Page 43 of Catching Feeling

Normally, I am a girl’s girl. I’m all for the women in the room.

Do your thing, babe.

But don’t do it next to Reese. Do it somewhere else. Anywhere else.

I get that my feelings are one hundred percent irrational, but guess what?

Try telling my alcohol-blurred brain that.

This stupid, foreign feeling inside of me intensifies with each giggle and touch.

I’m extremely busy shooting daggers at him when another girl clad in red lingerie walks by with a platter of shots, and I reach out, snagging one in each hand.

Perfect. More cheap tequila. The answer to all of my problems.

I quickly toss it back, letting the burn bring me back to the present and out of my state of jealousy. I’m just about to shoot the other when I hear Hallie call my name.

“Viv?”

Dragging my gaze from Reese, I look over at her. “What?”

“Are you… um, okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” I say, willing myself not to glance back at Reese. Hallie’s looking at me strangely, probably because I am acting strangely.

I mean, Reese is single.

We’re not together. I actually don’t even like him. Right? Right.

He has every right to fuck every girl on this campus if he chooses to, and it’s not my business.

“I’m great. Phenomenal, really.”

She’s eyeing me warily, her brow quirking. “You look like you want to murder Reese. Even more than usual. Did something happen?”

I spent the majority of the dinner convincing myself this wasn’t a date and it was no big deal, and now that we’re here, I’m tipsy, and horny, and jealous.

An absolutely terrible combination.

Fuck Valentine’s Day, and fuck relationships in general. There, I said it.

“Nope. Clearly, I’m the third wheel again for the night,” I joke lightly.

Her gaze cuts through me. She’s not at all buying my attempt to avoid this conversation. I sigh, then toss the other shot back, shivering as it sets my entire body on fire. “If I tell you this, I need absolutely no judgment. I mean none.”

In typical Hallie fashion, she holds up her hand in the Star Trek sign, and I giggle. The Red Bull and vodka from earlier, combined with the two shots I just downed, are flowing through my bloodstream, relaxing me and making my limbs feel loose.

“I think I may want to have sex with Reese… again.”

For a second, silence hangs between us. Completely the opposite of what I expected, and I think I may have shocked Hallie into a coma.

She’s not moving. Not even blinking.

“Hal?” I wince. Maybe she’s actually going to be upset about me keeping this from her.

“Oh my god,” she whispers, her eyes going comically wide. “There is no way you just dropped this nuclear frickin’ bomb on me in the middle of the Kappa house. Actually, there is no way you didn’t frickin’ tell me that you and Reese had sex!”

Not my finest moment, but I’m tipsy, and I really wish I could’ve told her before now. I really have hated keeping so much from her lately, and thanks to my alcohol-inspired word vomit, it just came out.

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