Attraction

CHAPTER 6 Chemical Kinetics

I stared at her. She stared back, expectant.

"I promised him," I said.

Her eyebrows bounced up then down. "You promised him? That's it, that's why we're here? You promised?"

I nodded. "Yes. I promised him. I promised him last night and I promised him this morning and then you walked in and you freaked out and then he freaked out and then I thought about hiding in the closet, but I don't own any spiky heels, so I just agreed. Okay? I just agreed so the freak outs and the name calling would cease and desist."

Sam's eyes were half-lidded and her continued surly expression told me she was not impressed with my answer.

But it was the truth...kind of.

When Sam walked in, she'd pitched a fit and started yelling at Martin. Really, she overreacted because she loves me. She was pretty nasty to Martin, called him some unpleasant names I won't repeat, but I will say they are synonyms for whore son.

Then Martin, who has no problem yelling at females, males, turtles, grass, and furniture,yelled back. Really, he was defending himself from her overprotectiveness and nasty name-calling. To his credit, he didn't call her any names. Mostly he just told her to back off and to"mind her own goddamn business."

I stepped in and tried to calm them both down. In doing so, I reassured Martin that I would be going with him-because I did promise him more than once-but only if Sam could go too. Eventually he overcame the shock of my request and agreed. Once he confirmed our destination would have a tennis court, Sam agreed.

Then he did something weird.

He gathered me up in his arms like I belonged there, gave me a swift, closed-mouth kiss, and said he'd wait for me in the hall. Then he left the room and stepped out of the suite area and promptly waited...in the hall...for me...for a full hour.

I felt like Scarlett O'Hara after she was kissed by Rhett Butler, confused and anxious and swoony and wanting it to happen again.

Sam and I had a brief argument after that, and by some miracle she agreed to come with me. Honestly, I don't think she felt like she had a choice since I stubbornly insisted I was going, and she lacked the time necessary to argue me out of it.

However, all the arguing and promising and name-calling aside, a large part of me was strangely excited about the trip. I was nineteen years old and the dodgiest thing I'd ever done was drink peach schnapps and drunk dial my ex last summer. I'd never thrown caution to the wind before. I'd never done anything this nutty and spontaneous. It was equal parts thrilling, terrifying, and confusing.

So...here we were. On the plane, with Martin, his handsome friend Eric from the fraternity party, and seven other dudes, most of whom looked like they'd stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch photo-shoot; except they had clothes on, unfortunately. Sam and I were the only females if you didn't count the two flight attendants.

We'd been briefly introduced to the boys upon entering the plane. Martin had referred to a few of them by a number first, then by first name.

Interestingly, they didn't seem to be surprised by our presence. I was also pretty sure they were checking me out, but not in the, I might hit that checking me out. More like a, Are you a Yoko Ono? checking me out.

As I shook everyone's hand I was surprised to see that one of the seven guys was Ben, the cuss monster from my time spent in the science cabinet. I couldn't fathom why Martin would have him come along, especially given the fact he'd tried to drug then extort Martin the night before.

Maybe they'd man-hugged it out.

Boys were just weird.

I made a mental note to tell Martin the entire conversation between Ben and the unknown female, because Ben had basically admitted to drugging girls. And there was really only one reason he could be drugging girls. He wasBen the rapist as far as I was concerned and I wanted nothing to do with him.