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“How was that not insulting to you? You’re literally— Whatever. Fuck off, Nick,” I say, rolling my eyes and waving my hand at him as if he’s a fly I can swat away. I should get up and walk away, but I was here first, and I want him to leave.
“Why does he keep talking to you like that?” Ian asks, again only for me to hear.
“You got something to say to me, twig boy?” Nick asks, a little too loud. He sways, his eyes glazed. He’s had way too much to drink.
Under different circumstances, I might stand my ground with Nick, but it’s not worth arguing with him while he’s drunk.
“Come on—let’s go,” I say to Ian quietly. I stand and grab his arm, hauling him to his feet. But apparently, getting on his feet was the courage he needed.
“Why are you being such an asshole to Jade?” Ian asks, stepping closer to Nick.
Nick laughs. At least, there’s a burst of noise from his mouth that sounds something like a laugh. It’s more like the bray of a donkey if the donkey had a sore throat.
“Why don’t you ask your little slut why we’ve got beef?”
There’s a nearly imperceptible twitch in Ian’s jaw.
“Just ignore him,” I say to Ian. “It happened years ago, Nick. Let it go.”
“You know, I’d be happy to stop if Jade would stop being such a slut.”
“Seriously, call her a slut one more time . . .” Ian says, and there’s an edge in his voice, something dangerous I’ve never heard before. I don’t want him to do anything stupid, so I place a hand lightly on his arm. It won’t restrain him, but it might bring him back down to Earth.
“Listen, he’s mad because I hooked up with his girlfriend at the theater party freshman year.”
Ian turns his head to look at me. There’s a hurt look in his eyes that feels like someone is pinching my intestines. “Did you know? That she was his girlfriend?”
I nod. “I just thought they had an arrangement or something.”
It was my first theater party, and I’d gone to the bathroom. I was washing my hands when the door suddenly opened. Apparently, I’d forgotten to lock it. Nick’s girlfriend at the time, a girl named Santana, walked in. I apologized and tried to leave, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm and told me I was beautiful and that she’d been admiring me from afar. When she leaned in to kiss me, I wasn’t thinking of the consequences. Ifigured if she was kissing me, it was because she and Nick had broken up or opened up their relationship. We made out in the bathroom, and then she led me to one of the bedrooms in the frat house. The kissing turned into more, and by the time my head was between her legs, we weren’t thinking about the door neither of us had locked behind us—but Nick had come looking for his girlfriend, and he caught us.
“You did it on purpose. Like the slut you are,” Nick says and finally turns to leave.
But Nick hasn’t taken one step by the time Ian’s taken two, grabbed Nick by the arm, and slugged him right across the face. Before I can blink, Nick is sprawled out on the floor, clutching his jaw. There is a chorus of gasps. Someone screams.
“Holy shit, Ian.” I clutch his shoulders and move him away from the crowd gathering around Nick.
Ian is still doubled over, clutching the wrist of his punching hand.
“Why did you do that?” I ask, reaching for his injured hand. Gingerly, I hold it in my own, careful of his knuckles, which are red but not swelling yet.
“He kept calling you a slut,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Did you just defend my honor?” A smile creeps over my face, and Ian’s smile mirrors mine.
“Maybe,” he says, and through the pain, he manages to grin at me.
“I could kiss you,” I say, almost a whisper.
“You should,” he says. His eyes flick to my mouth, but suddenly he’s wrenched out of my grasp by two beefy hands.
“Ian!” I scream, right before the awful sound of flesh hitting flesh cracks in my ears as Jackson smashes his forehead into Ian’s face.
Ian lets out a vicious grunt and crumples like a doll, straight to the ground. More awful noises ensue: a skull against theground, grunts of pain, screams from around the room—one of which is mine as I drop to the floor, searching Ian for obvious bleeding on his face or body. Nothing. I run my hand along the back of his head and don’t find any blood there either. My shoulders actually drop an inch from my ears. No bleeding is good. I prop his head in my lap, brushing his hair away from his face.
“Ian, are you okay?” I ask, unable to hide the edge of panic in my voice.
“Did he break my nose?” He reaches up and examines his face, dancing his fingers along the bridge of his nose. He winces and drops his hand.
