Read Finding Dell for Free Online Page B

She only smoked when she drank, but she was ashamed to admit it and I was the only person who knew her secret habit. “I need to find Jesse.”
    “Have you texted him? Is he here?”
    She took a long chug from her beer. “If he’s not, I’ll find someone else. There’s no shortage of guys here, and all I need is one for the night. I shouldn’t have a problem with that.”
    Her voice was haughty, but I wondered if her arrogance was masking her vulnerability as she waited for Jesse to show up and choose her for the night.
    “So I won’t be sleeping in our room tonight, but don’t take that to mean you should invite any old loser back, just because you’re feeling sorry for yourself about Will.”
    Natalie puckered her shiny lips into a pout and mimed that she was going outside for a smoke.
    As she stepped away and left me standing alone, I watched her weave through the crowd. Since Dean’s party, she’d been more than unsupportive—she was downright mean. Outside of class, I spent most of the week in bed. When Natalie returned to our room, she didn’t offer to talk to me about it. Instead, she flicked on the lights, opened the curtains, and turned on the TV as she ignored me. By the middle of the week, her silence turned into rude one-liners about how pathetic I was being. She only eased up when I agreed to go to the party with her.
    Next to me, the game ended in an eruption of hollers and spilled beer. The commotion brought me back to the moment. Alex handed a ping pong ball to Dean and moved toward me.
    “Dell! Hey!” he said loudly over the din of music and shouts.
    The party was loud, dark, and too crowded. He took a step closer and I could smell his mall-bought cologne.
    “I thought of you earlier today,” I said coyly, feeling uncharacteristically bold as I tried to block out the memory of Will.
    “Oh?” He raised an eyebrow.
    “I was in bed listening to The City Skies. I thought of you.” I rested my hand on the soft blue cotton of his shirt and toyed with the buttons. “How amazing was that concert?”
    “I’m sorry, but I got distracted when you mentioned your bed,” he whispered, his fingers reaching for me and crawling under my top.
    I felt the blood rush to my head and I knew I would sleep with him that night. It was the only way I could distract myself from the heartache swimming in my chest. As Alex’s fingers played with the hem of my top, a girl in angel wings brushed past us, pushing me closer to him. I inhaled his cologne deeply and bit my lip playfully as we held our gaze.
    “You want to get out of Hell?”
    The Heaven and Hell party had barely started before Alex and I were back at Paso Fino.
    Levi sat at the head of the table in the hallway, his authority punctuated by his mohawk, and Helen sat with him.
    As Alex and I approached, Helen called out a greeting. She was the type of girl who would get offended if someone said they couldn’t hear her accent, so she laid it on so comically thick it was almost overkill.
    “It’s rare to see you around at this time of the night, Dell,” she said.
    I grimaced in response to her naïve smile. It was clear I had brought someone back to my room with me and I didn’t want to call more attention to it.
    “You must be Will,” she said, turning to Alex.
    A tiny, surprised gasp escaped my lips and I felt my cheeks heat up to a burning red.
    “Not exactly,” he said. “Alex Connor.”
    He leaned forward to shake hands around the table, but it was Helen’s turn to be embarrassed. She clutched a tiny hand to her chest, displaying her undeveloped fingers; she was born without a functioning pinky and took great pains to conceal it.It didn’t fit her Southern Belle image to have anything but dainty, perfect features.
    “Well, now, just look at me. Letting my mouth overload my tail.”
    Alex, Levi, and I exchanged glances and Helen grinned.
    “Means I’m talking too much,” she said with a wink.
    From down the hall, Anna’s distinctive