King of Campus

Currently she enjoys assessing what I’ve chosen and then sending me back to my room to change into what she thinks I should wear instead. In what I now recognize to be an error in judgement, I humored her the first couple of times it happened which has now established a pattern of behavior I’m finding difficult to break.

Just like I expect, her mouth slides down at the corners as her narrowed eyes sweep critically over the selection I’ve thrown on for the evening. “I was hoping you would wear the little blue skirt with the floral off-the-shoulder short sleeve blouse.” Her eyes light with excitement. “And then the pink little ballet flats you have.” She actually claps her hands together with enthusiasm. “Oh my god, that would look so good! You have to go change!”

Because she’s so dang excited and I think she’s probably right anyway, I head back to my room to change. When I reappear five minutes later she practically jumps up and down in her wedges. “I knew that would look amazing together!”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right. And since she usually is, I seldom bother arguing with her. I try to look at this as having my own in-house stylist and that makes me feel better. Because the skirt is short and I have fairly long legs, I can get away with wearing flats which I absolutely love. Dancing, especially ballet, is hard on your feet. I’ll take flats over heels every single time. So I appreciate her taking this into consideration.

Now that we’re finally ready to go, Lexie links her arm through mine as we walk down the well-lit hall towards the guy’s apartment. She doesn’t bother knocking but pushes open the door instead. All of the laughter, chatter, and music from inside comes pouring out into the hallway. Most of the tenants in this building are college aged students, so apparently obnoxiously cranked up music and noise on a Friday night is the norm around here and therefore perfectly acceptable.

Stepping inside, I weave my way through all the people standing around in clumps talking. As soon as Dylan catches sight of Lexie, he pushes through the thick crowd towards us. Reaching her side, he immediately pulls her into his arms, kissing her soundly on the mouth. They stay fused together for a good minute before I actually have to clear my throat. And yeah… there’s a whole lot of tongue action happening.

Which isn’t awkward at all...

Finally coming up for air, Lexie gives me a sheepish grin as Dylan continues holding her close as if he can’t stand to be parted from her for even a moment.

I can’t resist admitting, “You guys are totally sickening. You know that, right?”

Lexie’s smile intensifies a couple thousand watts until I can barely stand to look at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a guy for you, too. That’s one of my missions this year.”

I really hope she’s joking about that. “I don’t need a guy,” I groan. The last thing I want is for Lexie to try working her voodoo matchmaking magic on me. Been there, done that. It never really works out in the end.

I suppose if I get desperate enough, I could always tell her about the date I have tomorrow night with Finn…

But since I know exactly what type of ugly response that will elicit, I decide to keep my mouth shut. I’m really hoping I’ll be able to sneak out without telling her about it since the last thing I need is for her to pull up all those pictures she snapped of him last year in some desperate attempt at tough love.

“Sure you do.”

Rather flatly, I shake my head. “Nope, I really don’t.” Needing to escape this conversation before she actually starts dragging guys over for an impromptu version of the Dating Game (FYI- she likes to bring up embarrassing stories from our childhood), I quickly mutter, “I’m going to get something to drink.” The words barely make it out of my mouth before I’m walking away.

The crowd is elbow to elbow in here. There has to be at least fifty people jammed into their living/dining room combination. And the noise level is just shy of deafening. Looking around for a few familiar faces, I realize that most the guys here have big bulging muscles. And more than a few look to have no neck whatsoever. Which is always a weird phenomenon. So… I’m guessing these are fellow teammates.

And the girls… I’ve also noticed there are way more females than guys present and a lot of them are scantily clad and clinging to any male they can find.

In pairs.

I almost roll my eyes. It’s doubtful I’ll be hanging out here for long. Just as I grab a beer from the fridge, I catch a glimpse of Roan in the living room. Because of his height, he’s hard to miss. Of course he’s surrounded by a thick group of people at least two deep.