Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
He paused for a fleeting second. His lips parted slightly as if he were going to express himself, but instead, he shut them tightly before continuing to get dressed. He was tossing on his clothes as if he were a paramedic racing out of the door to attend an accident scene. I’d never seen someone rush so quickly to get away from me. I would’ve asked what I’d done to offend him, but I doubted he would’ve been honest. I didn’t know him, but I knew his eyes told the truth more than his lips ever had.
Guilt filled me up as I thought of what could’ve been wrong. “Do you have a girlfriend?” I questioned. Was that why he was rushing to get away from me? Was I his Meredith in this situation? Did he have his own box of Cheerios sitting back at home?
“What? No.”
“Then why are you rushing to leave so fast?”
“What did you expect?” He grimaced, avoiding eye contact at all costs. “Cuddles?”
I didn’t expect cuddles, but it would’ve been nice.
The way he avoided my stare was so odd to me. It wasn’t as if he thought I was a plague of some sort, but more so like I was his favorite drug, and he’d been desperately trying to get sober.
“Hey,” I called out, making him look once more. “Are you okay?” I wanted to examine his expression. To have a few more moments before he let go of whatever we’d just done. Yet this time, when he looked my way, he was different.
His eyes weren’t as gentle as they were during our performance. That cold aloofness had returned, but I couldn’t tell which was the real him. Was he the gentleman who asked permission? The one who sometimes looked like the saddest soul alive? Or was he simply a man who had one-night stands and felt nothing?
“I’m fine. This isn’t some fairy-tale ending. We fucked. Now we leave,” he told me as he pulled up his jeans. “Welcome to the real world.”
“You’re such a dick.”
“I told you that from the jump. Happy birthday,” he said. “Thanks for the sweets.”
After he left, I stayed in bed for a few seconds longer. Emotions began pushing through my system, and I could not tame them. Tears flooded my stare, and I began to sob into the palms of my hands, realizing what I’d just done. I didn’t know who I’d been that night and always had a strong sense of self. I was reliable. Responsible. Stable. The good girl who never did the bad thing. Everything that took place in that room was wrong. It should’ve never happened. I should’ve never been in that situation at all. Yet I wanted to relive every single second of it in slow motion. His hands gripping my waist…his tongue licking my neck…his lips against mine…
No, Starlet. This was wrong.
My mind and heart were at war as the tears poured from my eyes because I didn’t understand.
How could something so bad feel so good?
CHAPTER 3
Starlet
I woke up without a single headache to be discovered.
It’s a twenty-first birthday miracle!
I guessed that one sip of magic punch wouldn’t have been enough to grant me a hangover.
The first thing that came to mind as I stretched my arms in my dorm room bed was how John cheated on me. Luckily, the second thought that crashed into my head was dick—both the person and the phallus.
My body still felt sore from how he flipped me around like a pancake.
Did I tell him I was a good birthday girl?
Oh gosh, Starlet. What a night, what a night.
After hopping out of bed, I headed to take a shower. One of the perks of being an upperclassman meant you had a solid chance of getting a dorm with a shower attached. That sure beat sharing a bathroom with twenty other girls on your floor—the perks of advancing in school.
I had finished my shower and was drying my hair when Whitney stirred in her bed. She yawned wide-mouthed and then patted her stomach five times, as she did every morning.
“Morning, roomie,” she stated.
“Morning, roomie,” I replied.
She sat up and stretched her arms. “Hungover?”
“Not a lick.”
Her eyebrow shot up. “Seriously?”
“Maybe I’m immune to hangovers.” That, or I didn’t drink a lick last night.
“Don’t jinx yourself, dude. Remember that time I took twenty-one Jell-O shots?”
I shivered at the memory. “I do.” She came stumbling back to our dorm as if she were made of Jell-O.
She smiled. “I ended up in the nurse’s office being told my hangover caught up with me two days later. I’d never drunk so much Gatorade in my life.”
“Let’s just hope that’s not my case.” I snickered. “I’m feeling pretty good.”
“Good. That’s good, seeing how John was a total jerk. But then, based on the night you had…” She let out a sly smirk and wiggled her eyebrows. “We didn’t even get to talk about the night you had after you ran off with hot-hot.”