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  The cop went again to his partner and had a longer discussion with many more sweeping hand gestures, and subdued whispers into the radio tethered to his bulky chest.

  The stare of the young witness was now making her wonder if she knew him somehow.

  The cop asked Mallory where she was going and all the standard questions. He ordered her to move her car out of traffic. They convened as a group on the nearby sidewalk—the young man, herself, and the officers.

  “It appears that we need to only get your information. You have a witness who was waiting to cross. He says the other gentleman darted out into traffic. If you want, you can pursue damages for your hood and windshield from him.” The police officer nodded to the biker getting medical attention. “Miss, he’s at fault. Miss?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Mallory. “His bike’s already destroyed, and my husband’s a mechanic. It’s really not necessary.”

  The cops looked at each other and then looked at her, obviously not really giving a damn if she was telling the truth at this point. They both handed Mallory their cards and then the woman took to scribbling furiously on a clip-boarded pad. She tore off a copy of the report. “Call us with any questions.”

  “Am I good?” the young man asked.

  They nodded. The woman said, “We have your statement and your information. Thank you both. Make sure you get that windshield fixed right away,” she added, looking at Mallory.

  The two officers approached the ambulance to break the news to the cyclist. Mallory watched their mouths move, explaining everything. He started pointing at Mallory and shouting at the top of his lungs.

  The young man laughed. “Do you think he’s upset?”

  “You lied?” The words came out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  “I stretched the truth.” He nodded to the cyclist. “Who bikes at two p.m. on a Wednesday? And he was right, that bike probably is worth more than your car,” he chuckled. “The guy must be loaded. He’ll live.”

  “But why?” She swept a lock of hair aside and looked at him more intently now. She felt so relieved, so gloriously thankful to this stranger. The police report in her hand was a golden ticket. Brenda might even let Mallory take the day off after coming down with PTCD, Post-Traumatic Cyclist Disorder.

  “Your husband’s not a mechanic,” he said, shaking his head at her.

  “What?”

  “I’ve seen pictures of you.”

  “What?” She drew back.

  He laughed. “At my work. You’re Teddy’s fiancée, right?”

  “You work with Teddy?”

  “Yeah, I just came from work, actually. Just talked to him no more than five minutes ago. I’m doing an internship sort of thing there.”

  Her face lit up. “Oh my goodness.”

  “Yeah, pretty slim odds I’d be the one to see you plow that old man. Can I just ask? Were you trying to kill him?”

  “My phone rang.” She blushed. “I was running late and—”

  “Ah, damn. I was gonna give you credit. Cyclists are five hundred points.”

  “What?”

  “It’s basically like hitting a bull’s-eye. Cats are twenty. A hipster is a hundred points.” He gave a playful nod of the head. “When you plow over a cyclist, you win at life. I win, you win, everybody wins.”

  “That’s so wrong.”

  The young man laughed. “Congratulations. Can I shake your hand?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s hilarious. Except for your hood, that sucks.”

  “Teddy can pop it out I bet.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Probably.”

  Now removed from the stress of the situation, she got a good look at him. He was tall and long-armed with messy black hair and stubble all across his face, which was gaunt and defined. Big coffee brown eyes that were flecked with a sparkle of gold in the sunlight. Matured body, but obviously young. Cute, actually. Real cute.

  “Teddy never mentioned your name,” he said, looking back at her the same way she was at him—with piqued curiosity.

  She offered her hand. “Mallory.”

  He shook it. “I’m Patrick.”

  Patrick

  AROUND NINE O’CLOCK, THE HOUSE began to fill up. Patrick sat alone for the moment in his reading chair in the corner of the living room, a whiskey in his hand, his eyes moving calmly from one person to the next.

  Simone and Tiffany had been the ones who wanted to throw the party, but Josh was the one who volunteered their house as the venue.

