But even if she doesn’t realize what she’s doing . . . it feels damn good to have her wrapped around me again, and for a few seconds it dazes me. Then I look up to find everyone in the room watching us.

Damn.

I lock eyes with Dylan and say, “How did this happen?”

“I’m still working on that. As far as I can tell, she decided she wanted to invent her own cocktail, and she enlisted our friend Matt’s help.” Ah. Matt. He’s one of Dylan’s activist friends. I didn’t realize he was close to Nell, too. Nell points to him sprawled out on the floor and adds, “This is what happens when you spend all day trying lots of different mixes of alcohol.”

That seems to catch Nell’s attention enough to rouse her, because she pulls back and places both her small hands on my face.

“I figured it out. It took me a long time, but I got it. I call it Newton’s Third Law.”

“Uhh . . .”

“Get it? Yours was Bad Decision. And mine . . . is Newton’s Third Law.” She descends into giggles again, and I scan my dormant science knowledge to try and remember what she’s talking about. I’d taken a physics course last year for my kinesiology major, but I just barely scraped by. Unlike high school, where I was concerned with keeping up to impress Lina, last year I’d been mostly focused on forgetting her.

“Is that the one about actions and reactions?”

“Exactly! Every action has an equal and . . .” She pauses and swallows, and man, she’s so far gone. “Reaction. Equal and opposite reaction. So . . . action.” She gestures to an empty cup on the bar, then to her own drunken state. “Reaction.”

Then she does this little move that’s halfway between a fist pump and a celebratory dance. She’s so fucking adorable, it actually hurts. Somewhere between my chest and my stomach there’s a knot that twists every time I see her. And I’m starting to enjoy it, the strange pleasure pain of wanting her.

“I don’t get it,” the dude on the floor says. “She’s been going on and on about that law for an hour, but for the life of me I don’t get what it has to do with alcohol. And somewhere around the eighth shot, I stopped trying to figure it out.”

Christ. Eight shots. I hope to God that Nell hasn’t had that much to drink.

She pushes at my arms, wrestling out of my embrace, and says, “Here. Let me make you one.”

She wobbles over to the table, where there’s half a dozen different kinds of liquor and at least that many mixers. I follow and ask, “Any idea how much she’s had to drink?” Dylan shakes her head, and the ginger guy is still lying on the ground, silent. I think he might actually have passed out.

“I’ll make sure she doesn’t drink any more. Maybe you could get started on the food, Dylan? That will help if we can get her to eat any of it.”

“Sure. Of course. You sure you’ve got her?”

The look in Dylan’s eyes as she asks tells me this is anything but a simple question. I don’t know what this is with Nell. I don’t know how long it will last. But I know I’m not handing her over to anyone else to take care of. No fucking way.

“Yeah. I’ve got her.”

Chapter 13

Nell’s To-Do List

• Normal College Thing #18: Invent an alcoholic beverage.

• Remember the alcoholic beverage you invented.

• Don’t throw up.

Torres is somehow even more handsome than I remember. And at the moment there are three of him, which adds up to a whole lot of handsome. He’s talking to Dylan, and I keep getting distracted by his mouth. By the way it so perfectly forms words. It’s a really great mouth.

Which is why I just can’t help touching it.

I rest my fingers there, wanting to feel it move as he talks, but he’s just looking at me, and when I twist my head around, I realize that Dylan and Silas have disappeared into the kitchen.

I turn back and order, “Talk.”

“What do you want me to say, sweetheart?”

His breath is hot against my fingertips, and a sudden image of him sucking my fingers into his mouth pops into my head, and holy hell . . . where did that come from? Certainly not from any personal experience I’ve had.

“I like the way your mouth moves.”

He laughs, more warm breath, and pulls my hand away to kiss the center of my palm.

“Like I said before, you are a puzzle.”

Then I remember my reason for coming over to the table. My drink! I tear my eyes away from Torres and focus on the bottles in front of me, trying to remember how I made it. I started with something clear. Gin, maybe? Or vodka? I pick the one that’s in the prettiest bottle and dump some of it into a plastic cup.

“Whoa there.” Torres lifts the bottle from my hands, and I let him have it. I was done with it anyway. “I think you’re all good on drinks right now.”

“This one is for you,” I tell him.

Then I add some orange juice, a shot of the other clear liquor just to be safe, some grapefruit juice, and a squeeze of lemon concentrate. I swish it around with my finger, and then hand the cup to Torres, sucking the liquid off my finger while I watch him. For a moment all he does is stare at my finger in my mouth, and I wonder if he’s picturing the same thing I thought of earlier.

I pop my finger out of my mouth and say, “Drink.”

He raises the cup to his mouth, taking a gulp, and then pauses for a few moments before swallowing. His eyes narrow, his nose scrunches, and his Adam’s apple bobs forcefully.

“Oh God,” he says.

“Oh God good?”

“More like oh God please don’t let my esophagus melt.”

I frown. “It’s not that bad.” I stand on my tiptoes and dunk my finger in his cup again, pulling it back to my mouth to prove it. But he catches hold of my wrist before I get there.

“Uh-uh. Not that again. I can’t take it.”

“What?”

“You know,” he begins. “Maybe it’s not the drink that tastes good, but your skin. I think I need to test that hypothesis.”

“I do like hypotheses. Did you know that’s the plural of hypothesis? Hypotheses.” I hadn’t really registered much beyond the last word of his sentence, so he catches me completely off guard when he draws my hand up close to his face and slips my forefinger into his mouth.