Prologue
I held my brother's keys behind my back, laughing at him as he tried to snatch them away. “Take me with you.”
“No,” he said with a growl, trying to duck around me to grab the keys. I dodged out of the way, running up the stairs and dangling the keys high over his head. He was bigger and stronger than me, but I was faster. He had never been able to keep up with me.
“Take me with you, or I flush them down the toilet.” I jangled the keys back and forth, taunting him and grinning.
“Damn it, Ami!” My brother rushed up the stairs, making another grab for the keys. “This isn't funny. I don't want you there. All my friends are going to be there.”
I dodged my brother's grasp once more, running for the bathroom. I grabbed the plunger and used it like a sword to ward him off. Mark had always been a germophobe, and he backed away from the plunger as if it would kill him. He held up his hands, pleading with me.
“Ami, don't. Please.”
“Take. Me. With. You.” I looked him dead in the eye, waving the plunger back and forth.
Mark sighed, lowering his hands. My grin widened. I knew I had him right where I wanted him. He wouldn't have any choice but to take me to the party with him.
“Just promise you'll leave me and my friends alone?” He looked up at me with his best puppy dog eyes.
I rolled my eyes. “Mark, I don't want anything to do with your stupid friends. Besides, it's my first college party. You think I want to hang out with my loser brother the whole time?” Hanging out with Mark and his friends was the last thing on my mind. Although he did have this one friend who I'd always had a bit of a crush on.
He shook his head at me, holding his hand out for the keys. I held them out to him, snatching them away for a moment just to get one last reaction out of him. When he scowled at me, I dropped the keys into his hand.
“Let's go, then,” he said, heading towards the door.
“Just let me get changed real quick!” I raced for my room, digging through my closet to find something to wear.
Half an hour later—and after constant badgering from my brother to hurry up—we were in the car and heading to the party. It was an off-campus party down the road from my brother's college. There was already a line of cars parked up and down the block by the time we got there, and people were mingling on the porch and in the front yard. Music was playing loud enough that I could hear it from down the street.
“Is this a frat house?” I asked, leaning out the window to look at the little suburban home. It didn't look like much. Peeling green paint, overgrown shrubs, and a broken window covered with a garbage bag and some duct tape.
“No,” Mark said. “The frat parties around here don't have beer. They're afraid of losing their charter if they get caught serving alcohol to minors.”
“But your friends don't care about that?”
He shrugged, parking the car down the road in the first spot he could find. “I don't really know the guys that live here. They're Cameron's friends. They all rent the place together.”
I followed my brother up to the house. The music coming from inside the house got louder as we approached, loud enough to disturb the neighbors. But it was a college town; all of the neighbors would be other college kids, renting off-campus housing so they could save money compared to living in the dorms. Either that, or wanting to live someplace with more freedom and less responsibility than the on-campus housing. I wouldn't be starting college until the next year, but I had some college-age friends, and they'd told me stories about strict Resident Assistants who cracked down on any noise complaints, underage drinking, or other rowdiness in the dorms.
“All right, have fun,” Mark said, giving me a quick wave before heading off in another direction, probably eager to be away from his little sister so he could party without worry.
“Wait,” I said, holding a hand out towards him. “When are we meeting up to go home?”
He shrugged. “Text me when you're done having fun. And don't drink too much.”
Then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd.
I was a bit surprised that he was letting me go off without a leash. My brother had always been over-protective of me. He constantly kept his friends away from me, and seemed ready to pounce on any guy that so much as looked at me the wrong way. I'd half-expected him to hang around and watch over my shoulder the whole night, to make sure I didn't get into any trouble. Either he was too embarrassed at the idea of being here with his little sister, or he was still mad at me for stealing his keys and coercing him into bringing me along.