“He’s right,” Clay agrees, as Evan nods. “You need to figure out how to win her back, you love her, you can’t just walk away from that.”

I take a moment, forcing a pensive look to my face as if I’m carefully thinking about what they’re saying, then I nod. “I love her.” It’s the first honest, true thing I’ve said since we started this conversation. I love Starling and it’s more than just my obsession with her, she’s everything. I want to be her north, but she’s the needle on the compass, without her, all directions are meaningless.

A hint of guilt permeates into me, I shouldn’t be manipulating my friends, the men I consider my brothers, but I need them on board with helping me do whatever I need to do to tether my little bird to me again.

“Any idea how I can get the ball rolling?” I ask.

24

STARLING

The feeling of the tequila humming through my veins makes the music seem louder and more all-consuming, and I love it. My hands are in the air, while my ass is pressed up against the front of a very aroused guy, his arm curled around my waist.

With my eyes closed, I try really hard not to notice how wrong it is to have some random guy’s hard-on pushing into me. I want to be able to embrace this moment, my first real college party—the first party the guys dragged me to doesn’t count. But even though I’m doing all the right things, it just feels so wrong.

The guy, whose name I don’t even know is slightly behind the rhythm, his arm around my waist is floppy and neither claiming or supportive it’s just sort of hanging there. I can feel his hardness pressing into me, but I’m not feeling even an ounce of arousal and I think I’m supposed to be. Isn’t that the purpose of dancing like this, to simulate sex, to see how well you’d fit together? If it is, then the answer with this guy is not that well.

I want to push him off, but I don’t know the etiquette. Is it really insulting if I ask him to remove his limp arm and his underwhelming-sized cock away from me? It feels rude, so instead I just go with it, throwing back what’s left of my drink and trying not to cringe when the guy nuzzles into my neck.

Sammy is immediately across from me, apparently she has the etiquette down, because her tongue is down the throat of a pretty blond boy with messy surfer-style hair, her hands groping his toned chest beneath his unbuttoned shirt.

Pulling free of the guy—whose name I really wish I knew, if only so I didn’t keep having to refer to him as the guy in my head—I smile and wave my empty cup at him, signaling in the general direction of the bar. Nodding, he smiles, but thankfully doesn’t offer to come with. Pushing my way through the throng of people, I join the back of the line, exhaling slowly and watching the people around me who all seem so much more comfortable than me. I’m used to being alone, but even when I was in Maine I felt Sebastian’s phantom eyes on me, even though I knew he was hours away in a different state. Knowing he doesn’t care enough to watch anymore makes me feel bereft.