"Abigail, are you there? Hello?"

I click the BlueTooth button on my phone and turn up the volume in my car to hear my mother's impatient voice ringing through the speakers. I barely had enough time to get my car turned on and the heat circulating before she called. I really need to stop telling her my work schedule.

"Yes, Mom," I say, clicking my seatbelt into place.

"How was work?" she asks. The shuffling of papers in the background and the clicking of her heels on the hardwood floor of her office echoes through the line.

"It was fine, kind of slow."

I look both ways before slowly pulling out onto the main road toward my apartment. I hate driving during the winter in Washington. The thought of hitting a patch of ice and crashing into a tree to my very painful death always seems to haunt me whenever the temperature drops, especially because I never had to worry about icy roads growing up in Florida.

"How are your classes going?"

"They're going good." I try to sound upbeat, but honestly, today has been terrible, and I just want to get home and hide away in my room for the rest of the weekend, drowning myself in ice cream and terrible reality TV shows.

An uncomfortable heat washes over my body as the memory of Tristan walking me out to my car replays in my mind.

He almost kissed me.

Almost.

"Good as in you're going to have a 4.0 semester? Or good as in you don't really care?"

I bite down on my tongue as her words pull me out of my reverie. "My classes are going well, Mom," I rephrase.

"I'll take that as a no to the 4.0 question."

"I don't know yet. I'm only a few weeks in, and I'm taking some really hard classes." I glance over at the screen on my dash illuminated with her contact name, and I'm tempted to press the end call button. This is hardly the conversation that I want to be having right now.

"You need to study more if you're struggling, Abigail. Jeff was in a much harder program than you, and he had no problem graduating with a 4.0. At some point, you have to stop blaming the classes and start taking responsibility for yourself and your lack of discipline."

My 3.9 GPA will haunt me for the rest of my life.

"I know, Mom. I'll study tonight."

I hear her typing on her phone, and I wait for her to return to the conversation. "I ran into Tyler's father today." If I weren't driving, I would have rolled my eyes so hard they might have fallen out of my head. "He asked about you. He mentioned that Tyler is still single."

"Hmm," I hum, trying not to take the bait. The end call button is looking even better now, but I focus on keeping a safe following distance between myself and the car in front of me, trying to ignore the rush of annoyance that always seems to accompany my phone calls with my mother.

"I told him you were still single as well and that Tyler should reach out to you again."

"Why would you do that?" I groan.

I want to be surprised, but the fact that my mother meddled in my love life—a love life she knows absolutely nothing about—is far from surprising. Especially because it really has nothing to do with me at all, but rather the connection she lost with Tyler's family when we broke up.

"You two were good together. It wasn't fair of you to just dump him like that."

I pull into the parking spot in front of my apartment building and put my car in park. "I didn't like him anymore, Mom. What was I supposed to do?"

She scoffs. "You barely gave him a chance, Abigail."

"We were together for three years. I think that's enough of a chance."

She's quiet for a moment, and then her voice falls into a familiar terse tone. "Do not be disrespectful to me, Abigail."

Running a hand over my face, I lay my head back against the headrest and sigh inwardly. "I'm sorry."

"I have a conference call now. I have to go," she says.

"Okay."

"Love you."

I bite down on the inside of my cheek. "Love you, too, Mom."

The phone call with my mother was the cherry on top of my already terrible weekend, which is why I stood in the stream of scalding water for longer than I probably should have. The way the heat unfurled my muscles and hazed my mind was too good to give up.

Now, dressed in an oversized USW sweatshirt and polka-dotted sleep shorts, I scan the freezer for the cookies and cream ice cream I bought the other day.

"Rough shift?" Jenny asks when I fall onto the couch across from her. Nia is sprawled out between us with her legs propped up on a stack of pillows, and both of them are holding wine glasses brimming with the dark red liquid. I shrug and pull the top off the container, digging my spoon into the icy goodness. Taking my first bite, I relax into the cushion and savor the way it melts on my tongue.

