Moving in Reverse (5 page)

“
Don’t do it just because
she wants you to,” he said, putting his hand lightly on my
wrist.

It was easy for Blake to say. He had
friends everywhere — all over New York City, all over the country.
It sometimes felt like without Blake, I didn’t have
anyone.

Except Darby. Even if we weren’t a
perfect match, she was about all I had at Columbia, outside of
Blake. If me joining a sorority was a condition of her friendship,
I couldn’t really afford to decline.

And there was something else, that I
couldn’t find the words to explain to Blake. There was something
exciting about doing something so un-Casey Snow. Maybe joining a
sorority wasn’t the thing, but I was determined to at least give it
a chance.

“
I’ll think about it,” I
said to Blake, not really meaning it. “Come on,” I sighed, “I need
some more coffee if I’m going to tackle differential
equations.”

Blake took his hand off my wrist,
looking at the ground. “Lead the way,” he said, looking at me like
he wanted to say something else.

By the time I got to our room, Darby
was already dressed in a black a-line dress with pink lace at the
bottom, which was, at least, an improvement on yesterday’s outfits.
It was almost Betsey Johnson-esque, and I liked it.

“
Oh, good,” she lilted as
I walked into the room, her hair set in wide Velcro curlers. “How
was class?”

I’d spent three hours in the library,
not even stopping for lunch. I’d made it through a chapter of
three-variable equations and felt, for probably the first time all
semester, that I’d gotten a majority of the answers on our problem
set correct. But the batteries on my graphing calculator were
starting to die, so I figured I’d done enough for the day. I’d
actually managed to put Rush out of my mind, walking back from the
library to the dorm and thinking about hot chocolate and snowy
skyscrapers.

I sat down on the bed, pulling the
ponytail holder out of my hair. “Do your worst,” I said.

Darby laughed, as if I’d been
joking.

“
How was the party?” I
asked, feeling a little spark of guilt at not having gone the night
before.

“
Oh my gosh,” her lashes
fluttered dramatically. “It was amazing.”

I turned around, almost burning my ear
on Darby’s curling iron.

“
So you really liked the
girls?”

“
Face forward,” she
chastised, her mouth curling into a little smile. “Not exactly the
girls...”

Ah
, I thought to myself.

“
You met a
guy?”

I didn’t turn around this time, but it
was as if I could hear her smiling.

“
I don’t know if he even
likes me,” she said, her voice sounding like she didn’t mean that
in the slightest.

“
But?”

“
Jen introduced us at the
beginning of the party, and he didn’t leave my side the whole
night,” she giggled. “He even made his pledges get my drinks any
time I wanted one. He said if I wanted study snacks this week, he’d
send them over to our room.”

I guessed that in frat boy culture,
that counted as courting at the highest level.

“
That’s great, Darby,” I
tried to sound enthusiastic.

“
It’s amazing,” she
grinned, and I felt myself soften. I remembered what it was like
the first time your crush noticed you. I’d probably been way more
goofy and melodramatic than Darby was being.

“
He’s the president of the
whole fraternity,” Darby said in a tone of voice that sounded like
this guy was one step away from President of the United
States.

“
Wow,” I was genuinely
surprised. “He’s a senior?”

She shot me a wounded look. “My dad
was a senior and my mom was a freshman when they met,” she said,
like she was challenging me to find a problem with it. “Besides,
isn’t Blake, like, forty?”

I snorted a laugh and turned around,
to see her eyes bright and sparkling. I hadn’t meant to offend her,
but I’d only known her a month — I didn’t know where her boundaries
were yet.

“
He’s twenty,” I shook my
head. Blake had been accepted to Columbia when he’d graduated from
high school, just like me, but he’d deferred twice when he was
playing guitar for Moving Neutral. He’d only finally enrolled this
fall, so we were both freshman, despite the age difference. Which
Darby knew, of course.

“
Maybe you’ll get to meet
him tonight,” she said hopefully, dropping the last of my curls and
brushing them out. “There’s another mixer after rush.”

“
Maybe,” I said, trying to
sound politely noncommittal.

“
Come on, Casey,” Darby
stood up, walking over to the closet. “What’s the point of joining
a sorority if you’re never going to go to any of the
parties?”

She had a point, but not the one she
was trying to make. Why exactly was I joining a sorority
again?

Darby held up a black strapless a-line
dress, squinting at it and then at me as if mentally judging my
size.

“
No pastels today?” I
asked, genuinely curious.

“
Today everyone wears
black cocktail dresses,” she said seriously. “Didn’t you even read
the invitation?”

I hadn’t, actually. Someone had
slipped it under our door while I was at class, and it had informed
both Darby and me that we’d made it to Kappa’s second round. And,
apparently, it had dictated the dress code for this
afternoon.

“
Wait,” I said, darting
past Darby and into the closet. “I have something that could
work.”

I rummaged past a few garment bags
(Darby’s) and pulled out a dress on a hanger — the asymmetric black
dress I’d worn the night I met Blake, when Madison and I had tried
to sneak backstage at his concert. I’d borrowed clothes all summer,
so I hadn’t actually worn it since that night.

Darby raised an eyebrow, but decided
not to pick a fight. “It’s not exactly cocktail attire,” she
wrinkled her nose. “But I guess you can get away with
it.”

I shrugged off my tee shirt and pulled
the dress over my head, remembering the night I’d changed into it
in the back seat of Madison’s car after sneaking out of my house.
It fit like a glove, and I smiled for a second at my reflection as
Darby tugged the rollers out of her own hair and brushed it
through.

“
Ok,” I exhaled. “Here
goes nothing.”

