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  Why have I ever kept myself from this? It was utter perfection.

  He captured her lips in a searing kiss, and she threaded her fingers through his hair. She couldn’t hold out any longer. Her body exploded, and she screamed out loud enough that if they’d been anywhere else, she might have awoken the neighbors. He came right after her, grunting, before collapsing into a heap.

  She had rendered him speechless. He breathed heavily and kissed her. All of her scheming had been worth this moment. It was pure bliss. She felt content, almost happy. It had been a while since she had gotten close to that.

  “I’M NOT READY TO LEAVE,” Stacia whined. She plopped her empty coffee cup down on its saucer and sighed dramatically. “I can’t believe first semester is already over.”

  “Me either,” Bryna agreed.

  “It went by so fast,” Trihn said.

  “At least I’ll see you in Miami for New Year’s Eve,” Stacia said.

  LV State had won the conference championship in San Francisco last weekend, and that meant they would be going to the play-offs. Bryna had spent the past week in her final exams, and now, they were all waiting on grades before starting Christmas break.

  Trihn bounced up and down. “I am so excited that I got a ticket to the game! I can’t wait to celebrate our win and bring in the New Year with you girls.”

  “We’ll sneak you onto the field,” Stacia promised. She gave Bryna her best pouty face. “Are you sure you don’t want to come and stay at my parents’ house for break? I know my dad is the USC coach and still pretty pissy about their loss, but we could own the city!”

  The last place Bryna wanted to be was L.A. for Christmas. She officially hated Christmas and didn’t even want to see her family. After the disaster that was Thanksgiving, she couldn’t brave her once favorite holiday for a stepfamily sham.

  “Thanks, but no. I’ll be fine here.”

  “What about Brooklyn?” Trihn offered. “Snow. Ice-skating. Shopping.”

  “Pass. I had enough snow while skiing with Hugh.”

  “Who isn’t such a stranger anymore, huh?” Stacia nudged Bryna’s arm.

  Bryna winked. “Definitely not a stranger.”

  “So, why aren’t you spending break with him?” Trihn asked.

  She just shrugged. The thing was complicated with Hugh. She assumed he was spending the holidays with his wife—even though he hadn’t said that, of course.

  “He’s swamped with work. Resort season around the holidays is packed until after New Year’s, so we’re not planning to get together until then.”

  “Oh, well, at least you’ll have the football guys to keep you company,” Stacia said. She giggled at the end, and that made it perfectly clear what kind of company she thought Bryna was going to be keeping.

  “What about the football players?”

  “Didn’t you hear? Coach Galloway said they all had to stay here during break to practice. I think a lot of parents are flying into town to celebrate the holidays with the guys since they can’t leave,” Stacia explained.

  “That’s bullshit!” Trihn cried.

  “For real,” Bryna said. “Can they do that?”

  “I don’t know, but they are,” Stacia said

  “Huh. If I get bored, maybe I’ll call Andrew up and see if he’s forgiven me yet.” Bryna laughed lightly at the absurdity of it all.

  She knew Andrew was sleeping with other people, but then again, so was she. Maybe if he realized they had just been fucking, then they could make this work again.

  “You have a death wish.” Trihn shook her head.

  “Yes,” Bryna agreed with that. “Anyway, I won’t be bored. Vegas is never boring.”

  She was wrong.

  She was so bored over break. With her friends gone for only a week, she found herself bored out of her mind. Between everyone at school leaving, Hugh being swamped with work, and her refusal to see her family—especially since Pace was planning to move in right after New Year’s—she didn’t have much to do. She had thought Vegas could never be boring, but it was all tourist shit, and the flood of tourists drove her mad. She could only see so many proposals, bachelor and bachelorette parties, and weddings before feeling sick.

  The Saturday before Christmas, she decided she couldn’t stay in any longer. She needed some outside civilization. Donning a pair of ripped tight jeans, a deep-red sheer top, and her leather jacket, she went to Posse, hoping Maya would be working.

  When Bryna entered the building, her mouth nearly dropped open. It was dead. The club where they spent all their time during the school year was basically empty. It made sense that if there weren’t students on campus, then it wouldn’t be as packed.

  She walked over to the bar. She felt like a loser, coming to the club alone at this time of year. She could be anywhere, and she had decided to stay in town. She had thought it would help her escape, but instead, she was left with too much time to think about what had happened this time last year.

  Maya wasn’t working either. Some guy—she hadn’t caught his name—made her a dirty martini with three olives. She handed him cash. She doubted she would be here longer than one drink. If this was what it was going to be like for another week, then she was considering packing up and heading out of town. It wouldn’t matter where she went as long as it was away from here.

  She took her drink and wandered out onto the patio. A small group of people was playing a round of beer pong at a nearby table. That was how sad the place looked. She leaned back against the metal railing and watched the game. The group was really into it, screaming, and chanting for their team, and Bryna felt very separate from everything.

  She pulled out her phone to try to distract herself. Maybe tonight hadn’t been a good idea.

  “Hey.”

  Bryna looked up and right into the face of Eric Wilkins.

