Page 94 of Leah

“There’s Jared!”

We spared no time going to him. The guy was exactly the same as I remembered: funny, ridiculously obnoxious, and still filled with jokes. His eyes lit up the second he saw us, and itwasn’t long after that Leo joined, drunk and with a hand up some girl’s skirt.

“Fuck, looking good, girls,” he said.

“The drinks are on the house, by the way,” Jared then said, motioning to the bar. “Rome’s spoken to the bartenders. Just tell them your names when you get something to drink.”

“And congratulations on graduating,” Leo told me, giving me a half-assed hug. I maintained my distance because his hand was still under some girl’s skirt. Always rowdy, of course.

“Thanks, guys!” I said, smiling.

We reminisced for a bit, conversing about all that’d happened. They seemed happy. We drank a lot, and Melanie dragged me to the dance floor. We danced, our heads growing cloudier by the minute when Rome suddenly intervened, hugging me tightly.

“Congratulations, Leah!” he shouted over the music. “I’m glad you showed up!”

I smiled back at him. “Thanks for inviting us out.”

He turned to Melanie, his eyes roaming her up and down for a flash of a second. She was dressed to kill in a mini-skirt and halter top. I was, per usual, on the tamer side in black tights and a billowy top with purposeful rips along the side. I guess it was meant to look hip? I didn’t know. I’d just borrowed it out of Melanie’s dresser before we left and loved the way it felt on me.

She maintained her distance from him, smiling in that friendly way, but I could see the want in her eyes as she nervously looked around. They spoke, very briefly, before he left her alone to get some drinks.

“You okay, babe?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she answered with a nod, but it couldn’t be further from the truth.

“He can’t stop looking at you,” I told her next, studying her closely.

She just bit her lip and shrugged. The girl was good at bottling it in.

We took breaks in between dancing and downed tequila shots at the table with the boys. As I got drunker, my thoughts meandered to Carter. I glanced around the room, part of me hoping I’d see him, the other part of me glad I hadn’t.

When I was drunk, I could admit how absurdly attracted to him I was.

When my head was this cloudy, the walls I’d erected crumbled, and the truth seeped into my mind.

If he was here—I’d go home with him. It was that simple. I could pretend all I wanted that I was strong, that I needed the distance, but my body was tethered to him and I…

I was so weak.

Which was why it was good he wasn’t here.

It was only toward the end of the evening, while dancing half-drunkenly on the floor, that I caught the overwhelming scent of him. I stilled right there on the floor, turning my head to the side, shutting my eyes to focus on that scent that seemed to grow stronger around me.

Was I too drunk to make sense of things?

But then hands went around me, roaming up and down the sides of my body. I gasped, my reaction immediate. Iknewit was him. Those calloused fingers were a dead giveaway.

It was instinct that had my back sink into his chest, the top of my head hit his chin. His body moved with the music, and I was more intent on moving againsthim. My ass rubbed along his pelvis, and I felt his face brush against the side of mine.

“Congratulations,” he said in my ear, his voice breathless and hoarse.

I opened my eyes and turned my head to him. And it was him. Yes, he was here in the flesh, and he was holding me more than he was dancing with me.

The room was dim, but his eyes looked bright. I lost myself in them as we moved to the music, and I knew right away, by the minty smell of his mouth and the solemn look on his face, that he was completely sober.

The second he began to pull away, I grabbed his arm and forced it around my stomach. “No,” I told him desperately, already near tears.“Don’t go.”

He paused, staring down at me with a pained look. On a sigh, he moved closer to me. I turned my body in his arms and wrapped my own around his neck, looking up at him, in awe of his beauty.

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