  It was better than Simone and Tiffany’s two-bedroom apartment. The house was just below campus at the bottom of the hill, had a big open room that was half kitchen, half carpeted living room, plus three bedrooms and a front and back yard. But that wasn’t the point.

  Josh and Simone were cozied up in the far corner of the kitchen, laughing and kissing each other. Patrick shook his head with a sense of despair. Josh was falling head over heels for her, and he was getting deeper by the day. Ever since he had gotten into her sheets it was like he was hypnotized around the clock. A Simone quicksand. And though Patrick also held a certain fondness for her, that didn’t mean he trusted her with Josh’s heart. It had been a mistake to set the two of them up. Patrick’s stomach tightened up just watching them.

  He stood from his chair and announced to the crowd that he was making a run to the liquor store. It was time to get more alcohol for the night to come. Tiffany insisted that Patrick take along her old friend from high school, George, who was in town visiting.

  He was tall and lanky, had a five o’clock shadow and prominent bushy eyebrows. Tiffany had sung his praises for the last week, but there was something off about him, Patrick couldn’t pin down exactly what it was.

  Nonetheless, he waved for George to come with him.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” George said once they were away from the house in Patrick’s party van.

  Patrick didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Well, you can’t believe everything you hear.”

  George was still staring at him intently. “So, is it all true? Are you for real?”

  Patrick laughed. “No, I’m for fake.”

  George laughed way too hard and Patrick rubbed his forehead, pained by the conversation.

  For the five minutes it took to reach the liquor store, George blathered on with barely a pause. On and on about Tiffany and Simone and how many ‘crazy times’ they’d had in high school. Patrick listened. Though George talked a good game, one thing was clear. In all those crazy nights, George had not gotten with either Tiffany or Simone. He was cemented in the dreaded “friend zone” and either was trying to hide it, or was a damn fool and hadn’t gotten the message yet.

  Going into the liquor store, George staggered then tripped and almost completely fell down. Seeing how drunk he was, Patrick now understood his chatty persona. In the store, they split off in different directions. Patrick got a large brick of beers and a box of wine. When they reunited at the register, George had two handles of vodka, two large bottles of Crown, and six different mixers.

  “Prepping for a zombie apocalypse?” Patrick asked.

  George was barely able to get his credit card out of his wallet. Sometime in the last two hours, the guy had gotten skunk drunk on whatever was in the plastic cup he’d been liberally tipping back while waiting for everyone to show up.

  George insisted on paying, repeating, “I got this one. I got this one.”

  As if there’ll be a next one? He let the man pay and kept Tiffany’s three twenties to himself, considering it a tax for hauling their nutty friend around with him. The bill was well over two hundred dollars.

  They loaded all of it into the back of the van and made the drive back to the house.

  George started asking a lot of questions about Simone and Josh’s relationship: what they were, to which Patrick replied, “Just friends”; what they’d ‘done’, to which he replied, “What haven’t they done?”

&nbs
p; He was enjoying messing with George’s head.

  They arrived back at the house and thirty people cheered when they walked in with copious amounts of alcohol in bags hanging on their wrists. George apparently loved the adoration because he set down the booze and raised his arms to the whole party like a gladiator.

  Tiffany came up and planted a sloppy kiss on Patrick as if he’d just come home from winning the war.

  He laughed, but also gave her a long, concerned looking over. She was off to a fast start and he didn’t want her embarrassing herself tonight when the drinks really started to flow. He set the drinks on the counter, got a water for her, and stood by to make sure she drank it. George had claimed a huge portion of the countertop, had already torn the bags off the bottles, and was mixing drinks.

  Patrick went to his room with a few beers and set them on the desk for later. He searched through his phone to start up some music. Flipping through playlists as he walked back, he almost banged heads with a girl who was coming out of the bathroom.

  “Watch it!” she said, smiling.

  It was Lindsey, the freshman girl he’d met on campus two weeks ago. After texting back and forth several times he’d decided to invite her to the party. He’d almost forgotten about her.

