Campus Crush, 7
Crushing rejection turns two would-be sorority sisters into unwilling partners when they decide to set up house—sorority house, that is—with a weekend of role play that turns sexier by the minute…
Holly Simpson came to college for one thing and one thing only: to broaden her horizons. Step one: join a sorority. In particular, Lambda Zeta Nu, the hottest sorority on the Cedarwood College campus. But when a crushing rejection knocks her for a loop, Holly finds a most unlikely confidante in another would-be sorority sister whose dreams have also just been crushed by the same sorority.
Samantha “Sam” Carpenter is everything Holly isn’t: buxom, blonde and as country as a rabid racoon chewing on a piece of discarded beef jerky outside of some roadside honkytonk! But she’s eager to find love on a strange new campus and figured joining Lambda Zeta Nu would be just the ticket. Wrong! When Sam gets one of the gold-embossed rejection letters the Zeta Nu sisters just love handing out during Pledge Week, she meets sweet, shy, bookish Holly holding one as well.
Bonding over high calorie treats at the fancy Shake and Cake Bakery in the student quad, the two form an immediate bond, and even more important pact: for the rest of that weekend, they’ll role play “sorority sisters” at the rundown rental house just one street over from Greek Row Sam is supposed to be rehabbing so her grandfather can rent it out the following semester. But when role playing turns into the real thing, can Holly and Sam resist going from fake sorority sisters to real life lovers?
Be Warned: f/f sex
Excerpt:
I frown. “And Zeta Nu? Where do they fit in your plan?”
“Nowhere,” she fusses, glancing down at the envelope beside her tray. “Another suggestion from my counselor. She said the more connections I had coming out of Cedarwood College, the more success I’d have once I graduated. A sorority seemed like the best bang for my buck, I suppose.”
“And now?” I muse, delaying the sting of my own painful rejection by focusing on lessening hers.
Country Gal winks and juts her hand out. “I’ll make my own damn connections, thanks very much.”
She stares at me until I realize what she’s offering. I take her hand and ask, “I’m a connection?”
“Duh.” She sighs, squeezing it back. Her hand is warm and firm, like maybe she has worked on a farm all her life, after all. “I’m Samantha,” she says, blowing my mind.
She looks more like a Dakota or a Shiloh, perhaps even a Cheyenne. But Samantha? Nope, I’m not feeling it. Not with the flawless tan and taut, firm grip and the whole farmer’s daughter vibe she’s bringing.
Then she smiles with warm, full lips to match her larger than life, uh… personality. “Friends call me Sam.”
My hand slides free of its own accord as I feel the heat of her, the power of her, the electricity of her, linger there atop my skin. That makes perfect sense. “Can I?” I blurt, so wounded and hurt from the Zeta Nu snub I don’t care if I sound utterly, totally pathetic.
Desperate, even.
She purses her thick lips and drawls out the sweetest thing anybody’s said to me in a good, long while. “Dang, girl, who hurt you? Of course you can call me ‘Sam.’ Damn, why do you think I mentioned it in the first durn place?”
The warmth oozes off of her like the sun on a flawless spring day. I blush and say, “Okay then, Sam. My name is Holly.”
She nods, reaching for her shake with a knowing, cheek-splitting grin. “Of course it is, Sugar.”
I snort, pretending to be offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just, you look like a Holly, that’s all.”
“A good Holly, or a bad Holly?”
She gives me a good once over, top to bottom and back again, her eyes lingering on places no one has in years. Then her eyes soften, like a wave crashing on the beach. I find myself on the edge of my chair, wondering what a girl like Sam could possibly see in a girl like me to make her smile that way. And then, before she can answer, my phone blurts out its 4:00 PM alarm.
“Shit!” I curse, rushing to turn it off and nearly knocking my shake into her lap. “That’s my four o’ clock Media Lab.”
Sam sinks back into her booth seat and stomps a clean white sneaker on the floor beneath our table, kiddy tantrum style. “Can’t you put it off?” she whines, waving a hand at my barely touched combo. “You haven’t even carb-loaded yet!”
“I would,” I insist, standing oh-so-reluctantly and gathering up my things. She watches, reaching over to help as we both scoop up our rejection letters from Zeta Nu as if to put them in our respective Sad Girl Scrapbooks for safekeeping. “But I blew it off last week and I’m already on thin ice with this professor as it is.”
“Really?” she asks, watching me hoist my tray up off the table. “You strike me as the Goody Two-Shoes type.”
I snort at her snapshot assessment, fairly accurate as it may be. “Yeah, well, it was the day after the Zeta Nu Merry Mixer and I may or may not have slept through my alarm, so…” I make an apologetic face and inch a step away.
She sets her chin and nods. “I get it,” she says in that way people do when they’re vaguely miffed but not pissed enough to say it. “I should be going too, but… it’s a nice vibe in here, right?”
I pause and smile down at her. “It really is.” Then I glance around the place, as if memorizing this special moment. “Maybe we can… come back some day?”
She nods, the hint of a smile curling her lips up into her perfectly dimpled cheeks. “I’d like that,” she says, just as my alarm bleats again.
This time even the skinny couple in the corner seem annoyed.
“Go, go…” she huffs, burying her face in her cake plate and not even bothering to look up as I back out, sliding the to-go shake cup off my plate before putting the rest in the bus pan on the counter by the door.
I stand in the doorway, slurping quietly while glancing back at our table. Well, her table now, I suppose. Sam, the girl with the boy’s name and the cute little ponytail sticking out of her ballcap. She has her envelope out, the gold foil glinting in the winking string of fairy lights strung above her head.
I sigh and drift out the door, wondering if I’ll ever see her again…
- Series:
- /series-campus-crush/