Chapter Six

After some negotiation,
Darby and I came to a compromise: I’d go to the concert and then
swing by the sorority party on my way back. Blake had a study group
session for a class I wasn’t in, so I hopped on the subway downtown
alone, dressed in jeans and an oversized sweater that I’d grabbed
from our room after the afternoon Rush party had ended.

Liv was outside, talking
to the doorman as I walked up to the concert. I spotted a
photographer lingering by a side door a little bit away, but he
didn’t pay any attention to me as I walked by. It was still a
little surreal to have to worry about paparazzi, but Blake and I
had mostly fallen off the radar since starting school in
September.

“
I’m so glad you came,”
Liv grinned, grabbing my hand and leading me inside without paying
the cover. “We go on in ten. Let’s get you a drink.”

My eyes adjusted to the dark club,
which was already pretty crowded. We wove our way over to the bar,
and Liv handed me a beer. “Want to go backstage?”

“
Nah,” I said, trying to
avoid the awkwardness of last night. “I’ll just watch from here.
You go get ready — we can hang out later.”

I knew she was probably itching to go
over last-minute details with the rest of her band. Fall Guy was
big enough that this had to be a huge night for Liv, and being
excited for her made me think about touring with Blake over the
summer, watching my favorite band get ready for shows, night after
night. I felt a grin creep on to my face involuntarily.

“
Break a leg,” I
said.

“
I’ll come find you
after,” she called over her shoulder as she walked towards a door
next to the stage.

I staked out a spot halfway between
the bar and the stage, not wanting to get in the way of the girls
who’d claimed the front-row area an hour before Fall Guy came on.
Teen groupies could be scarier than a zombie mob, and just as
vicious when there was something they wanted.

Pulling out my cell phone, I quickly
typed a text to Madison telling her about the show. NYU was only a
few blocks away, and I’d barely seen her since classes had
started.

“
No cell phones in here,”
a guy’s voice behind me startled me as a hand promptly lifted my
cell phone out of my grasp. “I’m going to have to confiscate
that.”

I wrinkled my eyebrows and looked
around the room, where at least a dozen people were holding phones,
checking email or texting. I turned around to face the person who’d
spoken to me.

The guy standing behind me was a few
years older than me, with a tousled hair, piercing brown eyes and a
muscular build. He was wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt,
unbuttoned effortlessly in a way that looked like he’d come
straight from a photo shoot to the concert. He held my phone with
one hand, and looked at me like he was two seconds from breaking
into laughter.

“
What do you think you’re
doing?” I tried to make my voice sound authoritative.

He pressed the touchscreen on my
phone, glancing at the text I’d typed.

“
Who’s
Madison?”

I scowled. “My friend. Who I was
texting. On my phone.”

“
I told you,” he smirked,
still looking down at my cell phone. “They’re not allowed in
here.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s absurd. Half
the people in here are on their phones.” I stood up straighter,
trying to stare him down.

He punched something into the phone,
not meeting my eyes. “Ok,” he said smoothly. “Well, then it’s rude
for you to sit there texting when there’s a guy who’s trying to
talk to you.”

I stared at him
incredulously.
”Oh, is it?”

“
It is,” his voice rang
with amusement, and he finally looked up from my phone, shooting me
a half-smile that would have made my stomach flutter if I hadn’t
been so annoyed.

“
And third,” he said. “I
thought you might want my phone number.”

“
Tempting,” I said
sarcastically, shaking my head. “But I have a
boyfriend.”

“
Oh,” he arched an
eyebrow. “I know. Blake Parker, right?”

He held the phone out to me with one
hand, and I took it tentatively.

“
So why—”

“
I’m Tanner,” the guy
clinked his beer against mine and took a long gulp, looking at me
like he knew something I didn’t.

I was about to open my mouth when Liv
and her band walked onstage.

“
We’re Pretty Twisted,”
she cooed softly. The crowd around us quieted, and I stood on my
tiptoes to see the stage as well as I could.

Liv began the first song, singing
softly into the microphone. I’d loaded her CD onto my iPod that
morning, so I was already starting to learn their music. I found
myself getting into it, happy to see that the crowd was cheering as
the song got louder.

Liv squinted out at the crowd, like
she was trying to see past the stage lights. I waved to her,
jumping up and down to the song, and she seemed to see me. For a
second, her eyes flickered behind me with a confused expression,
and then she shifted her gaze to the rest of the crowd and finished
the song to applause.

I heard a whistle behind me, and
didn’t turn around. Liv started the second song, a slower melody
that quieted the crowd. I finished the last sip of my beer and
looked out at the room, feeling warm and comfortable. Part of me
almost wished that Blake was still playing shows like these, wished
that I could still watch him from backstage as he played my
favorite songs every night.

I wondered if he missed it
too.

Liv’s band played six songs, a quick
set for an opening band, but I knew from last night that she’d come
back on for another song with Fall Guy later in the
show.

Just as they were finishing the last
song of the set, I felt someone squeeze my arm, and I turned
abruptly, thinking it was the same guy.

I felt a surprised grin spread across
my face as Madison smothered me with a hug.

“
I came as quickly as I
could,” she yelled into my ear over the music. “Are you
ok?”

I blinked, confused.

“
I’m fine,” I said slowly,
wondering if there was something I was missing. “Why wouldn’t I
be?”

“
Your text,” she was still
catching her breath, as if she’d run the whole way here. “You and
Blake?”

I felt my stomach clench. “What do you
mean?”

She’d pulled out her phone and showed
it to me. Sure, enough, a text from me a half hour before read,
“Fall Guy at Irving Place. Blake & I done. Met someone
new.”