Page 61 of The Wallflower and the Running Back

Tonight, though? I’m going to a Halloween party. At a frat house. With my football player boyfriend. Maybe this is my costume—no one would believe it’s my reality.

“I’m sure you look great. Let me see,” Logan says from the other side of my closet door.

“Don’t be shy. He’s going to love it,” Claire promises. I invited her to the party with us, even with my history of having third wheels steal my boyfriends—okay, so it happened once. But she opted for her own party with her dragon-fire friends. Her name for them, not mine.

“All right, but don’t laugh,” I plead as I exit the closet in the pink babydoll dress and puffy baker’s hat. Strawberry shortcake, in all her glory.

“Oh, my God. This is my fantasy come true,” Logan says the second his eyes hit me.

I grimace, but before I can give in to the desire to cover up and shelter myself all night, Logan hooks his finger in the neckline of my outfit and tugs me into him.

“Don’t you dare run and hide. You are adorable,” he says, himself dressed as a sailor from the fifties. We both picked each other’s costumes, and naturally this was his choice. I went through a few options but ultimately settled on the retro white uniform with wide pants legs and a broad collar hanging around the back.

He pulls his cute hat from his head, his hair all tussled underneath, and he kisses me. I dip back in his hold, his palm on the arch of my back. My Shortcake version is a little more grown up, the skirt much shorter than I’ve ever worn, and the lingerie look underneath along with the bodice-style top is definitely more hot cake than shortcake. I was feeling confident when I clicked BUY on my shopping cart. When I unboxed it after it arrived, though, I was much less so. And now? Now, I’m going to freeze my ass off in this thing—literally.

“We should probably get going,” Logan says, his eyes constantly roaming over my body.

“You like this a little too much,” I tease.

“No such thing as too much. Not possible.”

I play shove him and he slides his hat back in place, holding out an arm to lead me out of my dorm and to Sigma something or another.

“You kids have fun,” Claire says, shutting the door to go back to work on the wings she’s constructing for her party. Truthfully? Her shindig sounds way more fun. They’re going to have a sword-fighting lesson with a professional stage fighter, and then they’re going to eat s’mores made on spears and roasted by dragon fire. I’m going to listen to a twenty-one-year-old who thinks he’s a DJ mash up decent pop songs with unfamiliar rap music to make something utterly unlistenable. What I’m not going to do, however, is get drunk. And vomit. I’m good never doing that again.

The Sigma house is packed when we walk up, the lawn filled with people standing around holding Solo cups. I’m not sure how they bend the public drinking rules along such a major road, but they’ve been propping up a keg out here every Halloween for years.

Logan fills two cups, mine mysteriously only to half, and we walk into the house, which is already thumping with indiscernible music. Something about people being in costumes makes them bolder, it seems. There’s a couple making out on the front sofa, and the guy’s hand is blatantly up her shirt. Or should I say, her green Crayola costume.

“You getting ideas?” Logan says low in my ear.

“Uhh, not into being a window display for the drunk and disorderly.”

He chuckles and puts his hand on my waist.

“Maybe not for them.” His eyebrows lift a tick as he looks down at me, ushering me through the crowded hallway to the stairs.

“You’re not subtle in the least,” I scold, the insinuation of him touching me sends tingles between my legs.

“I have learned, with you, that direct is the best policy.”

Our hands woven together, we pass a few couples sitting on the stairs, including two dudes smoking a blunt. The sweet smell hits me and I shake my head, not a big fan of the skunk smell.

“You get a contact high there, Shortcake?” Logan chuckles, knocking on the first door we come to.

“Occupied,” a male voice hollers from the other side.

“I think I’m legally under the influence after that,” I joke. I take a big sip of my beer to chase a real buzz, but Logan shakes his head at me. “I promise, no overdoing it.”

He now knows how very little it takes to push me into sloppy territory.

He tries the next door we come to, and when nobody answers, we slip inside. He locks the door behind us and I move toward the bed while scoping out the space. It’s a neat room, likely belonging to one of the older guys who has his shit together. Business books are stacked on the classic wooden desk, and the large bed is made military style.

“I almost hate to mess that up,” I tease, setting my beer down before turning around and pulling Logan into me by his black sailor’s tie.

Before I can sit on the mattress, his hand cups my ass and he pulls me into him.

“So let’s not use the bed,” he says, tossing his hat onto a nearby armchair. I notice his beer is on the table. He leans his head to the left, and I follow his indication to a set of French doors that lead out to a balcony.

---