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A shaky laugh rolls out of me. “That’s, uh, flattering? I guess. But sorry guys, I’m not changing my mind.”
Ken 2 reaches for his zipper. “But you haven’t even seen our—”
“Scram, weirdos.” Nicole shoves between them, and I’ve never been as happy to see her in all my life.
“Nicole.” I breathe a heavy sigh of relief.
Ignoring the Ken twins, still loitering on the cobblestone path behind us, Nicole grabs me by the sleeve and pulls me toward the sorority house. “I waited for you at the dining hall, but you never showed up. I had to hear from freaking Keller that you’d already left—with Caleb no less! What the hell’s up with that?”
“Wait. What?” I turn around, half expecting Jordan to be stalking toward me, and I’m kind of disappointed when he’s not. Sparring with him has become one of my favorite pastimes.
“Stop changing the subject. We’re going to the Beanery to weed through who’s left so we can pare down the list to twelve.”
“Twelve!” I shriek. “Why so many?”
“I have a plan.” Nicole shoots me one of her signature grins, and the hair on the back of my neck prickle to attention as if someone just walked over my grave.
Instead of our regular table in the middle of the Beanery, Nicole drags me to the back corner, away from prying eyes and ears. She pulls out her iPad and fiddles with the apps until a page filled with rows upon rows of photographs pops up.
“Wait. Is that . . . ?”
She flashes a grin. “The entire cast of Kennedy Beaman’s Get Laid List.”
“Oh my God.” I slide the device in front of me and scan the dozens of images. “This looks like a catalog.”
“Basically. Now, we go through the pictures, select the ones you want to see in round two, and delete the rest.”
I’ll admit, the girl’s a genius. “Where do we begin?”
“At the beginning, of course.”
Almost an hour—and one too many iced caramel lattes—later, we’re both wired and spent. After running through the massive list twice, we finally narrow the field to twelve.
“That leaves Caleb, Elijah, Tyler, and Trey, plus Grant Michaels, Adam Cooper, David Allen, Mark Flynn, Tom Barton, Seth Harmon, Aaron Benjamin . . .” Nicole sags against the back of her chair and slides her eyes in my direction. “And Lucas.”
“What? My Lucas? I mean, not mine . . .” I groan. “My ex? That Lucas?”
She nods.
“No. Absolutely not.” I shake my head, replaying every rotten thing he’s ever said or done to me since the day we met.
Nicole sighs as if we’ve gone over this a thousand times already. Which we most definitely have not. I told her at the outset I didn’t want Lucas involved, and yet somehow, he keeps worming his way back onto the list. “We’ve deleted everyone else, and my plan only works if we have twelve.”
“I gave you Aaron, but I draw the line at Lucas.” I slide back in my chair and cross my arms. “Pick someone else.”
“Anyone?” The full force of Nicole’s bitch brow skewers me.
I close my big mouth to think for a second. Anyone might be a little too broad, but I’m serious about deleting Lucas from that list. My mind’s made up. “Anyone.”
“Jordan?”
“Bates?” My stomach turns at the idea of Jordan Bates, but not as bad as it does with thoughts of Lucas. “Fine. Put him on the list.”
“No.” Nicole smirks. “Not Bates.”
The oxygen flees my lungs in a loud rush, forcing me to whisper my response. “Keller? You want to add Jordan Keller to the list?” The opening chords to “Submission” echo through my subconscious, and my heart skips at the thought of his shiny piercings pressing against my lips.
“Yup. Kid Vicious himself.”