Page 30 of Night Shift

And yet everyone else looks like they’re having the time of their fucking lives. Packs of girls dance in tight circles together, hips swinging as they shout song lyrics into one another’s faces with the uninhibited passion of high school theater kids. Guys erupt in laughter and cheers as they stumble into some other guy that they loudly proclaim to be my guy to everyone within earshot. It seems everyone knows one another—from class, from sports teams, from prior hookups, from friends of friends of friends.

I’ve never wanted to be the center of the room or the girl who has a million acquaintances. I keep a small, tight inner circle. But clearly, Vincent has a much different concept of social life, because these beautiful, rowdy people are Vincent’s friends. This is his tiny universe in which he is the sun and everyone revolves around him.

I feel like a passing asteroid.

We’re not compatible.

I shake off the thought. It doesn’t matter if Vincent and I aren’t endgame. I’m not looking to marry the guy—that’s ridiculous. I just want to climb him like a tree.

I can do this.

I’m going to fucking do this.

Jabari takes us on a quick lap around the dining room, where crowds have gathered around two different beer pong tables, and then doubles back across the hall and into the living room.

“I thought we were getting drinks,” I shout to Nina.

Jabari definitely hears me.

“Bar’s this way,” he calls over his shoulder. “How do y’all feel about jungle juice?”

I don’t think he’s really listening for an answer.

Jabari cranes his neck and scans the living room, huffing a little in frustration. I get the sense that he’s used to being able to see straight over everyone’s heads, but this party is full of student athletes who play basketball and volleyball and football and other sports typically played by large humans. And maybe I’m a little thankful for the abnormally tall crowd, because I don’t feel entirely out of place, but it’s still a clusterfuck of drunk strangers bopping around in the dark while music thumps so loudly I feel the beat rattling around in my bones, and I’m suddenly terrified of having to pretend I’m not on the brink of an anxiety attack when I finally find—

“Knight!”

Jabari’s voice rings out over the pounding music and strikes me square in the chest. Before I have time to mentally or emotionally prepare myself, he slips through an opening in the crowd, dragging the rest of us along after him to the far corner of the living room.

And there’s Vincent.

Fourteen

Vincent doesn’t see me at first—the crowd is too thick, and I’m half-hidden behind my friends. But I see him.

His dark hair shines under the neon glow of the cyan and magenta lights, and his face is something carved out of Greek antiquity—all hard angles and romantic curves cast in chiaroscuro. Even surrounded by assorted student athletes, Vincent is impressively tall and broad. He looks more dignified than a prince of the underworld. More dangerous than a Mafia hit man on the job. More dominant than a billionaire in a tailored suit. Which is an utterly silly thing for my brain to decide, since he’s just wearing a black T-shirt, dark-wash jeans, and scuffed white sneakers—basic college boy party attire.

The brace that’s been on his left arm for weeks is gone. The sight of his bare wrist, lightly freckled and covered with fine hair, shouldn’t be this erotic, but fuck, I’m gawking like a Victorian who’s spotted a stray ankle.

My gaze trails up a few inches and lands on the two black marker lines drawn on his forearm. Tally marks. I’m not so totally out of touch with campus culture that I don’t know about the old Clement birthday tradition of having a drink for each year of life you’ve survived, but it’s a little hard to believe that our star basketball player is only two drinks deep at nearly ten o’clock on his twenty-first birthday.

And then I see Vincent’s face, and I know for a fact that he’s sober.

The boy looks exhausted.

Jabari claps him on the back—a move that seems half comforting and half mocking—and Vincent startles, then sighs wearily when he recognizes whose arm is slung over his shoulder.

“Vinny, I’ve got some good news—”

“Oh, God. What did you do?”

“What do you mean, what did I do?”

“You look like you did something. I don’t trust you.”

“Damn, you’re in a mood. Do you need another drink? Because I’ll get you a drink. Vodka Sprite? Rum and Coke? I don’t know what the fuck goes in an old-fashioned, but I’ll do my best.”

Vincent cracks a smile—reluctantly—and scrubs a hand over his face. “I don’t need a drink. I need about two hundred fewer people in this house. We’re going to get shut down before everyone who was actually invited gets here. Seriously. Who are half these people?”

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