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“It wasn’t that bad last time,” Zariah chided him.
“Yes, it was,” Ryan retorted. “King had to skip practice. Whatever they put in those things, should be illegal.”
I forgot all about those. The big box of peach lemonade in the girly cans that put me on my ass the last time we cracked open the bottles. When Kassie had told me what their alcohol concentration was, I’d been shocked as shit. I mean, I’d been drunk before, but I’d never woken up fourteen hours later on the rooftop of my dorm in nothing more than a deflated pool floatie before.
Wait.
Piper didn’t grab those. Right?
I frowned. No. She wouldn’t have. If you looked down at the underside of the can, it said they were alcoholic drinks. But if she would’ve been slammed with getting ready, she would’ve just read my text that the fridge was hers. And Kassie had the surprise…and I didn’t mention the cupcakes.
You’ve got to be fucking shitting me.
I crashed into a crowd in the lobby of our dorm, all the athletes clocking out from the day, and I tore across the linoleum, sprinting towards the elevator. My heart pounded in my chest. Piper would’ve looked for sure. But she also would’ve trusted me to tell her and I’d completely and moronically spaced it.
Fuck Gray Sweatpants. Fuck Thomas. Fuck everything else. All I could think about was if Piper accidentally passed those out at an RA event. That shit would be all my fault.
“Adam?” Kassie tried to get my attention as I slammed my fist against the elevator button. They were too far back in the lobby and I needed to go.
“I’ll meet you downstairs!” I shouted.
66
Piper
A Splitting Headache
The presentation went super good.
So, so, so good. I didn’t know what it was, but I just felt loose and so energetic. With each slide that passed, I was slinging the kind of corny jokes that Adam made and grinning at the audience. And they were having fun. We all had fun!
The only thing that could’ve made it better is if Adam was in the audience.
I passed out a dozen little prizes for the bingo before it started winding down, and I needed to start making my rounds, and everybody was so smiley, and so super happy.
Except… it was super hard to get up after I sat down.
My residents left one after another and someone kneeled down next to me. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“What?” I asked, trying to blink my eyes open. “Oh…my god.” I sighed. “I feel sick.”
It didn’t matter how much I couldn’t get up, I shoved myself into a standing position and stumbled to the bathroom. A sour taste filled my mouth. No—not my first event!
It didn’t matter how much I didn’t want to do it; I threw up in the toilet and sank to the cool tile, crumpling into myself like a stepped-on pastry. What got me? Food poisoning? Was I sick?
My brain hurt. I had no idea what it was. All I knew was the presentation was a huge success and Adam, the Marrs Manwhore, the corniest linebacker in the world, was finally coming back to my dorm, back to me. I missed him.
I tried to push back on my elbows. “He can’t see me like this…”
I didn’t have a choice.
Staring up at the fluorescent lights, I blinked in turn with them and tried to focus. I needed to call my boss. But my phone was turned off. Because Thomas—my loser, stupid ex-boyfriend who could never keep it in his pants—wouldn’t stop calling me and texting me. Rat-faced nobody. And my phone might as well have been in the Sahara Desert for all the good it did for me.
Shouting started in the living room. Why are they shouting?
“Piper? Piper?!”
I knew that voice, I loved that voice. I knew that voice like I knew my favorite song on the radio. A warm feeling spread through my chest. A smile fluttered across my face, not quite stapled on. “Adam?”