Ice cream fixes everything.

"Are you okay, Abs?"

I don't look up to meet Nia's eyes as I consider her question.

Am I okay?

I've been trying to keep myself together since last night, but I can feel the glue starting to come apart. I thought I could do this. I thought I could be spontaneous and fun and shed my prudish skin for once in my life. Which I did. Except I didn't just take a step out; I got a running start and catapulted off the freaking ledge into the unknown.

And that's where I'm at right now—the unknown.

I know a few things, though.

First, Tristan doesn't date.

I've known that since before I even spoke to him, and I knew that before I kissed him in the bathroom. It's not like I went into this blindly; I was well aware of the unspoken rules, which became even clearer after he pulled me aside and said them to my face—just a hookup.

Second, I don't hook up.

Or, I didn't. Still don't? I don't know anymore because if I'm being completely honest, I know that if we hadn't been interrupted in his room last night, I wouldn't have stopped him from going further than kissing, or further than what we've already done. Which is how I know I've broken the single most important rule of casual hookups. I've started to actually like him.

As in, like him, like him.

"Abs?"

Looking up, I realize Jenny and Nia are watching me.

"I need to tell you guys something," I say, trying to swallow the knot in my throat. Jenny pauses the rerun of Sex and The City playing on the TV and they both sit up.

"Did something happen?" Jenny asks, tucking her legs underneath her.

"You could say that." I nod before eating the lump of ice cream from my spoon. I know I can't tell them about Tristan. It's too complicated. I still have to write this article, and I have class with him, not to mention the amount of times I'm sure we'll bump into each other at parties or events now that we actually know each other. I need them to know, just not that it's about him.

Taking a deep breath, I dig my spoon into the ice cream. "I kind of met a guy."

They both gasp dramatically, and I can't help but laugh at the sound.

"Oh, my God, Abby," Jenny squeals, pulling her blanket closer around her as she sits up, careful not to spill her wine.

"Who is it? Do we know him?" Nia asks, putting her wine glass down on the coffee table. She must be serious if she's putting down her wine.

"You don't know him," I say quickly, trying to figure out how I can stay as close to the truth without making it obvious. "He's in my newspaper class. He's helping me with the scholarship article I'm writing about Tristan."

That's a half-lie, which I guess makes it a half-truth, too.

"What's his name?"

I glance around until my eyes land on the paused scene on the TV. Carrie's on-again, off-again beau, Mr. Big, is smiling on the screen.

"For the sake of anonymity, let's just call him Mr. Big." I smirk.

Nia's eyes widen, and her devious grin makes me laugh. "Abby Ryan. Oh, my God. This is going to be good. I can feel it."

My face is already burning. I've listened to countless hookup stories from Nia, and even a fair amount from Jenny, but I've never been one to go into detail about my own sex life. Not that there was much to tell until now. I need to band-aid this—to rip it off quickly and get it over with.

"We hooked up."

There's a moment of silence in the room and then an explosion of squeals.

"When?"

"Where?"

"How far?"

"Was it good?"

"Did you finally get your O?"

"Oh, my God, Abby!"

I hide my face behind a couch pillow, suddenly wishing I would have just brought this secret to the grave, but when Nia leans forward and snatches the pillow out of my hands, throwing it across the room, I know there's no going back now.

"We need answers, Abigail." She grabs her wine as she falls back onto the couch, and when her eyes meet mine again over her glass, my cheeks burn so intensely I'm pretty sure the skin might melt off.

"Okay, well, without going into too much detail—"

"What? No. We want the details," Jenny cuts in.

"Every single one." Nia nods. "Every single one."

I take a deep breath and think back to the night at the bar. "It was the night we went out to O'Malley's."

Nia's eyes widen, and her jaw drops. "Was it in the bathroom?"

Oh, my God, was it that obvious?