  She sighed. Great.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “This place is a graveyard.”

  “Yep,” she said, popping the P at the end.

  “What are you doing here?” He leaned back, next to her, uninvited.

  “Drinking.” She held up her mostly empty glass.

  “Yeah, but in Vegas. It’s Christmas break. Shouldn’t you be at home?”

  “No,” she said automatically. “I hate Christmas.”

  “Who hates Christmas?” he asked in shock.

  “Me obviously. That’s what I just said.”

  “I mean, I’m dying to be home in Dallas. My mom is probably making Christmas cookies, making the house smell like home. I’m sure the tree is all decorated, and presents are piled high for my younger brother and me. My dad can never decide between ham and turkey, so most of the time, my mom makes both.”

  There was laughter in his voice and joy in his memories. It made Bryna cringe away from him. She had never known a childhood like that.

  “Sounds like a Hallmark movie,” she responded dryly.

  “Yeah, or Lifetime, but that’s home.” He shrugged as if it were completely normal. “What’s your Christmas usually like?”

  “Used to be all right before my parents got divorced. Last year, I went to Saint Barts with a guy. I lied and told my family I would be with my mother and then going to New York with Gates,” she admitted.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because it was better than watching my stepmother try too hard. My father wasn’t home anyway. Plus, my mom didn’t even call. This guy cared about me, so I went.”

  “I see.”

  She glanced away from Eric and closed her eyes. She had no idea why she had even told him that. She hadn’t told anyone about this shit before. Maybe it was because she knew he was completely nonthreatening, and he wasn’t the type to spread rumors. He might be an ass to her, but she didn’t forget he had been worried about her enough to intervene after homecoming when no one else had.

  “Hey…do you want to get out of here and get some food?” he asked a minute later.

  She couldn’t resis
t being catty to him. “Oh, are you asking me out?” she joked. She knew he wasn’t. She wasn’t his type after all.

  Eric shook his head. “Forget it. I was trying to be nice.”

  Bryna sighed dramatically as he walked away. “E, I was just kidding.” She left her drink on a nearby table. “Let’s go.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Where to? What are you hungry for?”

  “Don’t laugh,” she said. “But…ice cream.”

  He looked like he was trying to hold it in, but he ended up laughing. “Ice cream?”

  “I said not to laugh.” She swatted at his arm.

  “I didn’t realize girls like you ate ice cream.”

  “What? Now, I can’t like good food?”

  He shrugged. “I mean…you’re pretty small.”

  “I have a fast metabolism, and cheer is a hefty workout. I love ice cream.”

  “All right then. Ice cream it is. I know a good place.”

  Bryna piled into Eric’s Jeep as he drove toward the Strip. She couldn’t believe she was actually sitting in Eric’s car. How did we go from arguing constantly to me telling him my life story to going to get ice cream together? It made little sense to her. The only thing she could think was that she was comfortable with him because she was alone, and she knew he had no intention of hitting on her. It wasn’t often or ever that she came across a guy like that.

  He parked at one of the hotels, and they walked through the smoke-filled casino out to the Strip. The lights were bright, and people were everywhere. There were so many tourists. She couldn’t even handle it.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Sugar Factory,” he said, pointing out a building next door.

  They walked through the doors and were promptly seated in the dining room.

  “Just dessert menus, please,” Eric said to the hostess.

  “Sure thing.” She dropped them on the table and then disappeared.

  Bryna opened her menu. There were dozens of options—everything from ice cream to cake and cookies to fondue, waffles, or milkshakes. There was even a hundred-dollar sundae with twenty-four scoops of ice cream and a thousand-dollar fondue with real gold and a bottle of Dom Pérignon included. It was dessert heaven.

  “Hi. Welcome to Sugar Factory. Can I get you something to drink?”

  “Water is fine,” Bryna said. “But I’m ready to order. You?”

  Eric nodded.

  “I’ll have the banana split,” she said.

  “All right. Do you want two spoons?”

  “Um…no. I plan to eat it all by myself.”

  The girl looked at Bryna as if she couldn’t decide if it was sarcasm or not.

  “Yes. An extra spoon would be great,” Eric interjected. “I’ll have a strawberry milkshake.”

  “Sounds great.” The lady walked away with the menus.

  Bryna eyed Eric suspiciously. “You’re not getting any of my banana split.”

  “It says on the menu it’s made for two to eat. There is no way you can pack away an entire banana split like that.”

  “Want to bet?” she asked. “It’s my favorite. And caramelized bananas. I mean, come on. That’s screaming my name.”

  He snort-laughed. “I’ll take that bet. You pick up the tab if you don’t finish every last bite.”

  “Oh, please. At least make it fun.”

  “Fine. When I win, you have to hang out with me again…and be this girl, not the one from school.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to eat it all anyway, so deal.”

  They chatted aimlessly until their food came out. Bryna’s eyes were as big as saucers when she saw how enormous her banana split was.

  “Having second thoughts?” he asked.

  “Definitely not. I don’t back down from a challenge.”

