together again.

And by the three musketeers, I meant Jake, Jamie and me. The three hard partiers, the three social butterflies. Bless their hearts, Riley and Krista gave a solid effort for the first six days of re-orientation week. But by the Sunday before classes started, both my girlfriends traded a night of partying for a night of studying.

It was mildly awkward on the drive to Ravi's apartment.

Because the twins and I were all dead sober, and dead quiet. Because Jamie and I'd fallen into a weird, tense limbo this last week. Because Jake would rather play innocent than leap into the fray between his twin and his twin's friend turned ex-fuck buddy.

In Jake's own words six days ago: awkward.

I didn't know whose fault it was that things had become so fraught, but it was definitely not all mine. Some of it, definitely. I knew I'd hurt Jamie, but I still attempted to talk to him whenever he entered the common room, if I saw him in the laundry room, as we dined together with our friends. All his replies to me were less than five words.

After days of that cold shoulder treatment, I just stopped trying to be friendly. Civil, I could do. Anything more, especially if unreciprocated, I couldn't.

Jamie had given me his ultimatum—all or nothing—before the winter holidays. We'd spoken little over the break. We'd spoken little since returning to Halston, and nothing had been so cold between us. So skirted around each other, leaving all the questions unasked and truths unsaid.

But I didn't stop wondering; wondering what my mistake was; wondering if I could reverse it; wondering what it would take to get him to want me near again. That was why I came tonight.

The party wasn't to be a grand celebration, just a casual gathering. Only people that cared about the birthday boy Ravi were invited. So I expected the apartment to be filled mostly by football players and WAGs.

And then there was me, neither of those things, but close friends with Sushmita and living with the twins. I couldn't remember how I'd been added to the Facebook event page, but I had, and yesterday Sushmita made it clear my attendance was compulsory.

So I'd clicked Going, planned an event outfit appropriate for winter, and made a trip to get vodka from the liquor store in the heart of Halston.

Though the radio hummed in the background of the SUV, dispelling the worst of the tension, I attempted to break the silence.

"This is communal vodka, boys." I slyly told the twins from the backseat. I patted the glass bottle resting on my abdomen, tucked into the spacious interior pocket of my favourite denim jacket. "Have some if you need."

Jake laughed in the passenger seat. "Thanks, Viv, but I'm abstaining tonight." True. Jake was the designated driver tonight, but Jamie hated anyone driving his SUV unless absolutely necessary.

Jamie shot me a glance in the rearview mirror, one hand steady on the wheel and the other resting on his thigh. His deep green eyes held mine, that placid mask firmly attached. I'd seldom seen genuine emotion on that face as of late. I stared back, raising an eyebrow. Challenging him. Talk to me, darn it.

"Won't need it," he sighed. And that was that, until the four-storey alabaster apartment complex drew into our field of vision.

The building rested on the outskirts of the campus, a separate entity from the university but inhabited pretty much exclusively by students. We took the elevator up to Ravi's apartment, and Sushmita let us in with an excited grin.

I hugged my friend and fell into easy banter with her.

Jamie immediately found a group of his teammates and lost himself in it.

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Jake had precisely two party tricks: doing keg stands, and flexing his rudimentary German language skills.

Because he was the designated driver tonight, that immediately ruled out one option. The offensive tackle that Riley had made out with—and preemptively blocked on social media out of embarrassment—chuckled as he leaned toward Jake. "Alright, alright. How would you say fuck you?"

A small crowd of party-goers congregated on and around the couch. Jake sat in the middle, surrounded by his friends, and I perched on the armrest. Occasionally a lull in the conversation suitable for a snarky quip would arise, and I'd contribute my two cents. But everyone was rather content to let Jake entertain us.

"Ich liebe Jake," Jake replied smoothly. His brows furrowed briefly. "Well, that's fuck you, Jake, but you can replace the last word with whatever name you like."

I smothered my laugh into my chest. Liar.

"Ah, okay, I got it," the offensive tackle pronounced with pride. "Ich liebe Jamie."

Jamie, across the room at the dining table, turned around and shot his teammate a glare. Jake burst out in laughter, either at his friend's gullibility or his twin's reaction. No-one seemed to detect the lie, least of all Jamie, who was defending his beer pong title with deadly calm.

I kept my eyes fixed on Jake and his interlocutor, but in my periphery, my mind grasped at every hint of Jamie as it could. A flash of tan was his forearm, clad in a black t-shirt, stretching and aiming the ping pong ball. A shout of frustration was his competitor. That swaying dark figure was him, taking a cocky step backwards in victory.

And to all the world, I was still looking at the conversation unfolding in front of me.

"Perfect," Jake was attempting to say through his laughter. "You sure you've never spoken German before?"

The offensive tackle puffed up under the false praise. "What can I say? It's a gift."

When the current beer pong game ended, I rose from the arm of the couch and strolled over to Jamie. "Can I play?"

