'Ross Tower, suite A.' I triple-checked John's message to make sure that I had the right suite number. Three minutes had passed since I had arrived and stopped in the hallway. It was eerily quiet for a Saturday night at a student dorm. Was the party still on? Or maybe I was early? But he had said 9 pm, and the hands on my watch showed 9:17 pm.

Taking a deep breath, I lifted my hand and rapped on the door. Footsteps moved inside and a second later, the door swung open and a lazy mob of dark curls attached to a tan face with radiant green eyes and a soft jaw appeared in the doorway.

"Well, hello there." The guy grinned, his forearm leaning against the doorframe, and gave me a quick once-over. My feet shuffled in their place and I brushed a lock of blond hair behind my ear. Was his gaze good-natured? He was hot, but I wasn't interested.

Suddenly I feared my black skater skirt that I still wore from earlier was too short and my burgundy crop top showed both too much stomach and cleavage—and immediately scolded myself for the thought. I had the right to wear what I wanted, short clothes didn't mean I was inviting visual catcalling.

"Hi, I'm—" The voice of a mouse would have sounded more resolute than my own at this moment. I cleared my throat and projected confidence I did not have. "Hi, I'm Grace. John invited me."

"I'm sure he did." His grin didn't falter.

"Devin, what the fuck. Leave her alone." John's voice tolled from inside the apartment, getting closer until he was standing behind his friend.

In a quick motion, he swept Devin's arm off the doorframe and pushed past him to usher me inside. His palm lightly touched the small of my back. Zap. Holy shit, why am I being electrocuted? Was something wrong with me? I had hoped my nerves around him would settle in the presence of other people. What did it mean that they didn't?

Before I could overthink it, John spoke again. "Sorry, Grace. This is Devin, my blockheaded roommate—"

"—and best friend," the blockhead added.

Closing the door behind us all, John drew his eyebrows to his hairline and conveyed a silent message to the other man before relaxing a bit more. "And Devin, this is Grace, new friend from class and study buddy." Drawing his eyes to mine, he added: "Don't worry, he doesn't bite."

"Unless you want me to," Devin said and winked at me.

John raised his index finger. "Shut up, Dev. I'm serious. She doesn't know you."

Only when the blockhead raised his hands in surrender and mumbled a "yes, sir" did the tension in John's shoulders dissipate. Slowly working up a smile again, he turned toward me. "Come on in. A few people are already here."

Finally I lifted my eyes to look around. Directly in front of the door was a kitchenette with several 12-packs of Budweiser occupying the stove. I hid a smirk. Those two men didn't look like they cooked. In fact, they had probably had everything handed to them all their lives. Though who knew, maybe John would surprise me in that domain, too, like he already had several times.

Following him around the corner with Devin trailing behind us, we entered an open area with a heavy brown leather couch, matching loveseat and chair, a coffee table, and a large flatscreen TV. The standard college desk chairs were set up in addition, though more in anticipation of the guests yet to arrive. A couple occupied the loveseat, their hands intertwined. In the chair sat a tall, dark-haired athlete. As the three of us sank down onto the couch, John introduced me to the couple, Linh and Greg, and the other teammate, Aidan.

"Welcome to the uncontrollable madness that is a soccer party before 10 pm," greeted Aidan with a grin.

"Yeah, what a wild crowd. I triple-checked whether I had the right suite number, it was so quiet in here."

Linh's laugh was crystalline and sweet, yet loud and unapologetic. Her shoulder-length ink black hair bobbed with the movement of her shoulders. "I did the same at my first soccer party."

When Greg nudged her in the ribs with his elbow, his smile spread across his entire face. "But now you like coming early before it's too loud and crowded."

"Yep. This has become our exclusive little group of pregamers."

To which John specifically invited me.

"Except you don't drink," Devin remarked, pointing his beer can at her.

Suddenly John shot up from the couch. "Shit, sorry, Grace. I totally forgot. Do you want a drink?"

"Um, I'll just have water for now, thanks."

As he walked past me to make his way to the kitchen, his bare calf brushed my bare knee. Zap. There it was again, this darned electric shock. I'm sure it's just nerves about meeting new people.

Another guy emerged from one of the rooms, backpack slung over one shoulder, his short, black hair neatly picked out.

"Hey, y'all. I'm headed out, but have a great night!"

"This is our third suitemate, Zach," Devin introduced him. "He technically lives here but we sometimes forget because he spends so much time at his girlfriend's place. Zach, meet our new friend Grace. She has class with John, that poor soul."

Zach rolled his eyes before extending a hand to me to shake mine. "Ignore him. He's not socialized yet. Nice to meet you, Grace."

"You, too."

He left right as John returned with a red plastic cup of water. Linh had just begun telling me about the farm on which she had grown up in Vietnam. Mouthing a 'thank you', I accepted the cup from John as he sat next to me again. His hazel eyes were warm when he nodded and I forced myself to draw my eyes back to Linh.

"So your family still lives there?"

"Yeah. I send them some of the money I make from my student job at the library. We're not rich in money, but my mom likes to say we're rich in other ways." Her soft smile lit up the room, and I understood why Greg looked at her like the stars in the sky. She had a certain charm I was sure only her friends got to see. Jessica popped into my head. Though very different people, they both emanated the same fuzzy, warm blanket of kindness you wanted to wrap yourself up in on a bad day to forget about the troubles of the world.

I jumped from John's voice near my ear, no more than a whisper. "What are you smiling at?"

My cheeks burned. "Just... Linh reminds me of my best friend."

"They sound awesome already." When his dimples made another appearance, I couldn't help but grin.

A welcome interruption took John's focus off me when Greg called his name, watching his friend intently. "Is your girlfriend coming later?"

