Page 46 of The Fake Date Agreement

I can study later.

It’s nine at night, and I’m clutching a cold one instead of a textbook.

The walls vibrate, pulsing with rock music from the powerful sound system. Red plastic cups litter every surface, and the scents of beer, cigarette smoke, and something definitely illegal drift from the double patio doors that lead to the pool in the backyard.

Forty or fifty people in various stages of buzzed to shit-faced fill a living room meant for ten or twenty.

The frat party isn’t the wildest one we’ve been to. Thank fuck. Good thing, too, because Tobie hasn’t lost the deer-caught-in-headlights look in her eyes since we arrived an hour ago.

A beautiful deer, but a terrified one.

Her dress has thin straps showing off soft, rounded arms. It cups her breasts and falls to her calves. Her slightly wavy, dark brown hair is pretty, too, as is her dusty pink lipstick. She’s changed her glasses for contacts, the light’s casting her hazel eyes a soft caramel brown that mutes the green.

The fact that she’s tucked herself into the corner of the room is making people even more curious about her.

Caleb is holding a beer but not drinking from it. Other than the brief stare he aimed at Tobie when she arrived with Javier, he’s been keeping people at a distance with his leave-me-the-fuck-alone glare.

He’ll take on three defensemen on his own, but a rowdy frat party is his kryptonite.

I take a sip from my beer, turn to ask Tobie if she wants to dance, and she’s no longer hiding. She’s gone. I straighten, frowning as I scan the room for her. “Has anyone seen Tobie?”

Heads shake.

“The bathroom.” Javier turns from his conversation with Paxton. “I asked if she wanted me to show her, but she wanted to go alone.”

To hide, most likely.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get lost.” I pass my beer off to Paxton, who eagerly accepts, and I go looking for Tobie, weaving around the buzzed students and gently nudging the shit-faced ones when they stare at me instead of moving out of my way.

Most of the downstairs hallway is thick with partygoers. I can’t see Tobie heading upstairs on her own, but after a few minutes spent looking for her and not finding her, I jog up them.

I wander the upstairs hallway, sticking my head in the bedrooms and yanking my head back out again, wishing I could unsee some of the shit going on.

I’m reaching for a partially open door, ready to push it open, when a male voice makes me pause.

“Do you honestly expect me to believe you’re with those three?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything, Marc.”

Tobie. And unless there’s another Marc here, I’d say that has to be the ex.

“They fuck around, Tobie. That is all they would ever want from you.”

Yeah, I like this guy less and less with each passing day.

Through a gap in the partially open door, Tobie is peering up at him. “And what did you want from me?”

“I wasn’t using you like they are. How’d you even meet them?”

“I, uh…”

“And when did you start wearing pink? To impress them? Mark my words, they’ll fuck you and throw you away like you’re nothing, Tobie. You’ll be lucky if they even remember your name the next morning.”

Someone calls out behind me, and both turn to me.

I back up a few steps, wait about five seconds, and then stride forward, calling out, “Tobie? Are you—” I push the door open and grin at her. “Ah. I was looking for you.”

Marc smiles at me. Tobie looks like she’s trying not to cry.

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