BROKEN RECORD (Record #6)

4. Champagne for My Real Friends

4

Champagne for My Real Friends

“Are you sure I should even come with you to this party?” Savannah called down the hallway. She’d changed into a white romper that made her tan legs look like they went on for days. She sat on the edge of the bed and strapped on her nude wedges.

“Yes,” he called back.

“But it’s for the basketball team.”

She stood from the bed just as Lucas walked in, looking all exasperated. Then, he got a glimpse of her. He stared at her with his jaw unhinged.

“Uh…do I look okay?” She pulled her long, dark hair over one shoulder.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go.”

“Wait, what? You were the one who told me to go to this thing. Now, you’re uninviting me? d**k move.”

“Every person at the party is going to hit on you.”

She puffed out a breath. “Shut up. No, they won’t.”

“I’m going to have to keep you close tonight.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Anyone with eyes can see that you’re beautiful.”

“Oh.” She shrugged away his words. “I think more people will be interested in you anyway. So, we’re good.”

He arched his eyebrow. “Want to bet?”

“You’re Lucas Atwood. If basketball is anything like it is at UNC, then I don’t have to bet with you to know I’ll win.”

“I’ll bet you a kiss.”

“Ha! You are not getting that!”

“And here I thought, you were going to win.”

She shook her head. “Nice try. But no. I don’t bet my kisses.”

He grinned. “Come on. Let’s go.”

She pushed past him down into the hallway and grabbed her purse. Lucas opened the door for her, and they jumped into an Uber to the house party about five minutes away. The house was massive and already filled to the brim with people. The lawn was overrun, and Savannah could hear the bass from the street.

“Oh God, I haven’t been to a frat party since sophomore year,” she grumbled.

“It’s not a frat. The basketball team is worse,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and walking them forward across the brick walkway.

When they entered the plantation-style house, she shrugged him off of her. She didn’t want to give anyone the impression that they were together. But judging by the expression on the girl’s face who was walking toward them, it appeared to be too late.

“Lucas!” she cried.

She threw her arms around him. He hastily extracted himself from her grip.

“Amanda,” he said with a head nod. “Have you seen Nick?”

“He’s around,” Amanda said. “I think by the kegs.”

“Thanks,” Lucas said. He grabbed Savannah’s hand and then brushed past Amanda.

Savannah almost felt bad for the girl as they disappeared from her view. Almost. They meandered through the house until they came upon the kitchen. A half-dozen guys, all as tall as Lucas, stood around a group of kegs. A ton of other girls congregated around them, drinking out of red Solo cups and flirting outrageously with the guys.

When they saw Lucas, they all cheered.

“Lucas!”

“My man!”

One guy slapped his hand, fist-bumped, and then tapped chests. “Hey, bro. This your girl?”

“This is Savannah,” Lucas said. “Savi, this is Nick.”

“Hi,” she said uncertainly.

Nick was looking at her as if he’d seen her before or possibly like he was going to have her for dinner.

“Savannah, Savannah,” Nick said, taking her hand and kissing it. “Such a pleasure to finally meet your fine ass.”

Lucas smacked the back of his head. “Watch it.”

“What have you been saying about me, Lucas?” Savannah asked as she snatched her hand back.

“Nothing.”

Nick crowed with laughter, tipping back his black braids. “Boy is in puppy love. I told him I’d tap that if he didn’t.”

Nick then wrapped an arm around her waist and carefully meandered her through the crowd of basketball players. Her head was spinning a bit. She was surprised to hear that Lucas had been talking about her. Let alone to a degree that other people already knew who she was.

A red Solo cup was pushed into her hand. She glanced down at the red drink filled with fruit and knew this was a bad idea. She should probably hand the drink back and catch an Uber to her parents’ hotel. That would be smart and safe and the right thing to do.

“Don’t just stare at it. Drink!” Nick said with a laugh.

Lucas put his hand on her bare back. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“b***h, let her have a drink.” Nick pushed Lucas back. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of her for you.”

Savannah laughed, taking a sip of the drink and cringing. “You’re outrageous. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone call Lucas a bitch.”

“He’s a b***h if he doesn’t tell me who he has meetings with next week.”

“Meetings?” Savannah arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Teams want to meet with me and invite me out for a workout,” Lucas said all nonchalant.

“For the draft?”

Lucas nodded.

“You haven’t been filling her in?” Nick asked. “Lucas here is going to go big, big! And next year, when I go out, I’m going to go bigger. Though I already am bigger, if you know what I’m saying.” Nick winked at her.

Savannah snorted. “Oh, I’m sure.”

“Disbelief!” Nick cried, putting his hand to his heart. “You wound me, baby girl. You wound me.”

