiliate her by doing this in front of everyone. Instead he led her up the stairs where it was less crowded, obviously giving her even more incorrect ideas.

  “Well, okay then,” she laughed, offering no resistance.

  They headed down a hallway just as Marianne was exiting the first bedroom door.

  “Sorry, folks,” she said giving River a knowing look he didn’t particularly care for. “This one is ocupado. Bethany decided it would be a good idea to take Valium and vodka. We’re just going to let her sleep it off.”

  River lead Tiffany further down the hallway, away from prying ears. He had enough sense not to lead her into any of the bedrooms. That kind of privacy was something he didn’t want. When they were far enough away to talk in private he spun her around to face him.

  “Listen Tiffany. I realize that you have a thing for me,” he began. He decided being blunt was the best course of action. “But unfortunately I just don’t feel the same way. I don’t know how I can make it any plainer, but—”

  The rest was interrupted with a surprisingly hard slap.

  “You fucking asshole!” She screamed. “Do you have any idea how many guys would be happy just to lick the chair that I sat in?”

  That was an interesting way of putting it.

  Looking at her from a purely objective perspective, she had a point. Tiffany was what people often conjured up when they thought “hot”: baby blue eyes; long, glossy black hair; killer body, and, unfortunately, the attitude to match. That was what had initially turned River off, despite her having the kind of looks that made Megan Fox seem plain in comparison.

  “I can’t believe I’ve actually been throwing myself at you all summer,” she ranted.

  River let her have her moment while he took the brunt of it. He considered it due punishment for not handling it when he first had an inkling she had her sights set on him.

  “Stupid, emo, loser Riot,” she spat, using the name he went by in another lifetime, “sitting with his other loser friends.”

  That was when he decided he’d had enough. His face darkened and without a word he began walking away.

  She wasn’t done with him yet. “You may have hit the gym and gotten rid of the stupid black clothes, but you’ll always be a freak, River!” she yelled after him.

  He took the stairs down two at a time. With each step he felt more relaxed. It had been nasty, but he should have expected it from someone with an ego the size of the Hudson River.

  As soon as his foot hit the first floor, he made a beeline for the library.

  5

  Bonita ran her fingers across the leather-bound spine of a book, enjoying the feel of the soft, cracked surface. She tilted her head back as her eyes roamed across the various titles positioned sideways. It was an eclectic mix.

  The Count of Monte Cristo in its original French (Le Comte de Monte-Cristo).

  It
by Stephen King.

  In the Heat of the Moment by Jake Steele.

  She had even found her personal favorite: Pride and Prejudice. She pulled it off the shelf to inspect it.

  “Careful, some of those are actually quite valuable.”

  The voice made her jump in surprise, her heart in her throat. She spun around to see River entering the library. One side of her mouth came down in a frown.

  River ignored her expression as he came into the library approaching her.

  “Pride and Prejudice,” he observed, looking at the book in her hand. “Austen, Hmm? So what do you have to say about the fact that she never delves too much into the Napoleonic Wars, which were in full force during the era of her books?”

  “Well, she was a bit busy focusing on the plight of women, whose welfare was completely dependent on the whims of a patriarchal society.”

  He gave her a look of surprised admiration.

  “Did I pass, professor?” she asked in a teasingly sarcastic voice. “Try not to look too impressed there, River.”

  He just laughed.

  “Perhaps we can start over with the scenario where I’m not the gigantic douche you obviously think I am.”

  Bonita turned to him. “What is it about me?” she asked, giving him a speculative look. “Are you just curious? Interested in experimenting? Because if so, I’m not your girl.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said laughing. “I didn’t mean to jump from hello to home base so quickly. Would it be okay if I just said I find you to be attractive, and maybe I’d like to get to know you a bit?”

  “And how would your girlfriend feel about this?”

  “Why do you keep saying—?”

  “You know what,” Bonita laughed shaking her head. “I don’t even know why I said that.”