Page 53 of Ink & Ambition

I take the drink from her hands, gratefully. “To a good cure,” I say, holding my bottle neck up to hers. She clinks her drink against mine.

“To not getting bitch-slapped.” We laugh and take sips of our drinks. The door swings open and no less than twenty people enter the house. Let the party commence.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Margot

Bythetimethefour of us arrive, the party is in full swing. Ryan picked us up a few hours after I got home from the meeting with Alex, those hours spent prepping and pampering for this second-ish date.

I felt bad lying to Alex about why I needed to get home earlier, and it turned out it didn’t matter anyway since I let the cat out the bag that Ryan had asked to come to the party with us–with me–while we were on our date. Alex would’ve seen us together there anyway but for some reason, I felt guilty about the situation. No reason I can truly understand, but the feeling is there nonetheless.

But that girl. Gia? He kissed that girl right in front of me. Like it was nothing. Like I wasn’t even there. I had no idea who she was, but she seemedveryfamiliar with Alex and him with her. I know for a fact she’s not his girlfriend, frat boy royalty made it clear he doesn’t do relationships. But who is she then? Hook up? Friend with benefits? Whoever she is to him, she’s completely beautiful. I wouldn’t stand a chance. Not that there’sa competition for his affections. Not that I would want to win that competition either way.

My thoughts are still spiraling as we enter the house and walk into the frat party chaos. One thing I’ve learned the past few years at TU is that fraternity parties start early and end late. Seeing as it’s about nine by the time we walk in, I’d say the party’s been in full swing for more than a few hours by now. A fact made all the more clear when Danika drags us to the kitchen where a cooler that was previously filled with beer stands empty in the middle of the room.

“Devon, what the fuck!” Danika shouts at Alex’s housemate as he enters the room. She gestures toward the empty cooler in disbelief.

“Don’t worry, gorgeous. There’s a full cooler in the backyard. Come on, I’ll show you guys.” Devon leads the way toward the back door and we all follow. The first thing I see is the fire pit that Alex and I sat at and made the deal that started this crazy ride.

“We should sit there later,” Ryan says in my ear, motioning his head toward the fire pit as he snakes his arm around my waist. Looking up at him over my shoulder, I give him a smile.

Devon grabs a few beers from the outside cooler and hands us each one. Just as I open my mouth to say thank you, a loud cheer sounds from the corner of the yard and all our attention is turned toward a highly active game of beer pong.

That’s when I notice Alex, a bottle of beer raised to his smiling lips, the fire shining against his face. God, he really is beautiful. He rests his head on that girl’s shoulder before turning his attention our way.

“Sunshine!” He calls, and I can tell he’s not himself. His words are slurred and his eyes are glassy. He can barely manage to stay upright, resting his body on Gia’s shoulders, but it doesn’t seem like she minds. “Sun, come play! Bring your–” he hiccups loudly“–friends. Come, come here.” He is insistent and while I have no interest in playing beer pong, I feel like I should do what he says before he comes over and drags me to the table.

Ryan’s hand is still on my back as I sigh and walk toward Alex.

“Hey, frat boy,” I say with a grin, and Alex’s brilliant smile smacks me in the face.

“I love it when you call me that,” he says and I cock my head in amused confusion.

Gia pulls Alex back toward their side of the table. “We playing or what?” It almost seems like she made the move to ensure he didn’t say anything else he might regret in his inebriated state, but I might be overthinking it.

“Sun, RyRy, you guys are up,” Alex says, motioning with his half empty drink at the other side of the table.

Ryan speaks into my ear. “We don’t have to play if you don’t want to.”

When I look up at him, his eyes are tight, as if playing beer pong is the very last thing he’d like to be doing right now. But if I know Alex, and I’m really starting to know him well, he isn’t going to let me walk away from this table.

“No, it’s fine. I want to play,” I reply to Ryan, giving him the most genuine smile I can muster before walking over to the table. Ryan lets his hand drop from my back as he follows me over. Sydney and Danika take up spots on the audience line, the former a nervous wreck and the latter excited as hell.

For a few rounds, we take turns throwing the balls into the little cups full of beer. It turns out I’m spectacularly bad at this game. Luckily, Ryan is actually good and pretty much carries the team. We split the cups we have to drink, but Alex is so drunk that he doesn’t even seem to be aiming for the cups so our drinking is limited.

After Ryan wins us the game rather quickly, I’m relieved and ready to head inside and do anything else.

“Good game, guys,” Alex says, sauntering up to us. Well, he probably means to be sauntering, but he’s really stumbling drunkenly. He ended up drinking a lot of the cups that Ryan sunk and still held onto his own bottle to sip in between throws.

Ryan nods to Alex and then puts his hand on my back to guide me back inside.

“Hey, bud. Let’s keep our hands to ourselves, yeah?” Alex says, stepping closer to Ryan and me. Immediately, I hold my breath, waiting for a blow out. Gia walks up to our tight circle and puts her hand on Alex’s arm to pull him back a bit. The motion causes him to drop his bottle, which hits the concrete floor and shatters.

We all step back from the spray, but Alex reaches down to clean up the mess.

“Alex, wait, don’t—”

“Fuck,” he cries, lifting his hand and letting the steady line of blood drip off his finger tips. I bend down to examine his cut and the second my skin touches his, his eyes shoot to mine.

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