“So…how big?” Savannah asked Lucas. When his eyes widened as if to say don’t you already know that, she coughed and took a large gulp of her drink. “I mean, basketball!”

Lucas shrugged dismissively. “We’ll see next week. Utah, LA, and Oklahoma City asked for meetings.”

“f*****g hell, LA?” Nick groaned. “I hate you.”

“Nothing is set in stone.”

“Wow,” Savannah said softly. “Those are all…really far away.”

“Aren’t you a reporter?” Nick asked.

She nodded. God, he really did know a s**t-ton about her.

“Well, should be easy to get a job wherever he ends up.”

Savannah nearly spit out her drink. “First, that’s not how reporting jobs work at all. Second, why the hell would I move with him?”

Lucas was cracking up laughing. His face was buried in his beer.

“I thought this was happening.” Nick pointed between Lucas and Savannah.

“Nope. I have a boyfriend in DC. This,” she said, gesturing between herself and Lucas, “is not happening.”

“Well, s**t. Where’s little ole boyfriend now?”

“Home.”

“Uh-huh.” Nick sounded disbelieving.

“Lay off, Nick. It’s amazing she agreed to come to the party. Let’s just chill and have a good time,” Lucas said.

“Whatever you say, bro.”

Savannah fell into step with Lucas’s friends. Mostly basketball players and the occasional girl. Amanda kept showing up and trying to throw herself at Lucas, but he kept trying to push her off on Nick. Savannah was pretty sure that Nick was all right with that.

They moved into the sitting area. A DJ had been set up, and people were dancing. Savannah was deep into her third glass of punch. She had known she should stop after one, but it didn’t even taste like alcohol. Which was how she should have known not to drink it.

“What…is in this?” she asked, stumbling forward into Lucas.

“How much have you had?” he asked.

Savannah held up three fingers. “And a pineapple. It was so yum.”

Lucas laughed. “Maybe we should get you water. That has Everclear in it.”

“f**k,” she mumbled. “I might be drunk.”

Lucas took the drink out of her hand and dropped it off on a nearby table. “Water.”

“I’m fine.” She grabbed his hand. “Let’s dance.”

“Sav.”

“Oh my God, this song!” she cried.

Just then “Get Low” came on, and everyone yelled at the same time, “Win-dowwwww!”

Lucas laughed. “Do you remember how we used to all dance to this in high school?”

“And I had no idea what skeet was.”

“Such an innocent, Maxwell.”

“I’ll show you innocent,” she snapped.

She grabbed the cup he’d set down and downed the rest of the contents. Then, with his hand in hers, she veered them out into the crowd. Lucas made no protest. Shocking.

Their bodies twined together in the packed, heated crowd. With loose summer clothing exposing so much skin and sweat beading on foreheads and the music driving everyone along, it was a perfect atmosphere. Lucas’s hands were on her hips. She had hers overhead. Their hips were locked and swayed provocatively. They moved as one unit. As if this were natural. As if they’d done this before. Time and time again.

Someone bumped into her from behind, and she dropped her arms around his neck, giggling. His lips were dangerously close. Inches away. It would be so easy to forget where she was and what she was doing, but she hadn’t had that much to drink. Her heart beat against her rib cage, and Lucas leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers.

“God, I want to kiss you,” he said over the bass.

“I…can’t.”

“I know.”

With a racing heart, she turned away from the temptation of his lips. Not that it made it much better when her ass was pressed up against his d**k. Not when it was clear from that position exactly what he wanted. And kissing was only the beginning.

She quieted her mind—or the alcohol did—and she pretended like this was any other night. Any other time. Nothing to worry about. She could handle this. She was a big girl.

Then, the whole crowd yelled to touch her toes, and she was drunk enough to do it. Her fingers touching the tops of her wedges. One of his hands splayed on the base of her spine. The other gripped her hip and pulled her closer. She ran her hands up her legs and flipped her hair.

He pulled her back in again, and she read the word he mouthed, f**k.

“Maybe…maybe another drink,” she said and then pushed herself out of the dance floor.

She knew he was following her, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to not think about it. About him. She needed to think about her boyfriend at home in DC. The one she loved and who trusted her. The one she hadn’t called after graduation like planned.

Goddamn it! Well, it’d have to wait until morning.

She needed another drink to think about how that conversation was going to go. She downed a fourth glass of punch before Lucas reached for the cup.

“Maybe you should slow down,” Lucas said.

“Why?” She turned away from him and asked for another.

“Savannah.”

“Lucas.”

“Fine. I’ll hold your hair back later or whatever.”

“Ew. No way.”

