into our hall of residence and settled into more compact friend groups, my new RA pulled me aside.

She was a first-time RA and took her job way too seriously for someone that was younger than me. But it was with that youth and enthusiasm in mind that I bit my tongue—ignoring how she spoke to me like I was a toddler—and endured her unnecessary display of beadledom.

Boiling her verbal deluge down, my new roommate wasn't coming after all.

There were three options for me: I could find a roommate by being matched with someone else in the building; either they would move to my floor, or I would move to theirs. I could pay the fees for a private room and have the spare furniture removed. Or I could continue as I'd been living, "keeping the other half of the room perfectly spotless, ready for occupancy at any moment," had been my RA's exact words—without having to pay anything extra.

I took the last option readily, and now my room was horrendously off-kilter design-wise. That grated against my aesthetic perfectionism, but it was the lesser of two evils. My family wasn't made of money, much as I spent like we were. Sometimes I secretly stored my luxury shoes and bags in the spare closet, because my RA never bothered to check again after that first meeting. All bark and no bite.

Thinking back, actually, maybe that's part of how the eighth floor got its bad reputation for the second semester in a row.

I blamed the tequila, for the record. The Jays had generously brought a bottle specifically for tonight, the re-welcome to the eighth floor party. It was to make the new residents settle in more, and warm the old residents back up to campus life.

Most of the eighth-floor residents, even Krista, sat in a circle on the common room floor. In the middle stood a tall Jenga tower, the essential equipment for Drunk Jenga. It was like regular Jenga, but each piece had a prompt written on it designed to get people drunk. Sometimes it was possible to get out of drinking by completing an outrageous dare, other times there was no loophole—for example, girls have to drink. Pretty ironclad.

Jamie pulled a piece out and looked at me warily. "French kiss the person to your right. One minute minimum. Or drink."

My eyebrows shot northward. I was so drunk that just hearing the dare made me want to giggle.

"Oop," I laughed incredulously. "That's me! Crazy."

See, this was the sort of prompt that was easily avoidable. With a quick shot of tequila, Jamie and I wouldn't have to lock lips. By far, this was not the worst thing in the pile. We'd played this so many times that I knew the dares like the back of my hand; public streaking and even an act of vandalism were hidden somewhere in that wooden tower.

But from the way Jamie was looking at me, I already decided that I was going to do it. No, it wasn't desire on his face. The numb-nuts had a shit-eating grin that practically begged to be punched. He was challenging me, the way he challenged Jake, like he already had the victory in the bag. I didn't like to lose, whether it was beer pong, or endurance chugging, or Drunk Jenga. I was going to win this.

Besides, there was no harm in kissing Jamie.

Had you ever been too close to someone to like them? It was hard to describe unless you'd felt it. Jamie disliked my pessimism and the way I slept with men that I didn't even remember. I disliked his optimism and the way he tried and failed to hide his judgments of my lifestyle.

There were other things that smothered any chance of chemistry between us, observed from months of living in close quarters. He left his stuff lying around the place for Jake—who was technically his older brother by seventeen minutes—to clean up. I would make really awkward sex noises in the background when they played PlayStation on a server to piss him off. His Christian parents sounded like they would hate me—sexually liberated, opinionated and loud-mouthed.

Most of all, we were too comfortable around each other. We knew all the other's flaws. We'd farted around each other. Do you understand the weight of that last statement? There's, like, no going back from that.

Kissing him was as safe as putt-putt golf.

So I shrugged and wrapped my hand around Jamie's neck. From this proximity, I noticed the slight widening of his eyes, as if he hadn't expected me to take him up on the kiss. I lifted my brows cockily, giving him a chance to back away.

Jamie surged forward and connected our lips.

The whole exchange had been so rapid that it probably looked like I had pulled him to me under the momentum of my hands, but I knew what I'd seen. What I'd asked. What he'd answered. When Jamie's teeth tugged on my bottom lip, I opened to him, and was lost.

Oop. Wait. Maybe kissing Jamie was not all that safe.

I mean, I definitely felt safe in his arms, which curled around my waist and pressed me to him. But my heart was hammering and my vision was cloudy with a pink fog. Alarm klaxons blared in my head. This felt very much like danger.

His tongue swept in like a wave upon the seashore, and I heard my distant breath coming in shallow pants. He explored every corner of my mouth with an almost desperate fascination. Far away, I heard my floormates screaming in disgust.

Had it already been a minute?

Placing my hands on his chest, I pushed us apart. I came back to earth much more quickly than Jamie did, which earned me a fantastic view of him, finally, without composure. His hair was hopelessly tousled after I'd run my hands through it, his lips flushed red from the kiss. I saw green fire, and a shiver ran down my spine.

