Score (Skin in the Game Book 1) by Christine Bell Read Free Book Online

isn’t. It was just an invitation to a party, not to jump into his pants.”
    “Technicality!” she shrieked. She was trembling, she was so excited. She jumped on the couch and hugged a pillow. “Tell me how it went down. What did he say? In his exact words.”
    I wish I could say I had to think about it, but somehow, his words had gotten imprinted in my mind, and I doubted even a frontal lobotomy would erase them. “He said, ‘D-Phi is having a party tonight. Ten o’clock. Come by?’ to which I said—”
    “Yes!”
    “No!” I mimicked, using her excited tone. I stuck my tongue out at her, like a five-year-old. “I’m sure he asked a thousand girls to this party. It doesn’t, in any way, signify he wants to be there with me. And I can tell you right now that I don’t want to be there with him.”
    Which felt like a lie. Staying home was the right thing, the responsible thing, the thing I needed to do if I was going to go to grad school. So why did it feel like a lie?
    Oh, right. He had those eyes. And that smell. I hadn’t seen him in six hours and I could still smell that spicy, leathery goodness.
    I could just go. Go and make an appearance, sniff his cologne, then leave. It was good to step outside one’s comfort zone every once in a while, be social, experience new things.
    It didn’t mean I wanted to get with him.
    “Come on, let’s get ready.”
    “I don’t know, Flo.”
    Flora’s eyes lit with excitement. My resolve was about as substantial as cotton candy in that moment and she could sense it, like a weak-seeking missile. And when she tugged on my sleeve again, I went with her.
    We spent the next two hours getting ready.
    Correction: Flora did.
    She took a thirty-minute shower that used all the hot water in the house, applied a full face of make-up, complete with false eyelashes, blew dry and straightened her hair, moisturized every inch of skin, then tried on every outfit in the closet before settling on an obscenely tight sweater dress. And yes, boots, but not snow boots—knee-high jobbies with platform heels.
    I took a sixty-second, ice-cold (thanks, Flora) shower, threw on jeans and a cable-knit sweater, and swiped on some peach lip-gloss.
    The end.
    I watched her as she twirled her hair into a sexy topknot.
    “I feel woefully frumpy,” I admitted before I could stop myself.
    “Your fault. You could show off your assets. What about this?” She reached into the closet and pulled out another one of her tiny dresses.
    “That wouldn’t fit on my arm.”
    She tugged on the fabric. “It’s stretchy, see?”
    I shook my head. “What’s the point?” I groaned, pretty sure that I could wear a bright red clown nose and Cal wouldn’t notice me. Not that I wanted to be noticed by him anyway. But for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about the way he bared his soul to me in the locker room earlier that day.
    Maybe there was more to this particular football player than I’d thought?
    The notion turned me into a ball of nerves. By the time it was a quarter after ten, fashionably late, according to Flora, all I could do was look longingly at my snuggly bed and wonder what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
    “You look like you’re going to hurl,” she said to me as she spritzed on perfume.
    Bingo.
    “I’m fine,” I muttered, lips tight.
    Time to face the music. I opened the closet and started to crawl through the pile of shoes on the bottom, searching for my duck boots.
    “Stop dragging your feet!” Flora called to me.
    I threw on my boots and coat and rushed down to meet her, praying under my breath that this wasn’t going to be the biggest mistake of my life.

6
    Cal
    S ame old shit , different day.
    I’d been going to D-Phi parties ever since I was a freshman, and in four years, nothing had changed.
    Same cheap beer.
    Same shit music.
    Same cluttered house that smelled like something died in it.
    Same lonely guys, pretending they were cool. Same lonely girls, wearing as