It was somewhere between glass five and twenty…in the middle of which she’d lost count. She forgot why she should be worried about tonight. She forgot why she hadn’t wanted to be here. She even forgot that she hadn’t even liked this girl Amanda earlier today. Now, they were obviously best friends. Lifelong friends for sure. Roughly five hundred pictures, a chorus of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” and dancing on a table outside later, and she decided her night had been epic.

Lucas, of course, was never too far away. He’d caught her when she almost fell off the table and laughed at their terrible rendition of Cyndi Lauper. He’d probably taken half of the pictures that weren’t selfies. But mostly, he’d just watched her get sloshed with an amused expression on his face.

“What?” she asked in the wee hours of the morning when everything was finally winding down.

“I haven’t seen you like this in a long time.”

“I have fun,” she said, smacking him in the chest.

“Usually, you’re so angry with me.”

She curled her fingers into his T-shirt. “Why would I be angry with you?”

Lucas laughed. “Now, that is a can of worms.”

“Don’t condescend to me,” she slurred.

“Big words for someone as wasted as you.”

“I am…n-not wasted.”

Then, he was laughing even harder. “Maybe we should get you home. Party is basically over.”

She skipped past him toward the entrance once more, and he basically ran to catch up with her as he called for an Uber. She stumbled, nearly falling face-first, and that was about the point where he hauled her into his arms and carried her through the house. The Uber arrived a couple of minutes later.

“She’d better not throw up in here,” the Uber driver said.

“She won’t,” Lucas said. He eased her into the backseat, and she leaned her head against the window to watch the streetlights. “She hates throwing up.”

“I really, really do.”

When they got back to his apartment, he put an arm around her to help her into his place. “You know, Savi, it’s a good thing you didn’t bet,” he muttered as he opened the door for her.

“Bet?”

“Our kiss.”

“Mmm…”

“I would have definitely won.” He closed the door.

She shook her head. “No, everyone wants you.”

“Blatantly false. I had to hover over you all night to keep the creeps away.”

“You did not!” She smacked him again playfully in disbelief and then nearly fell over.

He shook his head and then scooped her up into his arms. She sighed and rested her head on his chest as he carried her into the guest bedroom. He set her down on the bed and then carefully removed each of her shoes, tossing them to the side.

She stood on wobbly feet. He completely towered over her without the shoes. God, he was so tall.

“You should try to sleep this off,” he suggested.

“Will you help me out of this?” She twirled around and pointed at the zipper on the back.

“I…” She could hear him audibly gulp. “Let me get you a change of clothes.”

He snagged the zipper and then hastily retreated to her suitcase. He found shorts and a T-shirt and tried to blindly hand them to her. She slipped the T-shirt over her head and let the romper fall to the ground. She couldn’t be bothered with the shorts. That sounded like effort.

“Are you ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

He turned around, and his eyes went straight to her legs. “Shorts?”

“Nah.” She reached out for him and drew him down onto the bed with her. “You sleep here now.”

“Savi, you’re drunk.”

“Nope.” She curled her body into his and let the room spin all around her.

“Sav…”

She tilted her head up to look at him, and he stopped talking. That energy that had coursed between them on the dance floor ignited once more. She slipped her hand up into his curls, running her fingers through them.

“Scared?” she murmured.

Then, his lips were on hers, crushing her, tasting her, needing her. A desperate, feverish kiss. Passion and aching and yearning all rolled up into one touch. His bulk pressed her back into the bed, carefully leaning on top of her. The shirt she was wearing bunched up to her stomach. She hooked a leg around him, trying to get him closer, needing this like she’d never needed anything.

His hands explored, running up into her hair, over her neck, down her sides. All while their tongues melded together. Their bodies rocking in a motion that was all too familiar.

“Oh God,” she moaned as he started kissing down her neck.

A hand snaked up her T-shirt. He traced the outline of her breast, teased her pert n****e, and then cupped it fully. Her back arched off of the bed. Her body demanding more, more, more. Her brain on rapid fire.

“Please,” she whispered.

Then, suddenly, Lucas was gone. He was standing a foot away from her. His chest heaving. His eyes dilated. His erection very, very evident.

“Wha…”

“You…don’t want this,” he finally said. “And I’m not going to have you hate me in the morning because I took advantage of you when you were drunk. If you want me, then you want me sober. A week ago, you could hardly look at me. I know this isn’t right. I knew, and I kissed you anyway. f**k. But I want you.”

“Lucas,” she whispered.

He turned away, cursing under his breath. “Go to sleep, Savannah.”

Then, he marched out the door and slammed it shut behind him.

She blacked out before he was even back in his own room.