Page 5 of Believing Bailey (Granton University 2)

I frowned at him, in clear denial. But no. My soulmate in a gross fraternity? I think not. My cowboy could not be a frat boy. Life wouldn’t be that cruel.

Stupid Bucket was just drunk and confused. That was all.

“Did you see him?” I demanded, ready to grab his shirt and start shaking. I glanced past him toward the doorway he’d just exited. As soon as I found Chance, I’d get all this fraternity misunderstanding sorted out. “Did he go in there?”

“In here?” He laughed. “Yeah, no. We didn’t take a piss together, sorry.”

Dammit. That was just a bathroom.

Okay, so six exits left to check.

“Thanks.” I tossed the damp hand towel at Bucket’s chest and turned away to try the door directly across from this one.

Locked. Grr.

When I started toward the next, Bucket called after me. “Hey. What about your shirt?”

I rolled my eyes and tried the next door down. “It’ll wash.” The latch turned in my hand, making my heartrate jack with excitement.

Pushing my way into the dark room, I saw another door across the floor that led into a lightened area, so I hurried toward it only to find yet one more bathroom. Dammit! How many freaking bathrooms were in this place?

Behind me, a shadow fell over the opened doorway into the hall. “Hey. Girl with the rainbow hair.”

Oh my God, really?

Bucket had followed me? What was wrong with this guy?

Rolling my eyes and not wanting to deal with him anymore, I hurried deeper into the bathroom so I could jerk open the shower curtain and duck inside. I’d just climbed into the bathtub and concealed myself when I heard the bathroom door creak open wider.

“If you’re really looking for Chance, I could take you to him and—oh! Shit, I thought she came in here. Damn, I must be drunker than I thought.”

I bit my lip, forcing myself not to react, though now I kind of wanted to throw open the shower curtain and screech, “take me to him now!” But that might look a little too desperate. Plus, I didn’t want to explain why I’d been hiding in the bathtub in the first place. Embarrassing.

There was a shuffling on the other side of the curtain, telling me he was leaving, thank God, and then I heard him in the outer room heading toward the exit. Just a few more seconds of hiding out here and I’d be able to escape this little space that was beginning to suffocate me with its noxious fumes of Axe body spray and the hint of dirty socks.

Maybe I could “accidentally” bump into Beckett—and no longer Bucket, because if he could get me to my cowboy, he couldn’t be that bad—in the hall and give him another chance to help me find Chance. Yeah, that sounded good. He had poured beer all over me, so he owed me. I could—

“Hey there, Beck. I thought that was you I saw come in here.”

I frowned as a woman’s voice entered the outer room and the only exit from this bathroom. She sounded all purry and husky-voiced like a woman on the prowl, trying to catch herself a good time.

The door from the hallway into the room closed with a click before the lock sounded.

Oh no. This could not be happening.

I’d just wanted to find my cowboy; how the hell had I gotten myself stuck in a stinking bathtub listening to some horny chick trying to hook up with a drunk idiot?

I had the worst luck ever.

Chapter 2

BAILEY

I peeked out the crack of the curtain and saw shadows through the opening of the bathroom door as the light in the outer room—which must be a bedroom, since I barely made out the corner of a bed—came on.

“Hey, did you see a girl with rainbow-colored hair out there?” I heard Beckett ask the girl. “I’m talking red, orange, yellow green, a freaking rainbow.”

“No,” the girl drew out, sounding amused. Then she asked, “Are you having hallucinations? Been taking the good drugs tonight, honey?”

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