Page 1 of Love.V2
Prologue
Tess
The porch light was flickering and something smelled alarmingly like vomit. This was probably not the best idea, but I shoved aside the worried feeling in my gut. It hadn’t served me well up to this point in life, anyway.
“I’m fine,” I said. A suspiciously familiar-looking rubber hose poked out of the unkempt shrubs. “I only wanted you to know where I was.”
“Just stay where you are. Let me throw some jeans on and I’ll…” Vanna’s voice devolved into a hacking cough on the other side of the phone. Only two weeks into our first semester at Western Tennessee University and my roomie had caught some virus that was going around. “You don’t even know anyone there,” she reminded me weakly when her coughing subsided.
“I know Dylan.” I bit my lip, willing myself to suppress the flush crawling up my cheeks in the beat of silence that followed.
Attending a college where I didn’t know a single person was as freeing as it was terrifying. Thankfully, I’d won the roommate lottery with Vanna. One look at my shy, quiet self and she’d taken me underher wing. Her brash, outgoing personality meant she’d never met a stranger, and though I enjoyed how she’d kept an eye on me the last couple of weeks, I didn’t want a mother hen tonight.
“Dylan’s not a bad guy,” she hedged. Like Vanna, he already seemed to fit in perfectly at WTU. People gave him fist bumps on the sidewalk. Even our English teacher called on him more often than everyone else. “But you don’t really know him, Tess. It’s dangerous to be at a college party by yourself.”
Alright, so I didn’t technicallyknowhim. We’d only spoken once, two days ago, when he’d invited Vanna to this party and said, “Bring your friend, too. Tess, right?”
My stomach still fluttered thinking about it. He knew my name. God, it was pathetic.
I’d spent the last two weeks pining after Dylan Morris like a middle schooler in heat, and he’d invited me (however indirectly) to his house for a party. It was the kind of opportunity I’d promised myself I wouldn’t pass up.
“I’m going in,” I announced, already walking up the sidewalk.
“Don’t you dare go in there, Theresa Lynn Livingston, or I swear to God—” She erupted in a spasm of rattling coughs, which I used to my advantage.
“Lay back down before you choke on your own tongue. I’ll be safe. Don’t wait up, bye!” I practically yelled as I hung up. She was probably right, and this was a bad idea, but I’d made up my mind. I was going to my first ever college party. Tonight.
It wasn’t anything like I’d seen in the movies. The little house on the edge of campus looked rundown. Paint peeled from the droopingsiding, but a faint thrum of bass met my ears as I made my way to the front door. It swung open before I could knock, three girls leaving with angry looks on their faces.
“What a bust,” one of them grumbled, barely glancing at me as they passed. “What kind of frat dudes don’t know how to tap a keg?”
They muttered, teetering across the pavement in heels and flirty, ruffly skirts.
I glanced down at my Toms and thrifted lace tank top. Was I supposed to be wearing heels? I should have asked Vanna, but that would have meant telling her where I was going. She’d never have let me out the door if she’d known.
A few more people trickled past, all complaining and shaking their heads. I stood frozen on the front stoop, making myself as small as possible as they walked away. The party was a bust? And what was this about a keg?
I glanced around, locating that suspicious rubber hose I’d noticed earlier. A bubble of anxiety crept up from my belly as I examined my shoes. I probably shouldn’t be here. What was I thinking, crashing the party of a guy who very likely didn’t remember I existed? Just because his eyes were like dark chocolate, and he made my body feel like a toasted marshmallow—all gooey and hot.
I blew out a breath, straightening my spine and picturing my list in my head, specifically the first line: “Go to a normal college party. Have fun.”
I plucked the rubber hose from the bushes and opened the door.
***
Dylan
“I’m telling you, it’s not here,” Derrick insisted.
“The dude said it came with the keg!” Mac yelled in Derrick’s face, brandishing a receipt. Derrick bared his teeth.
“People are already leaving, guys. If we fuck this up…” another one of my brothers, Michael, muttered, his eyes darting around before landing on me. He didn’t need to finish that sentence. Having the new pledges throw a party to kick off the school year was a time-honored Epsilon tradition. If it tanked, we’d have hell to pay.
“Alright, um…” I looked around the kitchen again, hoping a miracle would appear.
“Are you guys looking for this?” I could barely hear her soft voice over all the noise, but when I looked up, there she was. Tess Livingston. She had come. And she was holding the beer tap.
Mac raised his fists in the air, bellowing, “BEER ANGEL!!” Tess winced at the raucous chorus of cheers that followed, the crowd pushing her forward into the kitchen, chanting “beer angel!”