Scratch 'welcome'.

Controlling my face was a task more difficult than talking a dog out of eating a bone. If he had a girlfriend, he just shouldn't have been flirting with other women, in my opinion. Not that I cared—though the sudden drop of my stomach seemed to tell me otherwise.

"I think so," John replied, rubbing a hand along the side of his neck.

I was set on continuing to converse as I had before the girlfriend bomb, minus the flirting with John. Thankfully, more people began to file in very soon, ringing in the end of the pregame.

As we all got up to move the furniture to the walls and free up more space, Greg pulled me aside, running a hand through his short, dark blonde hair. "Hey, I'm sorry about my bluntness earlier. It just... didn't seem like you knew." My forehead wrinkled, prompting him to add: "Which isn't your fault, but John... anyway. We're happy to have you."

I nodded, but was distracted when John greeted a female guest with a kiss. A long, deep kiss on the lips.

His girlfriend was pretty in a conventional way: average height, skinny, with medium-length wavy chestnut hair, brown eyes, clear skin, a slightly upturned button nose, and thin lips. She got on her tiptoes for the kiss and placed her hands on his shoulders.

Suddenly, the framed photograph of Ross Hall on the wall was the most fascinating thing in the apartment. It was a nice picture, though nothing to write home about. But anything was better than watching half-strangers kiss.

"Grace," John's voice rudely pulled me out of my attempt at invisibility, forcing me to turn around.

We were introduced.

"Are you a soccer fan?" she asked politely. Her voice had a naturally high pitch, one that irked me right away.

"Huge fan. Practically a windmill."

Confusion was plastered all over her face even as John chuckled. "What?"

"Never mind." And that was how our relationship went from nonexistent to worse.

The rest of the night, she chose to ignore me, so I got myself a beer, chatted with Linh, Greg, and Aidan, and danced with Devin who turned out to be a decent guy, albeit a notorious flirt. He had had a couple more beers than I had, so I didn't think anything of it when he placed his hands on my hips, watching me carefully to make sure I was okay with it. By then, the second can of beer had gone to my head, resulting in me laughing and placing my hands on his elbows to pull his hands back up to my waist.

"Oh-kay, you two, that's enough for tonight," rang John's voice from behind me, friendly yet firm, as he peeled our hands off each other. Devin protested half-heartedly, but one glance from his roommate shut him up.

"Excuse me? I think I can decide who I want to dance with." My eyebrows met my forehead.

"And I think you're drunk and need to get back to your room safely and alone. Because what's not gonna happen tonight is my friends hooking up." John's hand snaked around my upper arm as he led me toward the suite door. A sudden, leaden fatigue engulfed me that I knew from only one context. He was right, I was drunk.

"Are you going back to Starr? I'll walk you."

"No, to my best friend's in Allen. It's closer." A yawn couldn't be suppressed.

The doorknob was already halfway turned when Aidan swooped in. "Hey, man, I'm heading out anyway. Let me walk Grace back."

The look on John's face said he wasn't happy with that solution, but after a brief staredown between the men, he gave in, wished me a good night, and moved me into the stabilizing hands of his teammate.

We were almost out the door when John remembered something. "Oh, one more thing. Can I see your phone?"

I cocked my head, but unlocked it with my fingerprint and placed it in his hand. Fingers flying across the keyboard, he saved his number and texted himself a brief 'hi' before giving it back. "Sleep well."

It was around midnight when I arrived at Jessica's dingle—a single room with two beds—so I punched in the keycode to let myself into her room. Even though I tried to be as quiet as humanly possible, Jessica, being the mom she was, woke up and sleepily whispered that I could turn on the lamp on the other bed's nightstand.

"Sorry," I whispered back, flipping the switch.

"No pasa nada," she half-groaned. "¿Cómo fue la fiesta?"

"Eh, fine. Pretty fun in the beginning, but then I had too much to drink." I changed into the plaid PJ pants and oversized high school crew t-shirt I kept at Jessica's for impromptu sleepovers like this one, focusing to not topple over in the process.

"I'm surprised you even went. They're not your usual crowd."

"I don't have a usual crowd," I objected, thinking of my tiny circle of people I called 'friends'. Though I wasn't sure two people could geometrically make up a circle.

"Exactly. But if you did, these people wouldn't have been in it so far," Jessica pointed out.

Argh, I hated when she was right. And she was right most of the time.

"I know." I dug up my second toothbrush from the nightstand drawer.

"It's your business, and it's okay if you like them. I'm surprised, that's all."

"I know."

I did know, and the truth was, I was surprised, too. Not that I attended parties I despised, but that I didn't despise this one. Sure, I hadn't been introduced to all of the guys or their girlfriends, let alone had quality conversations with them, but it was a literally clean party. No cigarette smoke, no sticky floors, no bodily fluids. And the pregamers seemed like a great group of people.

At our college, parties in general were one place where no one had to impress professors with intricate knowledge of 18th century political pamphleteering in this country or that one, or the biochemical reactiveness of chlorine in the presence of something or other. So people seemed to let their guard down more, seemed to remember it was okay to be human every once in a while, sometimes even when not embarrassingly hammered. Authenticity was a rare occurrence at our performance-oriented elite school, and soccer parties provided that.

"Okay, tell me more tomorrow. I'm going back to sleep," Jessica mumbled. "Love you."

"I know."

"Shut up, you ungrateful sham of a best friend," Jessica grinned, but already had her eyes shut again.

"Love you, too," I quietly hummed through a smirk, turning off the light and tiptoeing to the bathroom down the hall to brush my teeth before slipping into bed.

The last thing I saw before I drifted off to sleep was his text:

John: Did you make it back safely?

Me: Yes, thank you. Sleep well.