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Casually returning her hug, I greet a few other people I recognize. The Ohio State University is one of the largest learning institutions in the country. But if you’re like me—taking on multiple jobs and signing up for all the paid internships I qualify for—you meet a ton of people.
“Is that Warped Wing’s CreepShow?” Stanley asks, pointing at the four pack I brought. My beer is from a local brewery with a limited release this time of year. You couldn’t pay me to pull from a shitty keg. Blame my Irish blood, but I like my beer dark and delicious.
Handing him a can and opening my own, I lean against a cement wall and take a satisfying gulp of the dense, smoky porter. The night is mild for late fall. The tension I had been carrying all week, ever since our last MacElroy dinner, leaks out of my shoulders.
Sunday dinner had always been my refuge, but not anymore. Not with Ana across the table, wearing her hair in a messy bun so she looks like she just got out of bed. Ana, charming the crap out of everyone as she jokes around with Declan and teases her brother.
Ana, making plans about leaving Ohio for good. For some reason, she’s only applying to colleges on the West Coast, determined to get as far as possible from her family.
To prove what, exactly? That she can make it on her own? Of course she can. You don’t need to be on the other side of the continent to exert your independence, for fuck’s sake.
On top of all that, she’ll be driving her death-on-wheels race car. The fact that Sergei hasn’t taken those keys and flushed them down the toilet is insane. She can’t drive thousands of miles on a rebuilt car from before safety measures were standard! I would slash her tires before I let her.
Let her? I’m in no position to let her or not, to have a say or not, to keep her here or not.
My throat nearly closes at the thought of her driving away. I take a long gulp of beer to push down my discomfort. If I’m trying to relax, the last person I should think about is Anastasia Petrov.
Two women join our circle, a short and curvy blonde and a dark-haired gazelle who looks familiar.
The blonde saddles up to me confidently, her sexy nurse costume serving as a platter for heavy breasts.
“What are you dressed as? Clark Kent?” she flirts.
“Not Superman in disguise, sorry. Just another broke grad student,” I say, hoping to tamp down Sexy Nurse’s heated look.
The brunette snickers and we make eye contact. She’s more subdued, although the interest is obvious. She’s in a Catwoman suit, her long dark hair framing a pretty face.
“I’ve served you coffee,” she says. “Engineering, right?”
“That’s right. I recognize you too.” I sometimes study at the coffee shop on the first floor of our building. “I’m Bryce.”
“Nice to meet you, Bryce. I’m…”
A laugh floats from inside the house, so recognizable it blocks everything out, including the name of the woman I’m talking to. There’s a tickle at the back of my brain, the familiarity of the sound sharpening my senses. It sounds like Ana’s laughter.
That’s impossible. I blame my tendency to think about Ana all the damn time.
Now I hear her everywhere too?
Resolved to get on with the party, I take a step closer to Catwoman. Time to get on with tonight’s agenda: have a drink and bring home a barista.
But then the chanting begins. “A-na, A-na, A-na.” What the fuck?
My legs have hauled me into the middle of the kitchen before my brain catches up. I don’t have to see her face to recognize that the swell of those hips and the shape of that backside and the shine of that hair all belong to one person.
It’s Ana. Anastasia Petrov is in a snug white body suit, limbs printed with lines and shadows so she partly resembles a machine.
She’s facing a table while kneeling on a chair, her hands shackled behind her back by a man’s red tie. Ana bends down to pick up a piece of candy on the table with her mouth and releases the candy beside her, aiming for a tiny cup on the floor.
Across from her is a guy doing the same thing but he’s wobbly, intoxicated, and no match for the competitiveness of a high school kid trying to impress a room. The cheering continues till she finishes picking up the candy within her lips’ reach and gets all but two into the cup.
The opponent shrugs and consumes a mini Tootsie Roll, wrapper and all. Not that anyone cares. There isn’t a single person in this room who gives a shit about a stupid game.
They’re cheering because Ana is on her fucking knees with her hands tied back, repeatedly bending down, bobbing that full head of hair like she’s… Fuck, I’m hard.
“Wanna go again?” Darren asks Ana when he releases her hands from the constraints. I don’t miss the slight graze of his knuckles on her lower back, their closeness propelling me forward.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I say, after shoving Darren out of the way and grabbing her shoulders so Ana faces me.