The three other people around the table had varying reactions. One man chuckled and held his hands up in surrender as he backed away. Another said, "Of course, sweetheart," even though Jamie shot him an icy glare. The muscle threading his jawbone twitched.

"Take care of him, sweetheart," the man said again.

"Fuck off, man." Jamie jerked his head to the kitchen.

"Touchy."

I didn't deign to reply to any of them as they departed in the direction indicated by Jamie. There was not one ounce of insult in their chattering conversation as they drifted away, instead their laughter sounded completely amused.

Darn. I hated being a spectacle.

Rolling his shoulder, Jamie said tersely, "You have your own liquor?"

I stared at him.

"Sorry. Dumb question."

We set up the red solo cups. I poured a shot's worth of vodka into each cup on my side of the table. Jamie poured a healthy amount of Mountain Dew into the cups on his. We swapped vessels. Repeated the process. He tossed me a fresh ping pong ball from the pack. I caught it one-handed. All in silence.

And I didn't think I'd ever been hungrier for this man.

Before I threw the ball, I appraised Jamie. His hair was unstyled but still neat, that clean haircut he received over the winter holidays doing wonders for his jawline. If he noticed me tipsily checking him out, which he definitely did, he said nothing.

I was certain the man had swallowed less than a cup of beer since he arrived. Which meant yet another night of him silently judging me for drinking; I knew those disapproving looks and concerned, probing questions well enough to hate them.

We were still holding eye contact, daring the other to break, when I sunk the ball neatly into his foremost cup. Exactly the one I'd been aiming for.

Jamie drank, wiping away a drop of liquid from his chin with the back of his calloused hand. My eyes followed his palm. His eyes followed my eyes.

"What?"

I shrugged as he returned the favour, the ping pong ball rattling slightly as it fell into my cup. "Are you mad at me or something?"

I drank, the vodka lemonade cool in my mouth and hot in my stomach.

The game continued between our verbal back-and-forth. Jamie narrowed his eyes. "Why would I be mad?"

"I don't know, because we're not screwing anymore? Because I won't date you?"

"None of that." Jamie rolled his eyes. He expertly fished the ball out from the cup I just scored. "I don't have to like the answers you gave me, but I respect them."

"Then why have you been... cold?"

"I'm just busy. Sorting out my courses and everything." His arm poised to shoot the ball, which he missed.

I retrieved it with a scoff, both at his gameplay and his response. "That's a lie."

"Think what you want," he said casually. "But I won't get into anything tonight. We're celebrating Ravi."

I nodded, sweeping my eyes to Ravi. He had taken my place on the arm of the couch, Sushmita half-sitting, half-leaning on his lap. The couple laughed and chatted with their friends.

I shook my head at Jamie. "Celebrating Ravi? You've spoken, like, ten words to him since you arrived."

A hint of a smirk tugged at his mouth. "Nice to know you follow my movements so closely." Finally. Some emotion, something I could work with.

"Nice to know it's not your ego that my rejection bruised." My words struck exactly as I crafted them, with Jamie bristling.

His lips parted to retort, before he seemed to remind himself of something. "Forget it. I know not to have conversations with you that you won't even remember."

"Huh?"

Jamie scored another point against me. He smiled sweetly, saccharinely, as I lifted the cup. "Drink up."

So I did the same to him ten seconds later. My glossy lips stretched wide, and I cooed. "Drink up yourself."

Jamie rolled his eyes again. Picked up his cup.

He drawled, "Cheers, Viv," in a manner that felt like fingers running down my spine.

I fought the visceral shiver that caressed me at the sound of his voice, deep and sultry.

Jamie drained his drink slowly. When he lowered the cup to the table, his tongue swept purposefully across his lower lip. I watched Jamie watching me, his green eyes darkening as he took in my outfit: shredded jeans over fishnet stockings, and a sheer mesh top over a black bralette. My stomach knotted instantly at the controlled movement of his tongue; he knew what he was doing.

The man wasn't even ashamed when he made eye contact again. Instead, he brought his thumb up to his face and caught the residual moisture of the beer that lingered on his lip, and I recalled the way he used to press the pad of this thumb against my bottom lip before slipping it into my mouth—

Jamie's eyes narrowed with mirth.

Asshole. He was teasing me, testing me—doing everything, except giving me straight answers.

Was this what he intended our friendship to be like from now? Or was this the period of punishment I had to endure for hurting him? Was this him hurting me back? Did he expect anything from me? An apology, an acknowledgement?

So many loose threads. And here was Jamie, sipping at his drinks and toying with me like a cat playing with its prey.

I lost another cup to him. And this time, I hissed, "Fuck you," before downing its contents.

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Sushmita and I both wore sunglasses against the bitter white sunlight, nursing mild hangovers.

Jamie needn't have worried about me last night, not that he ever voiced it. I could tell he didn't understand my habit. Alcohol was plenty conducive to a good time, if one drank in moderation. I only drank enough to stop stressing about him, but not enough to vomit or blackout.

