Page 43 of Stone Promises

The waiter comes to clear the table and show us the dessert tray. The girls fawn over the chocolate delicacies and decide to split one. I want to tell them it’s not necessary, but I don’t need another lecture from Julian about how I choose to spend my money. So what if I rented out the private dining room? I only did it to protect Mallory. He should be thanking me, not reprimanding me.

“Okay, Melissa,” I say. “Let’s hear it. How did you two meet?”

She looks excited, rubbing her hands together and then settling into her chair like this will be a long story. “Okay, so it was freshman year and Mallory was rushing a sorority, Delta—”

“Wait.” I hold up my hand to stop Melissa as I turn to Mallory with wide eyes. “Yourushed a sorority? You—the girl who organized a protest sophomore year when the student body president wanted to make every Friday spirit day. You didn’t want anyone telling you what to do or what to wear.ThatMallory joined a sorority?”

“Just let her finish the darn story,” Mallory says, rolling her eyes.

“So she was a few weeks into the pledging process,” Melissa says. “Hazing wasn’t technically allowed, but they still got asked to do some pretty outrageous stuff. I found her standing in the middle of campus by herself, wearing a cheerleader’s outfit from a rival school. She was shouting that cheer ‘two, four, six, eight’ . . .”

My brain is still stuck on Mallory in a cheerleader’s uniform. Holy God I’d like to see that. I glance at Mal to see her taking a large swallow of wine as she tries to hide her mortification.

“She got heckled by students, of course,” Melissa says. “That was the point. To teach humility or some crap like that. But some of the students were downright mean, even when they knew she had to do it as part of pledging. By the time I came upon her, I guess she’d about had enough, because she ripped off her sweater and skirt, threw them down, stomping on them and then she marched over to some girls from her sorority that were videotaping her from behind a tree. She told them to take their sorority and go fuck themselves.”

My jaw is almost on the table. “You stripped in the middle of campus?” Then it hits me. “Wait. You saidfuck?”

She laughs, shrugging innocently. “I had a tank top and shorts on underneath.”

Melissa laughs. “Don’t let her fool you. She stripped. Her ‘tank top’ was a cami and her ‘shorts’ were those underwear things cheerleaders wear so you can’t see their crotches.”

“Shit. I wish I had been there to see it,” I say.

“I’m pretty sure it exists out on YouTube somewhere,” Melissa says. “It was epic. I followed her and offered her the t-shirt and yoga pants I had in my workout bag. We hit it off and the rest was history. We’ve been Mal and Mel ever since.”

“What made you want to join a sorority?” I ask Mallory.

“I didn’t have any friends there,” she says. “I thought pledging a sorority would be a quick way to change that.”

I turn to Julian. “Didn’t you go to Berkeley?” We always talked about going there together, the three of us, even though Julian and I would go there a year before Mallory could.

“Uh, no. I went to Penn State,” he says, looking guiltily at Mal.

I wonder if that had anything to do with their breakup. I assume it did, but now isn’t the time to get into it. Obviously, the three of them know things I don’t and it pisses me off. I’ve been replaced. It used to be the three of us—now it’s the three of them.

“Anyway, it was Melissa who got me into teaching,” Mallory says, smiling over at her friend in an attempt to stave off the awkwardness from my previous question.

“And you are great at it,” Julian says, proudly. “Did she tell you she won an award in her district for being the rookie teacher of the year?”

I watch the way he looks at her. It’s with more emotion than how one friend looks at another. He’s revering her. Hell, he’s worshiping her. I know this because it’s the same goddamn wayIlook at her.

“No, she didn’t. That’s great, Mal,” I say. “I’m not surprised, however. I knew you’d be great at whatever you chose to do.” I turn back to Julian. “So, Penn State, huh? Where did that lead? Mallory hasn’t said much of anything about you.”

I get a little kick under the table from Mal for that remark. I know it was a dig. But if he’s going to look at my girl that way, he’d better be prepared for me to push back.

“I’m an investment banker,” he says. “For Walters and Leeman.”

“Shit, really?” I shake my head in awe. “You must be one smart dude, but then I always knew you were. Good for you.”

I catch Melissa whispering something to Mal, but Mallory brushes her off, quietly asking her not to bombard me with silly fangirl questions. “It’s okay, Mal,” I say. “Let her ask. Personal questions from friends are different than personal questions from fans.” I turn to Melissa. “What do you want to know?”

Melissa looks to her friend for approval and Mal gives her a reluctant nod. “Mallory told me you got your big break in a shopping mall,” she says. “Can you tell me what happened? Did they have auditions there? Was it like a massive American Idol audition but for actors?”

My eyes dart between the two girls. “Mallory hasn’t told you any of this?”

“No,” she says. “Mallory never told me aboutThad. All I knew was she had a best friend, Chad, who moved away when she was in high school. I never even knew the boy she grew up with was the same person as Thad Stone until she saw you last week at the club.”

I have conflicting emotions over her statement. On one hand, I think maybe I wasn’t important enough to her to tell her friends about me. On the other, I’m flat-out impressed Mal never resorted to name-dropping like most people would have done. Julian, too. I shake my head in wonder before answering Melissa’s question.

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