great.
“Come on,” I say, linking an arm through hers. “Let’s get you a drink before your face burns any hotter.”
I cast a glance at Cait as we pass her to see if she’s glaring at me for flirting innocently with her roommate.
Yup.
I stick my tongue out at her. “I’m being good,” I mouth before offering Sam a Lizzie Special.
“I’m not really a drinker.” She eyes the mixers—one bottle each of orange and cranberry juice, both of which are down to their dregs. “I’ll just fill a cup in the sink.”
I dash ahead to do it for her—I’m nothing if not chivalrous—and brandish it like I’m serving Dom Perignon. Apparently, this girl turns me into a massive dork, but the smile she flashes me as she takes it in her perfectly manicured hand makes it so worth it. “Thanks,” she says before taking a sip.
“Well, I heard you’ve been working really hard, so.”
She laughs. “It’s a really good book! Though it actually kind of destroyed me—it’s about a school shooting, told in real time from all these different perspectives, and honestly I probably would’ve just stayed in tonight, but after I finished, I felt like I needed to be around living, breathing people for an hour.”
I’m tempted to offer her a hug or…anything else she might need, but Cait is giving me a death glare. “Jeez,” I say instead. “That’s bleak. Not sure I could handle reading that.”
“There are lesbians.”
“What’s it called again?”
She laughed. “Cait’s right; you are predictable.”
I don’t know whether to hug or throw a drink at Cait for talking about me in the room; I’m guessing she’s not exactly writing up the ideal dating profile for me. “In a good way, I assume.”
“Is there any other way?”
Okay, she’s flirting with me. She has to be. But before I can think of a clever response, Abe calls, “Franklin! Come here a sec.”
I peek around Samara to see that Abe’s standing with Sid, Lizzie, and Cait, and this cannot be good. “This feels like something at my expense,” I say with narrowed eyes.
“Just a harmless game of Never Has Frankie Ever,” says Lizzie, lifting up a shot glass of I’m not sure what. “We need you to settle something.”
“Never Has Frankie Ever?” Samara asks.
I groan inwardly. Of course they’d have to do this now, when I’m talking to the most pristine princess on the planet. “It’s nothing. It’s a stupid game they play.”
“It’s like ‘Never Have I Ever,’” Cait explains, since apparently my mumbled response to Samara wasn’t a strong enough clue that I don’t want her yelling this over the entire party. “Only we have to come up with stuff Frankie hasn’t done.”
“And if we’re wrong, and she has done it, then the person who said it has to drink,” Abe finishes. “I’m Abe, by the way.”
“Samara.” She shoots me a smirk and walks over to the rest of them, giving me no choice but to trudge along behind her. “So, what’ve I missed so far?”
“Well, Lizzie is correct that never has Frankie ever gotten a tattoo on the inside of her lip,” says Cait, “but incorrect that Frankie has never ridden her Vespa into a parked car.”
“And Sid here was sorely mistaken to assume Frankie joined the mile-high club with a flight attendant,” adds Abe, “but we only made her drink half a cup because she has made out with one.”
“Plus, I’m just drinking water, so no one really cares,” Sid adds, wagging her plastic cup. “Hi, I’m Sidra.”
“Another non-drinker,” Samara says with a hint of relief in her voice. “Excellent. I can get behind that.”
“So you’re in?” asks Cait. “Hey, Mase, get Samara a cup of water, will you?”
“Guys, this is not normal. Go play Seven Minutes in Heaven like normal people.”
“No way,” says Samara. “I still have so much to learn!”
“Including the answer to our question,” Lizzie breaks in. “Cait insists you were serious about getting a