My hand shot out of its own drunken accord to wipe away the gloss I'd left behind on his bottom lip.

I saw again that widening of his eyes at the touch of my skin, like he couldn't believe what had just happened. I didn't know why he was so shocked. He was the one who'd dared me. And it was Drunk Jenga. We'd played it dozens of times. We were just friends. It was just a kiss.

No danger at all.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

It took some convincing to drag me to the first Game Day of the year.

How insulated I was from the fanatics and drama of college football was a point of great pride, clearly, from my blatant dismissal of all things football-related: games, merch, the players. I wore it like a medal of honour that, in all my years at Halston, I'd gone to about a grand total of five Game Days. They were all total snoozefests.

Oh, someone executed a really solid tackle? Concussion for you.

Oh, the quarterback got sacked? Concussion for you, too.

One case study into chronic traumatic encephalopathies had turned me off the game and its institutions for life. Sprinkle over the whole phenomenon a heaping of spittle-ridden, machismo-induced trash-talking, hysterical fans, and over-priced food and beverages, and football games were the perfect recipe for a really unhappy Viv. But, for football parties, which boasted great energy and flowing drinks, I could bend my morals a bit.

Especially when my best friend was recently, heartbreakingly single.

Krista and I snuck sidelong glances at Riley while we pretended to count out the cash in our hands. She sat on a collapsible lawn chair, eyes drifting in and out of focus on Sophie, who was trying to engage her in conversation.

"You think drinking will make it worse?" I wondered, slipping a handful of bills out of my bra.

We'd stepped one yard away, and counting, from the tailgate where about fifteen students were pregaming. It was one in a sea of countless tents and cars, set up in the parking lot outside Halston's stadium. Most of the college's clubs had their own tents—burgundy with white trim, to match the school colours—selling barbequed goods or alcohol or merch or any combination of the three.

This tailgate was hosted by Sophie Olsen, a political science major and the Jays' cousin. It was my sincere belief that she received most of the brains in the family gene pool. Up till four years ago, she'd lived in Bishop with all her extended family, then moved to Carsonville—Riley's hometown. That was how Sophie knew Riley so closely, and why she hadn't left Riley's side the whole day.

With the excuse of getting drinks from the WISA tailgate, Krista and I exchanged our prognoses on Riley's condition. "I don't know," Krista admitted, casting a concerned glance backwards to the gathering we were temporarily leaving behind. "It can't get much worse than how she's been during the week, can it?"

I grunted in agreement. It couldn't get much worse.

Riley had been the one to dump Phoenix, but that didn't make it easier for her. Monday it had happened, out of the blue for everyone. Tuesday and Wednesday she spent in bed, watching documentaries to get her mind off the breakup. Thursday, she went to one lecture before she broke down crying and had to hide out in the bathroom. Friday, she didn't feel up to facing the campus.

Now it was Saturday, and I was loath to let her waste away in her room any longer.

Especially because I knew how it felt. Maybe I'd never had a relationship as long as Riley and Phoenix dated—nearly five years—but I had tried and failed at long-distance, with devastating results.

Carey was my boyfriend in my senior year of high school. He'd been the smartest boy in school, and he had an entourage of fangirling nerds. I'd been the fangirliest and nerdiest one of them all, so naturally, we fell in love during the course of our shared AP Algebra and Calculus classes. No-one was surprised when he was accepted into Cambridge University—he may have been the smartest boy instate at the time—least of me, his doting, proud girlfriend.

We both gave each other promise rings before graduation, but I broke up with him at the end of the summer when I realised I would never be able to sustain a long-distance relationship with someone halfway around the world. That I hung up the phone on Carey while he cried—because I didn't want him to hear me crying my heart out, too—was perhaps one of my cruelest moments and one of my biggest regrets.

But, in saying that, I didn't have many regrets, to begin with. Carey and I were on good terms now. Sometimes we'd tag each other in math-related memes. Would we have worked out if he had stayed in Massachusetts? Perhaps, but the Carey that would have stayed and the Viv that would have committed to long-distance were versions of ourselves that didn't exist at the time. It wouldn't have been authentic, nor would it be now. The way things happened was the way things had to happen.

Riley would realise that one day, but till then...

"I'll get her a vodka cranberry to start slow," I decided, slipping my phone into the back pocket of my denim skirt. On top, I wore a cropped, maroon singlet. "What are you having?"

Krista clutched her cash in her hands. "Vodka lemonade."

