Let Me Live

Chapter Two

"They're on me," says one of the guys that couldn't keep his eyes off Hallie when she first walked in. "For my favorite girls."

And this is why we call it Freebies.

Looking over my shoulder and up, I grin, sipping my cocktail. "Thank you, Calum," I sing, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

He grins, towering over us and ordering a beer for himself. His eyes trail Hallie, running his hand over his bleached, short dreads, giving her a blinding smile. "H, wanna dance?" he offers with a hooded look.

Nova tries to hide her smirk by running her tongue over her teeth, her dark purple lips shadowing the movement. I blatantly watch Hallie pick up the shot and down it faster in less than a blink of an eye. "C," she starts with a teasing smile, her southern drawl more prominent, "it's Buddy Night, you know the rules for Buddy Night."

His head mockingly hangs low. "No touching." He holds his hands up in the air from where one of them had casually migrated to her lower back.

Hallie nods her head with a smile. "No touching, exactly." She leans on the toes of her cowgirl boots and kisses the corner of his mouth completely contradicting her own rule. "Now, go have fun with your friends." Calum scrunches his nose in a teasing way, winks at Nova and me before leaving.

Nova, never one for sugar-coating things pounces. "Either fuck him or drop him, this has been going on for too long." I twist my lips to the side, nodding along to what Nova says. Calum has been pining after Hallie for almost an entire year. They met at a mutual friend's house and he hasn't stopped staring at her since.

Plus he's a great person, which is hard to find in the wild environment of college, Exhibit A: he paid for not only Hallie's tequila but mine and Nova's as well. He never lets us leave the bar alone, and we run in the same social circle outside of classes too so we were very familiar with each other.

Hallie glares over her shoulder. "When he is ready to commit, maybe then I'll give him a shot but for now, I'm happy being alone. Besides, my love is reserved for Reginald, and Reginald only." She gives us a flirty smile before disappearing into the crowd, fighting her way to the other end of the bar where the iPad is.

I snort. "Alone, she doesn't know the meaning of the word," I call out, earning a sharp look from Hallie and a laugh from Nova.

Nova and I look at each other silently and clink our shot glasses together before downing them. Nova's face scrunches at the taste but I sigh in relief, savoring the subtle burn that settles in my stomach. Man, I've missed college.

"So what was Hallie talking about in the car, that whole thing with your new bestie?" Nova asks, raising an eyebrow. "I heard he was cute too." She wriggles her eyebrows teasingly.

I roll my eyes, leaning my back on the bar. "Jealousy doesn't become you, Nove." She grins. "He was just helping me out, nothing special."

Nova gives me an unimpressed stare. "First of all, I'm not jealous, Lord knows you can't get rid of me, no one else is willing to hide a body with you," my wide eyes snap to her and that big mouth of hers sharing all my secrets, "and second of all, let's focus on the more important things in life—he was cute."

I release a harsh breath. "Um, no thank you." Without waiting for another comment about my sad dating life, I push through the crowd but pause, glaring over my shoulder. "And it was one body, it wasn't even that big of a deal."

With her hand clutching my elbow, we make our way to the less crowded part of the bar where the booths sit. Nova snorts, "Tell that to my mother's car and my Air Force Ones."