Tempted by Fate

Chapter 2

I roll over onto my stomach, pushing myself off of the bed. I needed to hurry and get a shower before Carly got home from work. We had discussed going out bar hopping to celebrate the start of our senior year of college and she would be here in less than fifteen minutes.

I sigh loudly as I grab a towel from the hall closet and head into the bathroom. Stripping off my sweat pants and tank top and I step into the shower spray. The warm water feels amazing on my shoulders after several days of moving heavy boxes into the apartment and rearranging furniture to fit all of the junk we had both accumulated over the past three years.

The past week has been a blur. I spent the entire time getting my credits transferred to Chapman University, enrolling in classes for the upcoming semester that started Monday, and traveling back to Boston to load up all of my belongings and move them back home to Chapman Hills, Indiana.

The choice to live on campus had been much less appealing than this shabby old apartment. My best friend Carly, whom I've known since we were babies, lives just off campus in an old worn down apartment. She just so happened to have an empty bedroom arise once she'd heard I was moving back to town which she claims was a coincidence, but I'm not convinced.

I allow myself a few moments of peace and quiet before I begin scrubbing my body of the caked on sweat from climbing the stairs fifteen times with the remaining boxes I had shoved in my car. The sound of music plays softly from the bedroom. I switch off the faucet and step out of the shower,wrapping my body tightly in an old scratchy towel. The steam billows out of the bathroom as I step out into the hallway. I head down the hallway towards my bedroom, not bothering to pay much attention to my surroundings.

A wolf whistle sounds from across the room as the apartment door opens up revealing a man whom I don't recognize.

I stiffen, looking up like a deer in headlights, my hand clenching even tighter around the white fabric lying between me and this strange man.

"Who are you?" I shriek, hurrying toward my bedroom, looking around for Carly.

"Hey Mel, it's just Darren and I. He thought he'd tag along so he could meet you," she says excitedly, popping around his wide body waving a bottle of vodka in her hands as if it's no big deal that her and her boyfriend had just walked in on me in a towel.

"Ready to pregame?" she says with a grin, wiggling her eyebrows.

I smile at her tautly, doing my best to move around them and toward my bedroom door. Darren's eyes glide down my body hungrily, taking in all of the exposed skin. I feel a shiver move down my spine as I rush toward the bedroom, slamming the door behind me and rushing to find clothing.

Carly follows me to my bedroom, shutting the door behind her and dropping onto my bed with a thump.

"Sorry about that. I didn't realize you'd be in the shower," she says with a grin as she pops the top of the vodka bottle and pours the clear liquid into two shot glasses. She hands me one and I immediately knock it back.

It's been a while since I've gone out. Carly was always the partier. She always dragged me to various social occasions, and when I moved to Boston it wasn't a habit I often continued.

I set the shot glass on the nightstand and turned back toward the closet pulling a few dress options from the rod. I turn, holding up two options in my hands, raising my eyebrows as Carly clears her second shot of vodka.

She wipes her mouth with her wrist, setting the shot glass down.

"Definitely the little black dress," she says with a sly grin. "That one is sure to catch someone's eye."