Page 17 of Going for Gold (Sweet Cravings 3)

She had put on black leggings, a black tank top, black sneakers, and pulled her hair back into a tight pony tail with a black headband. She had gone through my drawers and laid out a similar outfit on my bed.

I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Are we going to rob a bank instead of watching a movie?"

"You tell me. What's Operation Red Rip?"

"Uh, what? Did you do a line of coke while I was in the shower?"

She tossed me my iPhone. "Your alarm went off while you were in the shower. It said to get ready for Operation Red Rip and to wear all black."

Did Bryce give me the wrong phone? I swiped my finger across the screen and looked at the homepage. All the apps were the same. I checked the texts next. Lots of missed texts from Chris. Definitely my phone.

Then another alarm started playing. It was titled, "Operation Red Rip - Meet at the village square."

"Did Bryce add weird alarms to my phone?" I asked.

"It would appear so."

"You don't really expect me to go, do you?"

"No. I expect us to go," said Kristen. "Now hurry up and get ready! We're going to be late."

"But what about our movie?"

"We can watch our movie any time. But we can't go on a secret mission with your sexy new friend any time." Kristen got up and started stretching her quads.

"He's not my friend. He's just a guy who was nice enough to return my phone."

"Well, whatever he is, he sure seems to make you happy."

I thought back to my conversation with him on the bench. For those few minutes, I had forgotten about everything else. And right now I just wanted to forget. Damn it. I hated how Kristen always made so much sense. "Fine, I'll go."

I threw on the all black outfit she had picked out for me and added a little eye makeup and I was ready to go. I usually would have been concerned about going out with wet hair, but it was so hot out that having wet hair would probably just help cool me down.

A few minutes later we arrived at the village square. But Bryce wasn't anywhere to be seen. There was just a trio of guys in Canadian track suits sitting on the side of the fountain. Wait a second! That's Bryce. Is he really Canadian? I thought back to my brief conversation with him. He hadn't said "eh" a lot or been overly polite. And he hadn't mentioned maple syrup or hockey at all.

He and his two friends ran over to us. One had brown hair that was buzzed close to his scalp and the other had perfectly coiffed dark hair. They were both about the same height as Bryce, which was probably a foot taller than me.

"Hey, Alina!" said Bryce. "I'm glad you guys came. I was starting to think we'd have to start without you."

"What the heck is Operation Red Rip?" I asked.

"You'll see. Follow us." He pushed a Razor scooter toward Kristen.

"Where's mine?"

"Oh, we didn't realize your friend was going to come so we only brought one extra. You'll have to ride with me." He got on his scooter. "Hop on."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Come on. I won't bite."

Kristen gave me a shove to force me onto his scooter. He immediately kicked it into motion, giving me no choice but to wrap my arms around his waist to keep from falling off. My hands ended up on his abs, which felt as incredible as they looked when I had seen them in the locker room. I quickly moved my hands over to his hips. It seemed wrong to be feeling up Bryce an hour after breaking up with my asshole boyfriend. And it made me wonder what he was doing right now. The thought made my stomach churn.

The wind whipped my hair around as we zoomed past the dorm buildings. We had gone into an area of the village that I didn't recognize.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Dorm 16."

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