Page 16

FUCK, I NEEDED THIS

FLYNN

I watched until Sasha made it safely inside her apartment building, waiting for her to text her roommate like she’d promised.

I texted Gryff while I waited for her roommate’s message.

Me: Don’t give me shit. Give me information. Is Tempest still there?

My phone lit up, but with the confirmation from Sasha’s roomie that she was safely tucked into bed.

Good. One more person who wouldn’t end up causing a late-night police visit to someone’s family.

Gryff’s text finally came back.

Gryff: She’s here. Don’t think she’s going anywhere until she’s done getting lit. You’d better get your ass back pronto.

Tempest? Drunk? While I didn’t stand for drunk driving, I didn’t have a problem with anyone wanting to blow off some steam with a few drinks. Lord knows, she needed to blow off some steam, but I didn’t see her getting sloppy drunk.

She was too careful. Wound too tightly. Keeping secrets that she was taking pains to hide. Getting drunk meant loose lips.

And she didn’t want any of her ships sinking.

The drive back to the hockey house felt longer than it should have. That look on her face when I’d walked away...fuck. She probably thought I’d blown her off for another girl, which... hell.

But I had to fulfill my duty as designated driver. Even for the likes of Sasha, who never learned her lesson. Not when she’d had that look I knew too well. The one that said she needed to get out before she did something she’d regret. Not when she’d been too drunk to drive herself. Never that.

A car swerved in the lane ahead of me, and my hands tightened on the wheel.

Even if Tempest was still at the party when I got back, she probably wouldn’t want to finish our game. Hell, she probably wouldn’t want anything to do with me now.

Which should have been fine. That’s what I wanted, right?

Keep things casual. No expectations, no attachments, no chance of the kind of soul-crushing loss that could bring a strong man to his knees.

I’d seen what that looked like, watched my dad try to rebuild a life around a Mom-shaped hole in our family. Some wounds never really healed .

Except I couldn’t stop thinking about the way Tempest’s smile reached all the way to her eyes when she sank that perfect shot.

Or how she’d lit up talking about her adventures with her sisters and her grandparents at their villa in Mexico.

Or how she hadn’t pushed when I wanted to play beer pong with water.

“Get it together, Kingman,” I muttered, turning onto Greek Row. Music thumped from the hockey house, bass vibrating through my chest as I parked. Through the front window, I could see bodies moving, red cups raising, another Friday night in full swing.

Please still be here.

I hadn’t meant to think it. Didn’t want to examine why it mattered so much. But I killed the engine and couldn’t deny the way my pulse kicked up at the possibility of finding her in the crowd.

I could handle more than two weeks with Tempest. I’d already accepted that. But anything deeper? That was a different kind of risk. The kind that ended with someone shattered beyond repair.

I headed for the front door and all I could think about was the way Tempest’s laugh had wrapped around me like a promise I was terrified to keep.

The party had hit that sweet spot between chaos and catastrophe by the time I got back inside. Music thundered through the floorboards, and the crowd had thinned just enough that I could scan faces without having to wade through a mosh pit of drunk college students.

No sign of Tempest at the beer pong table. Or in the kitchen. Or? —

“Looking for your girl?” Gryff materialized at my elbow, wiping at his lips. I knew that look. He’d been making out with someone. Which is exactly what I was usually doing at parties like this too. I’d scan for who, but I was already looking for someone.

“Not my girl.” I stood on my tiptoes and didn’t see Tempest anywhere. I did see fucking Xander, skulking away. He was the last guy I wanted around my...friends.

“Right. That’s why you’re doing that thing with your jaw.”

“What thing?”

“That clenched, cave-man thing. Like you’re about to grab her by the hair and drag her back to your—” He cut off with a grunt as my elbow found his ribs.

A burst of familiar laughter drew my attention to the living room. Tempest was perched on the arm of the couch, surrounded by her sorority sisters, and a slew of male admirers. Her cheeks were flushed, her dark hair wild, and she had a shot glass in her hand.

Shit.

“Oh yeah,” Gryff said, following my gaze. “She’s been doing shots since you left. Something about writing her own ending? Not sure what that means, but the girl can drink.”

Double shit.

As I watched, she threw back another shot, then immediately reached for a second one. Hannah, or maybe it was Alice, I couldn’t keep her sisters straight, tried to intercept, but Tempest was faster.

“Didn’t peg her for a party girl,” Gryff mused.

