𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔 • Robin Buckley

Chapter 4

And she let herself be led through the crowd by her as she beelined her way through like she owned the place. People parted like the red sea at her command alone. But Milton Reimer didn't care for the blonde beauty, his eyes set on his friend's gelled hair moving amidst swaying hands and jumping heads in the distance. "Robin, where—"

"Not now," she hisses, turning sharply to face him. He looked exactly as she last left him. "Mingle. Drink armpit punch!"

Milton watched her disappear amidst the crowd with Monica Haring as they left the through-lounge to head up a set of stairs, laughing and talking amongst themselves all the while. But what he didn't see was the sight of them walking into Tina's bedroom and Robin closing the door.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" she asks unsurely. It was dim with nothing but a streak of moonlight gleaming through the window, but still dim enough that she saw the space for what it was. She could barely make out the beige and pink linear patterning of the walls, the vanity across the room and the elegant canopy bed with curtained drapes tied to their poles.

"Tina won't care," Monica threw herself down on the mattress and rested herself back onto her hands. "Although, she'll probably come up at some point with Jason Sanders, so we'll either have to hide under the bed," she points across the room as Robin stiffly sits down beside her, "in that closet or admit defeat and walk out."

"Dibs on the closet."

"You say that now but you'll get crazy claustrophobic in there, and I don't know how I feel about listening to them go at it for one whole minute."

"You can't give the guy a little more credit?" Robin's eyebrows push together. "I say two minutes at the very least."

"He can barely last on a basketball court for two seconds, I doubt he's any better in bed."

Robin rolls her eyes with a breath of a laugh, her eyes landing on the wall across the room. "Of course she has a Tom Cruise poster." His eyes were piercingly blue, even in the dark, and he had a sneering smirk of a smile with his top line of teeth on show. His hair was shiny, gelled and slick back in a much more merciful way that Robin's hair had been.

Monica's eyes followed Robin's across the room just a metre away from the door. "I know. I bullied her into the next century when she got it last month."

"Last month?" Robin almost exclaims, her focus flying to Monica.

"Uh-huh. The girl watches Risky Business once and doesn't know what to do with herself."

"I personally don't get it," Robin's eyes squint on Tom Cruise's eyes that were almost grey in the lightless room. "Rebecca De Mornay did way more for the movie with her hair than he did with his stupid glasses and annoying grin."

"His lack of pants and sliding across the floor to Bob Seger really didn't do it for you?"

"It was the nail in the coffin."

Monica's head tilted back with a laugh. "You're tough, Rob."

"Pragmatic," Robin corrects, trying not to flutter too hard at the thought of being nicknamed by her.

"Right, right," Monica sits up from the pressure on her hands. "How could I forget?"

Robin watched Monica turn her head to face the window, the faint chatter outside rumbling behind the glass. She looked entirely heavenly, just her side profile sparkling in the light of the moon. It felt impossible that she was right there next to her, existing in the same space as her—willingly. It felt impossible that she got to sit there and watch the moon kiss her skin and envy it selfishly.