  “What are you doing here?” he teased, putting his phone away to give her a hug.

  “Funny, jerk.”

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. I’m glad you made it.”

  She was shorter and had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “I was about to go. I looked all over for you.” She set both hands lightly on his arms.

  Patrick was enticed by two things about the young girl: her vivaciousness, and her figure, especially the top half, which he couldn’t help but notice with the tight fitting t-shirt she had on, red crossed by gray stripes with a deep v-cut to the neck.

  He lifted his arm and set it around her shoulders, pulling her in close. She had eyes similar to his own, he noted, wide set and deep brown, almost black. “I’m glad you didn’t leave.”

  She seemed pleased to have his arm around her. “Will you be on my team for beer pong?”

  “I think Tiffany already has me signed up with her. Have you two met?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t think so.” It wasn’t a secret that he had a girlfriend. She still held a happy smile. “Okay, after that then.” He appreciated her persistence.

  “Deal.”

  They shook hands and neither seemed to want to let go. She let out a lusty laugh.

  “Until then,” Patrick said. “I’ll get you a partner. A good one too. One that’s sober.” With his arm around her still, he brought her back to the kitchen where everyone was huddled around the beer pong table, watching the action.

  Tiffany immediately noticed the two of them and her icy blue eyes narrowed.

  “George.” Patrick went to the kitchen counter and tapped him on the shoulder. “Lindsey needs a skilled beer pong partner. Will you do her the honor?”

  George was intently focused on the mixing. He had six cups lined in a row and was squeezing the perfect amount of lime into each and every one, and then splashing them from two feet up with a wild stream of grenadine. It must’ve been muscle memory because his eyes looked even glassier than they had in the van.

  Once he took his eyes off the drinks to glance at Lindsey, he physically stopped moving and a goofy smile spread over his face. “Sure.”

  His grenadine was spilling over.

  Patrick tilted George’s hand back upright to stop the pour. “So you’re sure?”

  They all laughed at George’s expense. Tiffany walked over, an air of territorial angst about her. Patrick introduced the two of them and Tiffany asked Patrick how they’d met.

  Lindsey answered that they’d met by chance outside her Intro to Psych class.

  “So, you’re what, a freshman?” Tiffany asked, intoning the word as if it were some kind of rare disease.

  Lindsey held steady and nodded with an assured smile.

  Tiffany glared at Patrick; he laughed and turned away to check out the action on the table.

  George handed out drinks, one of which Patrick took, and then started working on a new row of cups, asking Lindsey for help. She obliged but not without a lingering glance at Patrick, which he couldn’t help but return.

  Tiffany settled herself next to him and yanked his face toward her for a kiss. He knew this sort of thing was coming at some point in the night. He was glad it was before she got too tipsy.

  “Josh invited her,” he explained.

  “But you know her?”

  He laughed. “Yes, I know her, and when we met I thought she’d be good for Josh. Now she’s a friend. You don’t need to worry.”

  She crossed her arms, unconvinced, and stared straight ahead at the table.

  “Hey,” he nudged her. “Help me find my phone, will you?” He abruptly took Tiffany’s hand and led her back toward his room, practically dragging her along, phone knowingly tucked away in his back pocket.

  In the bedroom, she looked for the phone but was obviously upset. He took her by the wrist, spun her around romantically, and kissed her hard. With their lips pressed, he kicked the door shut, and she squealed as he lifted her off the ground and tossed her onto the bed. The skirt she was wearing flew up. It always stirred something carnal in him. He went to run his hands up the side of her thighs but she smacked them away.

  “No,” she shook a finger at him. “Tell me you love me.”

  “You love me,” he said, and before she could say another word he ran his hands up her dress and kissed her again.

  She squirmed playfully and fought him, but he got her panties off with little trouble. She craned her head back as his lips ran down her smooth neck, and his hand lightly tugged on her blonde hair. He took a moment to tuck the panties away in a fold in the sheets where she wouldn’t be able to find them later, then took several minutes getting her as worked up as possible, before suddenly standing up. She looked up at him, one breast exposed, her legs spread wide.

