Free Premature Evacuation (Underground Sorority #1) by Rachel Shane Page B

“I guess you could tell me. If you wanted to.”
    He shrugged. “I probably shouldn’t answer then. Because usually people expect you to say you’re good. And that would be a lie.” He pushed open the swinging kitchen door and trudged back to the stairs. I stood there for a moment, my mouth hanging, my arms wide open, stunned.
    And yeah, I fixed my lipstick in the dull stainless steel oven before sucking in a breath and joining the group.
    “Bianca, are you all right?” Nate shouted at the top of his lungs, loud enough to wake people who may have been sleeping upstairs.
    “Shush,” I snapped at him. “You can’t scream like that at this time of night.”
    “Oh, shut up.” He stood up. “We should probably go anyway.”
    When they reached the front door, Corey asked, “You girls coming out with us?”
    I surfed a wave of euphoria at his words and divided a glance between Corey and Fallon. She shook her head subtly. Excuses filled my head: but she didn’t see the way he flirted in the kitchen! She only saw the awkward silence between us. Still, I couldn’t chance the possibility of getting to Quigley’s and losing him all over again in the crowd. “Thanks but I think we’re going to call it a night. I want to make sure Bianca makes it upstairs okay. Plus there’s some salt packets here calling my name.”
    Corey held up the granola bar to me in solidarity.
    Nate tapped his foot on the floor. “Come on, man. I don’t want to get stuck in line.”
    Corey brushed passed me so slowly, his fingers grazed against my waist and lingered for a few seconds. When he finally removed his touch, it was like someone slowly peeling off the barcode on a gift, careful not to leave a trace of the price. Before he walked out, he shot me such a haunting smile that when the door shut behind him, Fallon raised her eyebrows to me as if to say, “Yeah, I saw that too.”

F OR A WEEK AFTER the hayride, we never spoke in public. I’d see him at Quigley’s and we’d lock eyes. Several seconds would pass with us holding each other’s gaze in a drunken game of chicken. First one to flinch drinks. So he’d turn away and I’d down whatever was in my cup. Nate ignored me too. If he’d figured out about Bianca’s crush, he didn’t acknowledge it. I’d mostly spend my nights dancing provocatively next to Bianca, coaxing all the guys in the room toward us except the ones we actually wanted.
    Still, whenever we were in the same bar, we’d stay on our respective corners, me toward the back, him commandeering the front by the dart board. Eventually he’d make his way toward the bathrooms in the back. I’d throw my arms in the air and close my eyes as I belted out whatever song was playing to prevent myself from the temptation of watching him. And while I swung my hips in tune to the beat, I’d feel a squeeze at my side, gentle, a small acknowledgement that he was still thinking of me. My eyes would pop open and Corey would be passing right by me, head forward, giving away nothing. Like I said, in public, we never spoke.
    But in private, we had a secret communication system. We had lengthy discussions with one another without saying a word using status messages on the school social networking site.
    After the hayride, I’d posted a picture of a bag of chips focused in on the sodium content. A minute later, he liked my picture and posted a status message of his own: an empty granola wrapper with the caption: my comfort for tonight .
    When I woke up the next morning, I’d discovered he’d posted a new one at some point during the night: I’ve been left for dead .
    I retaliated with the song lyrics I’d belted out to him the first night. He shifted to sappier quotes from songs with lyrics that claimed to still be thinking about someone. The first night he squeezed me in passing through the bar, he posted an image of the sand-filled squeeze ball he kept on his desk with the caption: this is a poor substitute for what I really