She wasn’t. I’d had to goad her into even considering a party. Which meant this was my fault. Because I’d walked away and made her think…

“Down boy,” Gryff said as I started forward. “Let her have some fun. She’s got her sorority sisters with her, and they’re a stronger force than a steel chastity belt that’s got a whole bevy of locks.”

But I’d been to too many parties like this in my almost four years at this school not to recognize when someone was spiraling. Especially someone who clearly wasn’t used to drinking like this.

I made it halfway across the room before Tempest spotted me. Her eyes narrowed, and she deliberately reached for another shot.

“I don’t think you wanna do that, sweetheart,” I said, closing the distance between us.

“Don’t wanna do what, jackass?” Her words had the careful precision of someone trying hard to sound sober. “Don’t wanna have fun? Don’t wanna let loose? Don’t assume the great Flynn Kingman might actually…” She stumbled as she stood, and I caught her elbow before she could fall.

“Hey.” I steadied her, trying to ignore how right she felt under my hands. “I came back.”

“To save another damsel?” She tried to pull away, but ended up swaying into my chest instead. “Sorry, this damsel’s busy getting distressed all by herself.”

Christ. How many shots had she done?

She spun away from her sisters and directly into Brad Mitchell from the rugby team.

“Flynn,” Brad called out. “Your study partner’s been teaching us Espanol. ”

Tempest draped herself against Brad’s arm, deliberately not looking at me. “Díle, Brad. ?Qué significa ‘arrogante’?”

“Arrogante,” Brad repeated proudly, butchering the pronunciation. “It means football player.”

Thank you, four years of high school Spanish, two in college, and the occasional sexy Spanish-speaking babysitter. I bit back a smile as Tempest moved on to her next victim.

"Ricky." She collapsed onto the couch next to the soccer captain. “Ensénales cómo se dice ‘tiene el trasero increíble pero no tiene huevos.’”

Ricky, who definitely spoke Spanish, shot me an apologetic look before turning to the group. “It means... uh... football players are great study partners.”

Liar. She’d just announced to half the party that I had an incredible ass but no... guts.

“No, no, no.” Tempest wagged her finger at Ricky. "En espanol, por favor repíteme?—”

She proceeded to teach a group of increasingly confused hockey players how to say what I was quite sure translated to “pretty boy who runs away from feelings.” All while shooting me these little glances to make sure I was watching.

That’s when she noticed me staring and her eyes narrowed. With a lot of effort, she pulled herself up off the couch and walked right up to me. “If you’re here to play hero again,” she said, poking my chest, “I don’t need saving. I have sisters for that.”

“What you need is water.”

“What I need,” she announced to the room at large, “is for certain football players to stop telling me what to do like... like...”

“Like what?”

“Like that.” She gestured at my face, then grabbed my beard and gave it a little shake. “All concerned and focused and... and Flynn-like.”

Several of her sisters laughed. I shot them a look, and Hannah made a “what can you do?” shrug.

“Come here.” I sank into one of the oversized armchairs, hoping to at least get her sitting down before she fell down.

“No.” But she swayed a little. “You’re not the boss of me, Flynn Kingman.”

“Never said I was.”

“Good. Because I am a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need...” She stumbled slightly, catching herself on the arm of my chair. “Doesn’t need...”

“A hand?”

She glared at me, but there wasn’t much heat in it. More like the way a grumpy kitten might glare at someone who’d interrupted their nap.

But kittens didn’t wear sexy-as-fuck heels, which she turned on and clacked her way into the kitchen where she grabbed a bottle of water.

With much aplomb, she twisted the cap off and took several long gulps, just as much spilling down her face, down her throat, disappearing behind her shirt, but no doubt going right into that cleavage.

Fuck, and now I was jealous of a bottle of water.

I spent the next hour sitting in that damn chair, watching her flit around the party from group to group like a little drunk butterfly. At least she’d slowed down on the fruity vodka drinks. But that also meant eventually she’d run out of steam.

I’d be right here, ready to take her home. Hers, not mine. And probably along with her gaggle of sorority sisters. I wasn’t the kind of guy to take advantage of a drunk girl. Guys who did that were gross at best, and fucking criminals as far as I was concerned.

I gripped the armrests when she walked up to Gryff. I was about to tear the arms of this chair right off when she caressed his cheek, wiggling her fingers through his facial hair. But then she gave him a little baby slap and stuck her tongue out at him.