  “Why are you stopping?”

  “We’re the hosts.” Patrick extended his hand to her and she rose up to take it with a groan. He pulled her off the bed and beckoned her back to the party, dragging her by the wrist again while she fixed her dress.

  “Wait, wait.” She fought to go back for her panties but there were people milling about the hallway right outside the room.

  Patrick strolled down the hall behind Tiffany, watching her straighten out her dress and uneasily walk back into the kitchen. He grinned at the mental image of her bare beneath the dress while she talked with everyone.

  Lindsey and George had weaseled their way into a game on the beer pong table, and were losing badly so far to Josh and Simone, who were quite the team.

  As Patrick stood watching he gave Lindsey a glance, but she was pretending to ignore him. A few times he telegraphed that he might walk away from the table, and that was when he caught her sneaking glimpses of him.

  With Tiffany now being affectionate again and the fridge stocked, Patrick felt at ease to start drinking harder. He finished the drink he’d been working on and took one of the stronger ones George had made with the Crown Royal.

  Josh and Simone proceeded to win several games over George and Lindsey and at just past midnight decided they needed a break. The four of them ended up seated on the couches in the living room, and Patrick joined them. He sat down with Josh and Simone, to whom he’d barely spoken a word all night. Tiffany was busy with one of her girlfriends on the pong table.

  Lindsey was stuck on the adjacent couch with George’s heavy arm draped around her. He wasn’t making a move. Instead he was in a stupor and the poor girl was the only thing keeping him propped upright.

  Patrick sat on one of side of Simone while Josh was on the other. He sunk back into the cushion, feeling the warm alcohol haze set in. Simone’s thigh brushed his periodically. He would’ve liked to say that it caught him off guard, but it didn’t. He knew
what she was doing. She knew what she was doing.

  Everyone was talking and laughing, even Lindsey, who was being a good sport.

  In the midst of it, Patrick happened to lock eyes with Simone. They held a stare for a fraction of second too long. The hot coals of tension were still there.

  It felt wrong but he tested her twice, once pulling his thigh away slightly, at which she quickly moved hers so they were touching again, and then he got up and walked around the house a bit, covertly monitoring how she responded. Simone watched him, almost to the point of obviousness, which was unlike her, but he figured she was as drunk as everyone else.

  When he sat down again, she brushed her dark hair aside and flicked her eyes to him, and a moment later she leaned forward for her drink and glanced up at him while she sipped it.

  There was something highly erotic about it. Patrick felt his heartbeat quicken. The alcohol seemed to be the engine that kept the game going. Even when Simone was holding Josh’s hand, her eyes were on Patrick or her leg was pressed against his. He would’ve stopped it out of guilt if it hadn’t felt so good. He decided that he missed her.

  Patrick also made sure to talk with Lindsey, but her attitude had suddenly shifted. She fidgeted more and more beneath George’s dead weight and at last extricated herself from under him and meekly said she was leaving.

  Patrick offered to walk her out and she gave a cold nod.

  Everyone was either so wrapped up in conversation or just plain drunk that nobody noticed them disappearing through the front door. No one but Simone. Just before Patrick shut the front door behind him, he turned back and saw her eyes through the sliver of space between door and frame.

  There was a bright white moon in the sky. Once they stepped onto the driveway Lindsey broke into a speed-walk for her car. Patrick bent forward for her hand and pulled the small, attractive brunette back toward him. “Why are you going?”

  “You invited me and then you ignored me the whole night. That’s why.”

  “I didn’t ignore you, I just saw you and George were hitting it off and I didn’t want to ruin a good thing.”

  She growled and combed tense fingernails through her hair, which Patrick noticed were painted a quaint, soft pink. “I don’t get you,” she said.