  She dug into her split. She was glad she hadn’t had dinner and was basically living off of her dirty martini at the moment. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure this was actually going to happen. As she worked on the dessert, they talked about football and their undefeated season.

  “I wished I were playing,” he admitted. “I’m still on the team, but it’s different, being on the sidelines.”

  “But you said you could play.”

  “I could,” he agreed. “But I wouldn’t do that to my parents. They were freaked out when I hurt my knee. At first, the doctors didn’t know if I would walk. It was not a good time in my life. I recovered remarkably well, but I don’t want to go back into something I’m good at if it could kill me. I’m still young and smart. I can do something else.”

  “Coach? Is that the dream job?”

  “Of course. That’s the goal even though so few people make it to the top. Coach thinks I have the right eye for it. That’s why he agreed to train me after I busted my knee,” he told her. “What about you? What’s the dream job?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I always assumed I’d marry into money.”

  “You’re not serious,” he said in disbelief. “You’re smart and in college. You have to have some dreams, right?”

  She stuffed another bite of the banana split into her mouth to keep from answering right away. Her dreams had always been so muddled by everyone else’s expectations of her. She didn’t know how much of what she wanted was from herself or her parents.

  “Sometimes, I think film,” she said. She had never said that out loud. “When I was younger, I used to watch clips and piece them together for my dad…when he was around.”

  “Cool. So, are you a film major?”

  “Um…no. I’m undecided. I don’t think my father would take me seriously if I told him I was in film even though he was in film here.”

  “Why not?” Eric asked.

  “I’ve never really shown interest in it. Plus, I don’t want to seem like I’m riding his coattails.”

  “If you like it, you like it. You have to decide to do it and not give a fuck about what anyone else thinks. I thought you were already pretty good at that.”

  Bryna crinkled her nose and shoved another bite of the banana split into her mouth. She was almost finished, but the more she sat around and talked with Eric, the more she thought it might be nice to hang out with him over break. She had been bored out of her mind, and he was actually pretty good company—when he wasn’t acting like a douchey hostile football player.

  She got down to her last bite and just stared at it. “Maybe I will change my major then and see how film suits me.”

  “Killer. That sounds like a great idea. At least, once you’ve tried it, you’ll know if it’s for you.” Eric then looked at her bowl. “I can’t believe you only have one bite left. I never would have guessed you could finish that whole thing.”

  She smiled and then pushed the bowl over to him with the one remaining bite in it. “I didn’t finish.”

  “It’s only one bite.”

  “I lost. This was fun. Let’s hang out again.”

  Be there in five.

  Bryna checked the text from Eric and fiddled with her Harry Winston B in anticipation. They had gone to get lunch earlier this week, and it had been pretty chill. Since everyone was getting back into town on Saturday so that they could fly out to Miami the next morning, Eric had made plans for Friday night. She didn’t know where they were going exactly.

  All she knew was she enjoyed Eric’s company far too much—so much that, if he weren’t gay, she would have already hooked up with him. Then again, if he weren’t gay, she wasn’t sure she would be as comfortable with him. It was a conundrum.

  With any other guy, going out on a Friday night would certainly mean it was a date. And since this was their third time hanging out this week, it’d usually mean a whole hell of a lot more than that. She wasn’t used to this. She had never had guy friends who didn’t want to fuck her.

  It was such a strange relief—and also just strange.

  At least it gave her something to think about, other than her botche
d Christmas holiday. She had spent the entirety of Christmas Day drunk off her ass. Her mother hadn’t called once. Celia had called, but Bryna had ignored it. When her father had finally phoned her, all he’d wanted to know was why she hadn’t returned Celia’s call and claimed they had something important to discuss with her. It’d made her even happier she wasn’t home for the holidays to hear this stupid discussion.

  Eric knocked hard on the door, twice.

  She popped it open and smiled. “Hey.”

  “You ready to go?” he asked.

  “You didn’t say where we were going.” She followed him out the door.

  “I know. Just get in, Hollywood.”

  Bryna walked to his car, plopped down into the passenger seat, and arched an eyebrow. “Hollywood?”

  “You call me Cowboy.”

  “Well, you drawl your words,” she pointed out.

  “No, I don’t.” He actually looked offended.

  “Yes, you do. It happens all the time, especially when you’re angry.”

  “So, it must just be around you then.”

  Bryna shrugged. “As long as you admit it.”

  “Whatever,” he said, drawling dramatically.

  A smile crept up onto her face.

  Eric drove the short distance toward the Strip, and she drummed her fingernails on the door.

  “You know, I think I’ve been on the Strip more this week with you than all last semester,” she said.

  “I know. I never come out here either. It’s always so busy, and it’s so much easier to go somewhere more local.”

  She nodded her head. “Like Posse. It would be great to go to Carnival Court all the time, but the tourists kill it.”

  “Yeah. I thought about this other place for tonight, and I heard this location is pretty fun. Plus, I have a friend who works there, so she hooked me up.”

  “Okay. You have me curious. Where are we going?” she asked.

  “You’ll see.”