I nod sheepishly and watch Nia jump to her feet, turning to Jenny. "I knew it! I told you she wasn't really sick. I called it." She turns back to me with a smug smile. "Jenny thought you were too innocent; she didn't believe me, but I knew."

"Wait . . . Mr. Big was at the bar that night?" Jenny's brows knot, trying to piece it all together.

"Mhm." I hum quickly, trying to stomp out any suspicion that it might have been Tristan. "I ran into him after we played beer pong with James and Tristan."

She seems confused, but thankfully, she was even drunker than I was at that point, so she won't be able to point out any inconsistencies in my lie.

"Tristan and I went to the bar to get water, but he disappeared," I say as casually as I can. "And then Mr. Big saw me and came over."

"Wait, let me get this straight. You, Abigail Ryan, the most innocent, rule-loving girl I know, drunkenly hooked up with a guy in the bathroom at O'Malley's?"

I roll my eyes and nod. "Yes, Jenny, miracles do happen."

"Am I being Punk'd?" She turns and looks around the room.

"I knew it," Nia repeats, sitting back in her seat with the smuggest grin I've ever seen. "Did you guys have sex?" She eyes me over the rim of her wine as she takes a long sip.

Does oral sex count as sex?

"Not in the traditional sense," I say slowly, hoping that I won't have to say the words out loud. I might have made it this far into the conversation without dying, but if I have to say the words oral sex, I will implode of complete and utter embarrassment.

Nia glances at Jenny and then back at me before licking the air in a long, languid motion, her brow raising in question.

I nod and shovel another bite of ice cream into my mouth. I keep my eyes on the carton as I dig my spoon in again, and when I finally look up, the grins on both of their faces make me groan.

"Did you . . .?" Jenny asks as her eyes widen.

Did I orgasm? Yes.

"Mhm." I hum and bite down on the inside of my lip to keep from smiling, but when I look up to see my two best friends grinning at me like I told them I just won the lottery, I can't hold it back.

"I feel like a proud mama bear right now," Nia says, wiping a fake tear away. "I need to know this guy's name and address. I have to send him a thank you note with flowers or chocolate or something." She grins as I stick my tongue out at her.

"So, have you seen him since?" Jenny asks, too excited to be off-topic.

"A few times." I nod. "He's still helping me out with the article."

"And have you hooked up again?"

"No." I shake my head. "But . . . we almost kissed the last time I saw him."

"So, you guys are like friends with benefits then?" she clarifies.

Is that what we are?

I mean, technically, we've only hooked up once. I don't think you could really categorize us as much more than a one-time hookup if we haven't actually hooked up again, no matter how many times we've almost kissed.

"I don't think it's that serious." I shake my head.

"Well, whatever you are, welcome to the amazing world of casual hookups, Abs. No feelings, no strings, no stress." I don't meet her gaze and the silence stretches taut between us. "You don't have feelings for him . . . right?" Nia prompts, but I can tell that she already knows by her tone. "Oh, no, Abby."

"Oh, yes," I say flatly, stabbing my spoon into the ice cream a little too aggressively before popping another spoonful into my mouth.

"Have you told him?" Jenny asks.

"There's no point. He's made his opinion on the situation very clear. He doesn't date."

"He sounds like a douchebag," Nia snaps. "But hey, now that you're pseudo-friends with Beck, you should ask him what to do. There's no better person to get advice from on fuck boys than the king fuck boy himself."

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, but when I look up at my best friends, I can't hold it in. "He's not that bad," I defend with a shrug. "He's actually kind of sweet."

She waves my comment off as if I couldn't possibly be telling the truth. "Yeah, I'm sure he's great." I can practically taste her sarcasm. "So great that I would usually suggest that you hook up with Beck to get over Big, since the best way to get over someone is to get under someone new, but the last thing we need is for you to fall for Tristan Beck." She snorts, falling back into the couch cushion.

I try to keep my laugh as casual as I can as I take another bite. "Yeah." I shake my head like the thought alone is hilarious. "That's the last thing I need."