True (True Believers #1)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Chapter One

Getting drunk was not in my plans for Friday night.

Neither was admitting to my roommates, Jessica and Kylie, that I was a virgin.

But they left me alone with Grant.

I knew what Jessica and Tyler, Kylie and Nathan were going to do in the guys’ respective bedrooms. Well, it’s not like I actually knew from personal experience what they were doing—but I hoped their sex fest wouldn’t take that long. I had studying to do for an inorganic chemistry exam on Monday. Plus, I had to read six chapters of Hemingway about boozy, washed-up writers and their cheating wives, which was always a challenge for me, since I preferred the facts of math and science. Puzzling out literature and the social dynamics of characters struck me as a waste of time, especially given their activities.

Alcohol and sex. Ironic, really.

But Jessica was my ride. It was too far to walk back to the dorms, and it was the kind of off-campus neighborhood that had my dad raising his eyebrows and suggesting I go to college in some cow town like Bowling Green, where there were no dirty couches on sagging front porches and no residents’ smoking crack in full view of the street.

So walking back was not happening, because I didn’t smoke crack and I was no risk-taker. At all. Yet sitting there alone with Grant while my roommates were off having a good time almost seemed riskier than strolling through the ghetto. Because it was sort of like perching over a public toilet seat without actually touching anything. It was difficult. Awkward.

Plus, it was very, very quiet. He didn’t speak. And I didn’t either, so there was a lot of sitting and a lot of awkwardness and a lot of trying to be entirely motionless so I wouldn’t be moving more than him. Since he was barely breathing, this was a hard thing to do.

I actually felt sorry for Grant, which was just crazy because I wasn’t exactly the Girl Everyone Wants to Be. But Grant was cute, with long hair that dropped into his eyes, high cheekbones, and thick, girlish eyelashes. He was too thin, his black T-shirts, always tight and wrinkled, with various rude expressions like Bite Me and What the F Are You Looking At? His dirty jeans hung off nonexistent hips that rivaled Mary Kate Olsen’s, and not because he was looking to be fashionable. I don’t think he ate enough, honestly. Nathan had told me Grant’s father was a drunk, and his mother was a freak who stabbed her coworker at Taco Bell with a pen and was in some psych ward downtown. No one was shopping for vegetables at Kroger in Grant’s house.

So I had kind of an awkward girl crush on Grant because it smelled of Possibility. Like it was not totally out of the realm of possibility that he could actually want to be with me, in some sort of male-female capacity.

“Smoke?” Grant asked, holding his pack of Marlboro Reds out to me, gaze shooting around to avoid the connection with mine, as we sat in the main room of Nathan’s apartment.

“No, thanks.” It was the eyes that made me understand that here was someone I didn’t have to be afraid of, didn’t have to feel threatened or intimidated by. Because even though his eyes never met mine, Grant had haunted eyes. Aching, vulnerable, gray eyes.

I wanted him to kiss me. Even as I took a huge swig out of the beer he had given me five minutes before, I was thinking that if only he would recognize what I saw, everything would be awesome. We were absolutely perfect for each other. Two totally sensitive, pale, quiet people. I’d never shove him around the way Tyler did, under the guise of bro wrestling. I’d never embarrass him or set his clothes on fire for fun like his alleged best friend, Nathan, did.

His hand shook a little as he flicked his Bic on to light the cigarette he’d stuffed in his mouth. There was an oak end table between us, each perched in a plaid easy chair, a movie playing on the TV screen in front of us. Some sort of bad Tom Cruise drama. I’ve never liked Tom Cruise. He always reminded me of someone’s creepy cousin, who smiles too big before he touches your butt and whispers something gross in your ear with hot whiskey breath.

Grant was studying the TV, though, very seriously, his smoke floating out into nice, sexy ovals. He could make smoke rings.

I thought my only talent was converting oxygen to carbon dioxide, though to give myself credit, I did really well in school—I always have. I was in the Honors Scholar program, and I was on track for magna cum laude, which made my rooming with Jessica and Kylie even more ironic than reading Hemingway. They were social superstars, while if there were a subject called Casual Conversation and Flirting 101, I would have been flunking it.

I’d never had a boyfriend. No sweaty, handholding, note-passing middle school boyfriend. No guy in high school who had me wear his football jersey to pep rallies. No TA in college who suddenly recognized the value of a quality brain and spent coffee-shop nights studying with me. None of the above.

I wasn’t exactly sure why, because I didn’t consider myself ugly with a capital U. Maybe slightly plain, definitely quiet, but not repulsive in any way. No body odor, bad breath, or strange growths in obvious places, no bald spots or facial tics. I did have a few guys who wanted to make out and attempt to shove their hands down my pants, but no one wanted to date me.

Which is why I knew I should make a move on Grant somehow. Because here was my chance to score a boyfriend. To have make-out sessions and share popcorn at the movies, to text each other on a minute-by-minute basis using sickly sweet nicknames. Just to see what it was like, a relationship, to try it on for size like a great pair of sexy heels.

Maybe it would even result in having my name tattooed on Grant’s bicep. It was a short name, Rory, so it would fit on his skinny arm. Something permanent that said that someone else in this world thought enough of me to ink me into infinity.

In reality, Grant and I had remained completely silent for fifteen, twenty minutes. He’d even stopped asking me if I wanted another beer. He had the uncanny ability to sense when I’d drained one without even looking over at me, and he immediately offered another by just holding out the can. I didn’t really want this many, but I couldn’t bring myself to say no. His silent offer was the only thing connecting us at all, besides the fact that we were both human and happened to be sitting in the same room.

I was starting to feel a serious buzz from the three back-to-back beers I’d had, and I was wondering how much longer until my supposedly large brain managed to put forth a flirtatious comment for me to sling at Grant, with an artful hair flip. A lot of girls I knew talked more as they drank, but so far, my tongue still seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth, and my ears were ringing.