Page 54 of Off Limits

Digging out my phone, I text Ellie to let her know the change of plans.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Ellie

Simon: Cal’s dragging me to a party

E: tell him no

Simon: I tried

E: Try harder

Simon: The whole team is going. He said he’d come find me if I don’t at least make an appearance

Well, shit. We definitely don’t want that.

Simon: It’s at the Sigma Nu house. I’ll text when I can get away.

“Frat party?” Autumn says, leaning in close and reading Simon’s last text as we walk back to our dorm. “Sweet! Let’s go.”

“Oh, uh …”

Autumn looks at me like I’m nuts. “Simon’s going to be there, right? Meet up with him there and head off to wherever you were going to go. Have some fun. Have a drink. Dance with him. It’s good foreplay.”

Blushing, I laugh and shake my head. “We’re pretty good in the foreplay department without a party.

Autumn rolls her eyes, slides her ID through the card reader on the entrance to our dorm and pulls the door open, gesturing for me to go in first. “That’s not the point. The point is that it’s an opportunity for you to have fun. That was what you wanted this semester, right?”

“True.”

“And didn’t Simon just invite you? Why wouldn’t you go?”

I pull my lips to the side as we trudge up the two flights of stairs to our room. “I wouldn’t exactly call that an invite.”

She shrugs, pushing through the door to our floor. “Who cares? You know where he’ll be. And you want to see him, don’t you?”

I nod as I unlock our door.

“So?” she asks. “What’s the problem?”

“Cal’s going to be there, for one thing.”

She rolls her eyes again. “I thought you weren’t going to let Cal run your life anymore,” she says as she takes off her coat and tosses it on the couch. It was even colder today than last week, the mid-October weather turning distinctly fall-like. Now that we’re inside, though, combined with the fifteen minute walk from the football stadium to our dorm, I’m warm.

“Easier said than done,” I mutter, pulling off my own heavy sweatshirt and my thermal, so I’m just in my camisole.

Autumn looks me up and down, her gaze calculating. “Change into your sparkly red top,” she says. “I’ll let you borrow my black crop sweater. It’ll be perfect.”

I look down at myself. “And on the bottom?”

“Stick with the skinny jeans. They make your ass look great.”

“And what about you?”

She shrugs and heads for her room. “I’ll find something.”

“How do you know I don’t want to wear something else?” I call after her.

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