if only

chapter 18

The party had started to die down, and I was stoned as hell by then. I'd run into some classmates holding some harder shit, and without thinking, had taken it. I found her in Mags' room, with some bitch on her lap.

I laughed out loud from the doorway. "What uppp, big t-shirt Billie Eilish."

She rolled her eyes and flipped me off, then went back to the girl. She was tiny and pink haired, and that made me laugh harder. There was a whole group of people in the room again, so it wasn't like she was alone with this girl, but still. It fucked with me much more than I cared to admit.

Mags glowered at me. "Don't start shit."

I laughed again. "Maggie, you know I'm just an innocent bystander."

Mags got off the bed and moved toward me, grabbing my face and looking me in the eye. I smirked, but lost just a little of my cockiness.

"You're fucked up. What'd you take?"

I shrugged. "Just a lil Tylenol, honey, don't worry about it. Had a headache."

More like crushed up prescription pain meds, but what's the difference, really?

She shook her head. "Disappointing."

I cringed internally, but kept on smiling like a shithead. "Just tryna have a good time."

She shook her head in disgust. "You need to go home."

"Baby, it's just a lil fun. Looks like Billie's enjoying herself over there," I cocked my chin in her direction. "At her first ever college party experience! Looks like she's having a grand ol' time."

"Not yet, but maybe later," the bitch on her lap quipped, thinking herself funny.

Billie snorted, and the girl whispered something in her ear, gripping her waist with one hand and Billie's chin in the other. My love kept eye contact with me the whole time.

"Anyways," I pushed off from the doorway, trying to appear unmoved while my very blood boiled. "I got shit to do."

"I bet," Billie called as I left the room.

Really I could have anyone here, if I wanted. Several sets of eyes followed me as I moved from room to room. Lots of men, but I would never take them into consideration, even if I wasn't a strict lesbian. Men were too easy; their end game was much simpler than mine, their focus solely on an easy fuck by the end of the night.

I may be a player, or a slut, or whatever combination of the two, but I was picky; I wanted a woman who enjoyed the chase as much as I did, who wanted to be caught. Though it seemed tonight as if I just wanted some other beautiful woman to lure, that wasn't my goal at all. Billie was still who I was after... the real catch.

So, tonight, for all intents and purposes, I just needed some bait.

I knew who would fit the assignment perfectly, and I'd already seen her, here at this very party. I meandered from room to room until I found her, talking animatedly to a friend in a corner of the living room. I sidled up, inserting myself into the conversation.

"Hey, Laura," I murmured.

She blinked at me. "Oh. Hi, Shawn."

"How are you? Been a minute." I didn't care about the dude she was talking to, who I'd effectively cut off mid-sentence. I put myself slightly between them, and heard him scoff behind me.

"Ummm, do you mean since you invited me to your place for sex and then cried the whole time?"

I cleared my throat while the guy behind me snickered.