After the beer pong game, I danced in the living room with Sushmita and did my party trick—reciting the periodic table of elements—to a cluster of cheering football players and WAGs who started beatboxing along to my rhythm. Jake drove us home with no problems, except of course for the perpetual chasm between his twin brother and me.

The campus was sunny but frigid on the first day of the semester, and I tucked my coat-clad arms deeper into my armpits. "I didn't see you and Ravi after we cut the cake," I smiled.

"Hey, it was his birthday. Enough said."

"Birthday sex."

Sushmita chuckled, nudging me with her elbow. "You said it anyway."

"Of course," I quipped. Countless students had trod the snow down flat on the footpath leading to Science 1. Along the cobblestones, I noted one familiar silhouette—short haircut, a branded black windbreaker and his duffle bag slung over his shoulder—and one unfamiliar silhouette.

Jamie and a woman.

"Darn." I cursed under my breath as they walked closer to us, as Jamie spotted me. As she spotted me.

"What?" Sushmita wondered.

"Say something funny," I commanded urgently.

"Something funny."

"Hahahaha," I burst out laughing, making my laugh ugly enough to seem genuine, guttural enough to carry.

What is wrong with you? I knew Sushmita wanted to ask that. So did I.

I never usually cared so much about appearances like this, but something about the pretty brunette next to Jamie and how uncomfortable things had been between us snapped into place, and snapped my thread of logic. He took everything solid and grounded about me and threw it to the stars. He drove me crazy.

I became the one-sided recipient of a fake sentence, "I know, right?"

To her credit, Sushmita kept her amused smile plastered on her face even as she gritted under her breath, "Girl. What is up? Tanner better have a magic cock—"

"Ahem," I coughed loudly when the couple drew within earshot.

Sushmita knew me well enough to play along, but I knew she would never let me hear the end of this, from a feminist perspective. I wanted to slap myself.

I waved. "Hey, guys."

"Hi," the woman spoke first. "Viv, right? I'm Farrah. We've spoken once before, I think."

I tilted my head, searching through my memory. Farrah...

Oh. Her face, familiar up close, registered in my mind. The pretty lady with the blue shirt, at the Foxhole, during the away game party last semester. I'd essentially pushed Jamie into her arms in order to get things between us back to normal—just friends—before... before I changed.

"We did indeed," I smiled, recalling her warm energy and friendliness. "How have you been?"

A nervous bark escaped Farrah, making her thick head of wavy brown hair tremble. "Probably too stressed than is healthy for the start of the semester."

"I feel you," I commiserated. Jamie shuffled next to Farrah, his gaze trained on me. I saw it in my periphery, but I refused to meet it.

"Jamie and I just came from the Science Student Center for timetabling help," Farrah continued. "We're both taking a CompSci course that has, like, fifty in-class hours per week."

"Farrah likes to exaggerate," he finally spoke, the humour limning his voice so familiar and yet so foreign. Because I hadn't heard it directed at me for weeks.

"Jamie likes to chat shit," she shot back. Sushmita and I laughed in time, acting the part of carefree bystanders. I was so thankful she was next to me. "Anyways, I have the clash, but Jamie knows which one advisor is actually mildly competent."

Jamie shrugged innocently, "Hey, they're all pretty helpful."

"That's because the whole faculty is contractually obligated to suck the asses of the football team," I commented. "The whole campus, actually."

Farrah loosed a delighted laugh. "I hear no lies," she declared, raising her hand for a high-five. I obliged her, praising Jamie's choice in friends.

If that's all she was.

Sushmita noticed my expression shift, and she glanced at the watch I knew she didn't really own. Neither Jamie nor Farrah noticed, however, as she lowered her wrist. "Well, it was nice meeting you, Farrah."

I nodded, "Yes, it's good seeing you again."

"You, too!" Farrah beamed. "Hope to see you around sometime."

"See you around," I farewelled, strolling past the pair with Sushmita at my side.

When we were well out of earshot, Sushmita sang-song, "Drama."

"Ugh, never. Farrah seems great," I said truthfully. "There's no drama."

"Then why does your face look like you just chewed a lemon?"

I scoffed. "This is my usual face."

"Uh-huh." A few moments passed. "Girl, you can break your own rules. Chase him if you want him." A look of disgust immediately crossed my features, and Sushmita laughed. "Fine, don't chase him. But jog a little."

"Jog," I echoed dumbly. "Emotionally, or..."

"Let him know what he's missing out on," Sushmita clarified, giving me a knowing wink.

My eyebrows knitted together. "Is that what you did with Ravi?"

"Let's just say he gets birthday cake every day of the week."

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Knowing what we know about Vivian (i.e. she doesn't deal with her emotions in the most healthy of ways) what do you think she's going to do next?

Vote, comment and follow me if you enjoyed!

Aimee x