The Mistake

“Gracie!” a female voice shrieks over the music, and the next thing I know, Ramona appears and throws her arms around me in a tight hug.

When she pulls back, I take one look at her shining eyes and flushed cheeks and know she’s drunk. She’s also as scantily clad as most of the other girls in the room, her short skirt barely covering her upper thighs, her red halter-top revealing a serious amount of cleavage. And the heels of her leather boots are so high I have no clue how she can walk in them. She looks gorgeous, though, and she’s drawing a ton of appreciative stares as she links her arm through mine.

I’m pretty sure that when people see us standing side by side, they’re scratching their heads and wondering how on earth we could possibly be friends. Sometimes I wonder the same thing.

In high school, Ramona was the fun-loving badass who smoked cigarettes behind the building, and I was the good girl who edited the school newspaper and organized all the charity events. If we hadn’t been next-door neighbors, Ramona and I probably wouldn’t have known the other existed, but walking to school together every day had led to a friendship of convenience, which had then turned into a real bond. So real that when we were looking at colleges, we made sure to apply to all the same schools, and when we both got into Briar, we asked my father to speak to the residence office and arrange for us to be roommates.

But even though our friendship started off strong this year, I can’t deny that we’ve drifted apart a little. Ramona has been so obsessed with hooking up and being popular. It’s all she ever talks about, and lately I’m finding that she kind of…annoys me.

Crap. Even thinking it makes me feel like a shitty friend.

“I saw you go upstairs with Matt!” she hisses in my ear. “Did you guys hook up?”

“No,” I say glumly. “I think I scared him off.”

“Oh no. You told him about your puppet phobia, didn’t you?” she demands, before heaving an exaggerated sigh. “Babe, you’ve gotta stop revealing all your crazy up front. Seriously. Save all that stuff for later, when you’re in a relationship with the guy and it’s harder for him to run away.”

I can’t help but laugh. “Thanks for the advice.”

“So are you ready to go or should we stay a while longer?”

I glance around the room again. My gaze lands in the corner, where two girls in jeans and bras are making out while one of the Omega Phi guys films the passionate display with his iPhone.

The sight makes me stifle a groan. Ten bucks says that video will wind up on one of those free porn sites. And the poor girls probably won’t find out about it until years from now, when one of them is about to marry a senator and the press digs up all her embarrassing dirt.

“I wouldn’t mind going now,” I admit.

“Yeah, I guess I’m cool with it too.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Since when are you cool with leaving a party before midnight?”

A frown puckers her lips. “Not much point in staying. Someone already beat me to him.”

I don’t bother asking who she’s talking about—it’s the same guy she’s been talking about since the first day of the semester.

Dean Heyward-Di Laurentis.

Ramona has been obsessed with the gorgeous junior ever since she bumped into him at one of the campus coffee houses. Like seriously obsessed. She’s dragged me to almost all the Briar home games just to watch Dean in action. I have to admit, the guy is hot. He’s also a major player, according to the gossip mill, but unfortunately for Ramona, Dean doesn’t date freshmen. Or sleep with them, which is all she really wants from him anyway. Ramona has never gone out with anybody for more than a week.

The only reason she even wanted to come to this party tonight was because she heard that Dean would be here. But clearly the guy isn’t fucking around with that no-freshmen rule. No matter how many times Ramona throws herself at him, he always leaves with somebody else.

“Let me just use the washroom first,” I tell her. “Meet you outside?”

“’Kay, but be quick. I told Jasper we’re leaving and he’s waiting in the car.”

She darts off toward the front door, leaving me with a prickle of resentment. Nice that she asked me if I wanted to leave when she’d already made the decision for us.

But I swallow the irritation, reminding myself that Ramona has always done that, and that it never bothered me in the past. Honestly, if it wasn’t for her making decisions and forcing me to step out of my comfort zone, I probably would’ve spent my entire high school career in the newspaper office, writing the advice column and offering life tips to students without having ever experienced life myself.

Still…sometimes I wish Ramona would at least ask me what I thought about something before deciding that we should do it.

The downstairs bathroom has a long line, so I weave through the crowd and head upstairs to where Matt and I had been talking before. I’m just approaching the bathroom when the door swings open and a pretty blonde saunters out.

She jerks when she spots me, then offers a smug little smile and adjusts the bottom of a dress that can only be described as indecent. I can actually see the crotch of her pink panties.

As my cheeks heat up, I avert my gaze in embarrassment, waiting until she’s at the stairs before I reach for the doorknob. I barely get my hand on it when the door opens again and someone else walks out.

My gaze collides with the most vivid blue eyes I have ever seen. It only takes a second for recognition to dawn on me, and when it does, my face burns hotter.