Free 1980: You Shook Me All Night Long (Love in the 80s #1) by Casey L. Bond

all over the counter. He folded the edges back in and burped loudly, surprising himself.
    “Seriously?” I asked with a smile. With pride, he hit his chest once and belched again, drawing it out for several seconds.
    “You’re making me question my decision.”
    “I’m out,” he shouted over his shoulder, already disappearing down the hallway. Drawers slammed in his dresser.
    “Keys are on the table!”
    “Got it!” Joey yelled.
    I breaded another piece of chicken, flour and egg yolk coating my fingers in a sticky mess of domestication. Gripping the counter, I bowed my head. It was heavy with thoughts of a hot blonde with legs a mile long, wrapped in black lace...
    Chicken be damned. I left it on the counter and shoved myself away, marching down the hallway. The plan? I needed to win her over, show her that I was worth taking a risk for. The thing was, I had no idea how to do it. And...I’d just given Joey the car.
    “Need a ride, bro?” Joey teased, reappearing from his room in a bright-green t-shirt and jeans.
    “Actually, I do. Can you give me half an hour?”
    “Totally.”
    I clapped him on the shoulder and jogged toward the shower. I...had ...a plan.
    Forty-three minutes later, Joey eased the car into a parking space in front of Tina’s dorm. Traffic had been unusually light. “Stay put,” I said, jumping out and giving the roof a quick tap.
    “Seriously?”
    I wagged my eyebrows in response.
    “Ah, man!”
    Taking the steps two at a time, I made my way to her room and knocked twice. No answer. Damn it. I knocked again. Nothing. Plan A would have to wait. Plan B? Full effect. I eased the cassette tape out of my back pocket along with the note and slid them both beneath her door.
    Hopefully, she saw the humor in the song I chose for us.
----

    M y English Literature class’s study group met every Friday night at the library from six o’clock until we got bored enough to go home. I decided to join up. Maybe they would have some insight into the passages we were about to be tested on. I tended to be a surface girl. Skimming the words and surface, unable to dig deep enough for the hidden, poignant messages buried beneath. Surface girls did not fare well in English Lit, so this one burst through the library doors at ten minutes ‘til six.
    I had to ask for directions to the right section twice. Located on the second floor, the group’s leader wanted to hold study time among the literature we were being forced to endure...er, dissect?
    Four hours of discussion and I was done. Stick a fork in me, folks . I slammed my text book shut, earning shunning glances from my new study-friends and a shush from a librarian who happened to be passing by with a rolling cart full of returns.
    I wish I could say that visions of Shakespearean sonnets floated in my head. When it came to this stuff, I felt as dense as the valley girls acted. Vapid. Empty. Confused. The trek across campus reminded me of my mission. Especially when I passed Georgia with her new gaggle of followers. Never again, I told myself, pushing my shoulder pads up.
    “Loser,” she coughed into her hand.
    “Slut,” I said loudly in a sing-song voice.
    “As if!” she said, stomping away. What had I ever seen in her? She and I had nothing in common. I’d shown her my lack of self-esteem and she’d pounced on me like a lioness on a zebra. No more. Take my geek or hit the street, honey. That’s right. Keep walkin’!
    The dorm was loud. Music from every open door and from behind all of the closed ones. College kids from every walk of life were living it up on a Friday night. “Hey, Tina?”
    I turned at the sound of my name. A girl from my study group whose name I’d forgotten was waving and running to catch up with me. “Hey...”
    “Brittany.”
    “Hey, Brittany. Thanks for all of your help, by the way.”
    She waved me off. “It’s nothing. I actually live two doors down from you and Georgia.”
    “Just me. Georgia’s