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despite the tropical climate inside of the Sigma Nu house, my makeup was pretty much intact. I wasn’t the Elephant Man or a refugee from the “before” part of
Extreme Makeover.
I was a pretty cute girl who, unfortunately, had drank a little too much a few nights before. Duh. Isn’t that par for the course for college?
    Well, I had managed to give myself a decent mental pep talk when I realized that,for all of my faux-confidence, I was still you know, hiding in the bathroom. So I popped a Tic Tac and made my way back to the party.
    I found the kitchen, which wasn’t too difficult (I just followed the sticky beer trail), where Victory and his friends were vigorously attacking a keg. Improvising, I grabbed at a plastic cup and sidled closer to the keg. “Hey,” I said, smiling at Victory and holding out my cup. “Can you hook me up?” I had no plans to actually
drink
the beer, of course, but I needed a prop.
    “Be glad to,” he said, grinning right back at me. He was, at least, pretty cute. He had bright green eyes and thick, sandy brown hair, and even underneath an oversize T-shirt I could see that he was in spectacular shape. I remembered that Sigma Nu was known as “the football frat.”
    I’d never dated an athlete before—Drew was a total do-gooder/school nerd/student council darling—but reminded myself that the point of this endeavor was just to get the rust out of my system.All I really had to do was talk to him—which, hey! Mission accomplished. Everything from this point on was just gravy.
    Once my cup was full, we headed back to the common room. “You wanna sit?” my new boyfriend asked.
    I settled myself on the couch, and Victory sat down next to me. Actually, he was essentially sitting
on
me. I laughed nervously and scooted a few inches back.
    “So, you’re a freshman?” he asked, leaning into my personal space. I did another small shimmy backward.
    “Um, yeah! Well, freshperson.” I giggled. How was it that he was back in my lap again? I slid backward. We were playing some weird game of reverse Twister.
    “What’s your name?” I asked, stalling for time.
    He put his hand on my knee. “Kris,” he said. He wrapped his free arm around me. We were seriously starting to cross some boundaries here.
    “I’m Claudia,” I said, holding out my hand to shake.
    He looked at my hand, laughed, and pressed it down onto his leg. “Sure,” hesaid, sounding distracted. He leaned his face forward.
    Now, Ellen, I may have lost my flirt, but it was plain to see that he was entering the kiss zone, which was
totally
out of the question.
    “Oh, look!” I said brightly, pointing off into the distance at an imaginary acquaintance. I jumped up from the couch. “There’s my friend Shelley! I’m coming, Shelley,” I shouted, waving into thin air.
    Kris shrugged and turned to the girl who was sitting on his opposite side, asking to bum a smoke. I guess I’m pretty easy to get over.
    I needed to find Charlie and let her know that I was leaving, mission accomplished. I had nothing left to prove and, to be honest, I was tired.
    “Easy come, easy go, huh?”
    I felt a hand on my shoulder and I spun around quickly. “Huh?”
    All of my frustration melted away. It was Gabe. He was the last person I expected to find at a frat party. “I saw theway you handled that guy. Classic.”
    I ran my fingers through my hair, tense. “I swear, my sex appeal must be totally on the fritz,” I grumbled.
    “Oh, uh …” Gabe frowned and stammered at me. He looked left, then right, then down at the ground, as if he couldn’t decide where to settle.
    Oh, god,
I thought.
Awkward-moment alert. Abort! Abort!
    Color flooded into my cheeks. “Never mind.” I exhaled sharply. “God, I am such a dork. That whole scene was a complete cliché.”
    Gabe burst into nervous laughter. After a moment, he regained his composure. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
    “My roommate wants to rush. So one of her sisters—well,