Free hollis-partygirlFD-IN-EP

Party Girl’s
    First Date
    Also by Rachel Hollis
    Party Girl
    Sweet Girl
    Party Girl’s
    First Date
    Rachel Hollis
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
    Copyright © 2015 Rachel Hollis
    All rights reserved.
    No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
    Published by Chic Publishing
    www.thechicsite.com
    Cover Design: Cortnee Brown
    ISBN-13: 978-0-692-38091-8
    First Edition
    Printed in the United States of America

    Part I: Landon
    “Max Jeennnings !” I singsong my roommate’s name across the carpet just like Oprah announcing a free car.
    As expected, she continues to ignore me. Too bad for her I know the one thing guaranteed to annoy her the most. Taylor Swift.
    “Midnight . . .” I sing softly.
    “Don’t,” she barks without looking up.
    “You come and pick me up— no headlights .”
    That did it.
    Now she’s growling.
    “Landon, I swear on all that is holy—”
    Now she’s going to bring the Lord into this! And after all the conversations we’ve had lately about her language too.
    “Max, don’t break a commandment! It’s not even dark outside yet!”
    She’s sitting cross-legged on the sofa, hunched over her computer, and she must know I’ve tried on another outfit because she’s purposely avoiding looking up.
    “So it’s OK to use the Lord’s name in vain after-hours?” she grumbles.
    Uh, yes. It’s the most obvious thing in the world to me, but clearly she doesn’t know. I’ll explain.
    “Of course not; it just seems a little less offensive. Like drinking a wine cooler, or going braless in front of company. It’s never really the rightthing to do, but at least after dark it’s less pronounced. Besides that, you promised you’d try to work on your language, remember?”
    Even with her head down I can still see her scowl grow. I wonder if she’s remembering the night she made me that promise. She’d had one too many cocktails, which made her more amenable to my suggestion that her language was unbecoming a lady.
    “That promise was made under duress,” she mutters to her screen.
    I raise my eyebrows nearly to my hairline.
    “That promise,” I tell her, “was made under vodka. That’s not the same thing and you know it.”
    Max snorts and goes back to studying whatever is on her screen. I go back to studying Max.
    The two of us could not be more different. I’m short, while she’s got legs up to her chin. I spend hours getting my long blonde hair to look this shiny, while she’s rocking more of an angry pixie cut. Match us up with Miko, a creative genius who glamorizes her own weirdo style, and we make for one heck of a mismatched triumvirate. Our wild differences are probably why we get along so well, though. I mean, who wants to hang out with replicas of themselves? Besides, like, maybe Kanye. He seems like he’d probably be super into that.
    I find Max huddled over her computer like this all the time. She’s clearly into whatever she’s looking at, but she’s always careful to keep whatever it is hidden from me. I just hope it isn’t anything weird. I had a great-aunt who spent years covering up the fact that she had a second family made up entirely of Marie Osmond dolls. She kept it quiet for ages too. In fact, the only reason anyone found out is that our cousin Demarius happened upon her in the Dollar General three towns over talking to one of her “babies” while she pushed it around in a pram covered in Chantilly lace.
    I’m not suggesting that Max would be into anything so odd, but she’s a very private person, and if she did have a secret collection of china babies dressed to look like pageant contestants, I’d have no way of knowing it.
    I smile