In her oversized Halton University t-shirt, worn as a dress, she looked like the picture of candid perfection, save for her dark under eyes. She visibly displayed the aftermath of her Friday night shift at Topaz; each one took a lot out of her.

Krista was an icon, known for juggling being famous with being ridiculously smart. Like me, but for different reasons, she rarely attended Game Days. It was too much time—considering the necessary recovery period from the inevitable hangovers—that she could be using to study.

But Riley came first. And so here we were.

While we waited in the line, shoulder-to-shoulder with each other and nose-to-hair with the people in front of us, the sights and sounds and smells of the pre-game curled around us. Most everyone had a trace of maroon and white on their person, even if it was just two streaks of paint on each cheek—our battle faces.

Every inhale brought aromas of chicken and spice and beer and sweat. The early afternoon sun beat down mercilessly, finding and scorching each sliver of skin. The bass beats of different songs, emanating from separate tailgates, warred with each other and blurred into a ground-shaking mess. Closest to the WISA stall, Taylor Swift reigned supreme.

I exclaimed in delight when we finally placed our cash down on the table, discovering Sushmita to be on till duty. Krista ordered, Sushmita counted out our change, and a freshman volunteer whirled around the back of the tent, making our drinks.

"Are you going to watch Ravi?" I asked.

It was a superfluous question. Of course, Sushmita would watch the game. I'd only met Ravi—starting quarterback, football team captain and now Sushmita's boyfriend—once, but he'd made a better impression on me than some other footballers had first try.

"Clocking off after five," she answered cheekily. "I've been working the stall since ten a.m."

"Pity," I winced.

"Your turn is coming up."

I barked a laugh. "Not if I can help it. Six home games, and seven students on the executive committee. Looks like I have the misfortune of missing out."

"You realise if you don't run a Game Day tailgate, you're on funding pitch duty?" Sushmita smiled expectantly.

While the athletic programme showered in opulence, all other extracurricular clubs had to scrounge for money from the university in their annual rounds of funding allocations. Each club vying for funding sent a representative to pitch their application, and WISA was no exception. But that was a problem for another month, so I flicked my straightened, black hair behind my shoulder and nodded confidently.

"Brave of you, Viv," Sushmita clicked her teeth. "The trustees are ruthless."

The drinks landed on the table, and she slid them into our waiting hands.

On the way back to the tailgate, we defended our drinks fiercely.

Krista carried two vodka lemonades, the second for Sophie. Riley's vodka cranberry and my rum-and-coke were in constant danger of sloshing and spilling from the solo cup—and my cheap college student instincts hated to waste a single drop.

I glanced upwards to my left, where the main entrance of the stadium loomed above our heads. Underneath the shadow it cast, the ground teemed with cars and people eager to get out of the sunshine. Mounted high in the air was the face of a fox—go Halston Foxes—staring defiantly down at the masses.

Krista sighed wistfully, "I wonder what the team's doing now."

As soon as she said that, I pictured Jamie stuffing his face with potato salad at the hotel. Or listening to his R&B playlist on the bus, humming along absentmindedly. Would he autograph a girl's bra as soon as he stepped onto campus grounds? Or was he already inside that stadium, warming up in his brand-sponsored uniform?

"Still living it up at a hotel, probably," I scoffed. "The amount of money that gets dropped on transport and accommodation and merchandise and facilities just so a bunch of manchildren can slam into each other on a field—"

"Drink some more, Viv," Krista chuckled, well-accustomed to my bitter stances on collegiate football.

I glowered and grumbled and downed more of my drink. The icy liquid chilled every inch from my throat to my stomach, but I was still bubbling with frustration at having to be here. For Riley, I reminded myself. She needed the distraction.

Back at the tailgate, we delivered the drinks. Sophie's eyes lit up in gratitude when Krista handed her the vodka lemonade. "It's us girls' Game Day," she was in the midst of telling Riley, an arm around her shoulder. "No thinking about boys, yeah?"

"Oath," I concurred, willing myself to follow that advice for the rest of the day.

Riley's faraway gaze slowly zeroed in on my face. I wiped all traces of discontent from my features and grinned angelically. She mustered an answering smile and said, "Sure."

I raised my drink to Krista, Riley, and Sophie. "To the girls."

Three cups lifted in response, meeting mine with a dull tap. "To the girls!"

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬

They kissed!

Writing this book is going to take a lot of research into American college football (i.e. consulting subreddits and watching game day vlogs) which is making me so! Jealous! College sports is a thing in NZ, but a tiny, tiny thing.

So no tailgates for me. :(

Please vote, comment and follow.

Aimee x