Chapter Twelve

"Frat Party!" Anti shouts, shoving a crumpled piece of paper in my face.

"What about it?" Mark asks.

"What about it? It's a frat party! We got to go!"

I shake my head, staring up at the ceiling.

Anti grabs one of my wrists, trying to pull me up. "Frat party!"

I swear he sounded like a little kid. I pulled my hand out of his and laid it back on my bed.

"Not now, Anti. I'm tired."

"But...frat party..." he repeats, a little dejected this time.

"Frat party?" Sean asks, walking in.

"Frat party!" Anti repeats.

"If you say that one more time I'm going to strangle you."

I hear Mark chuckle and whisper "Frat Party."

I shoot up in my bed and launch across the room at him. I try to pin him down, but instead, he catches me off guard by overpowering me and pressing me into the mattress below him. He pins my arms above my head, is legs on either side of my thighs.

I stare daggers into his eyes while his crinkle with laughter. He leans down. For a second, I think he's going to kiss me. I feel his warm breath blow down my neck as he breathes me in. His lips come dangerously close to mine. My breath hitches.

Just before his lips make contact with mine, they change course and land on my ear. "Frat party."

"Gah!" I shout pushing him off me. He falls on the edge of the bed, laughing. "Fine. Where's this party?" I ask.

"Over at that barn near the back corner of campus. Everyone from our class will be there," Anti states.

I raise a brow.

"Besides him," Mark says.

I throw my hands to my sides. "I don't know how I feel about this..."

"(Y/n), we'll be with you all night. Nothing bad is going to happen. Trust me." I stare into Dark's eyes. They hold that promise.

"Fine. Only if I can visit the book store before hand."

The guys all look at each other. They know my love of books. I've been going every week until they told me to stop going and wasting my money.

After minutes of glances at each other, they agree, telling me I can only purchase three. Which isn't nearly satisfactory, but good enough for now.

. . .

Picking up the three books that I've been searching for to my series, I giddily skip back to my dorm room. While passing through the park, Bedelth catches sight of me. To make matters worse, she's with a man that has very familiar-looking dark brown hair.

Looking at me, she grabs the man's hand and marches straight toward me. I start to pick up the pace, only to realize it's useless when she catches up to me.

"Hey, bitch." She appears in front of me. A male around my age stares at me with familiar blue eyes.

"(Y/n)? He asks.

I know that voice.

"Gabriel?

He smiles at me with perfect teeth. "Long time no see." He wraps his arms around me in a hug, clearly oblivious to how slightly uncomfortable I am.

"Yea. Last time I saw you was at Jan's party."

He nods his head. "Yea. If I had known I'd be meeting you today I would've brought Elide along."

Against my wishes, my eyes light up. "Elide? How is she?"

"She's doing good. She's also here, actually. Over in the west women's building."

"Oh really? I'm in the south building."

"The co one?"

I nod my head.

"I didn't expect you to be in that one. I'm over in the east men's building myself."

"Really?"

"Yea. If you'd like, we could walk over to the west building and grab Elide and catch up over lunch or something."

"Sure, that sounds great—"

"Great! I'll run to my room and grab my purse real quick!" Bedelth butts in before running off. I shake my head at her retreating form.

"So, how've you been?"

I start walking along side Gabriel. "I've been good. Finally have enough money to fully pay off the first year here, so I guess that's nice. How about you?"

"Been great. Finally stopped smoking. Elide and I started dating. Bedelth is up my ass for a one night stand as usual."

I chuckle at that.

"How's the family?"

I stare down at the concrete sidewalk below us. "Dad's gone. Mom's dead. Brother is no longer in my life. So nothing new."

I feel his gaze on my face.

"I'm sorry, (Y/n). I had no clue..."

"It's alright." I paused. "I just would rather not talk about it, please."

"Understood."

The rest of the walk to the building was spent in silence.

When we approached the dormitory, Elide was already waiting for us outside.

"Hey, (Y/n)! It's so good to see you again."