Chapter 1 Invitation To Three Days Of Complete Freedom

• Never in my life would I have thought that Liam would betray me, he was my best friend for years before we started dating.
• Yes, I know I wasn’t supposed to trust a man that much, but I guess this was why this hurts so much.
• I had not just lost my boyfriend but also a best friend.
• The clanking of the cabbie’s loose bumper was what kept the driver from hearing me losing my damn mind.
• I wiped under my eyes, dragging cheap mascara onto my knuckles. You're young, you're gorgeous, and hot girls don’t retch over a guy in the back of a cab.
• But I loved him.
• I loved him too much and I wasn’t expecting this.
• I wiped my tears, telling myself it was his loss.
• I was a hot hot chic and hot chics don’t cry over a man, I reminded myself for the umpteenth time.
• Liam hadn’t simply been a "guy." He was my best friend for three years before convincing me to let him become my boyfriend. Now I’d lost both within a few minutes.
• When the cab finally came to a stop in the front of the address I had given him, I finally heaved a sigh of relief.
• It was my other best friend’s hostel.
• We were both twenty and we were both in our final years at the popular Grey University.
• Phoebe noticed my appearance and immediately dragged me into a bone-crushing hug before I even crossed the entrance.
• My best bet was that my face was stained with tears and that was how she knew.
• “What’s wrong, Lucy?” She asked.
• "I went into his apartment... And he was with someone else, Phe," I sobbed into her shoulder.
• I was literally sobbing like a kid whose candy got snatched away.
• "I never liked that fool," Phoebe sighed, running her hand up and down my back. "I always told you that he was nothing but a bottom-feeding idiot. And I meant every word, you are too cute for him… he is a dumbhead, a shit and an asshole.” She said, patting my back.
• “You only had issues with him because you did not like me having another best friend…” I cried, hiccupping in between my sobs.
• "Well, turns out my instincts were spot-on. He’s an arrogant prick, a coward, and I guess his hair was also thinning," Phoebe said, grinning at me in spite of the situation.
• A strangled laughter escaped me before I even could control it. It was part-cry, part-sob. Phoebe laughed and held me tighter. Phoebe always had that effect on me. She could make me laugh at my saddest moments.
• Her eyes drifted to the twin duffle bags spread open on her bed, and her smile faltered. "Listen, it's terrible timing, but you remember the yacht party I told you about? The one you refused to attend because of your ‘loyalty’ to Captain Cheater," Phoebe asked.
• "The Orgasm Party?"
• "Yes, the yacht leaves in two hours and I haven't finished packing yet."
• “You want to leave me alone in such a trying time…” I started sobbing again.
• "Of course not," Phoebe exclaimed, turning to me with fire in her eyes. She hugged me again. "My love, you know just how much I had been anticipating this party. I had promised myself I would go once I got to my senior year…” She glanced at me as if she just realized something. "You could come along, after all, there is not ‘boyfriend’ to break his heart any more or is there?”
• When she said 'boyfriend,' she made the quotation gesture like she was trying so hard not to make a joke of me.
• But she was failing woefully because she was truly making a joke of me.
• I rolled my eyes at her.
• It was basically a sex party.
• She continued. "You're coming with me. You'll have three days of complete freedom on the open waters of the Pacific."
• The party happens every academic year and it was always the talk of the campus for the very first few months after.
• "I haven't registered for this yet, it's impossible," I replied stubbornly.
• "It won't be. The kid from my childhood is one of the party hosts this year. I got the plus-one pass, believe me," Phoebe exclaimed, grabbing my wrists and pulling me closer to her. "You are not sitting here and crying your eyes out because of Liam. You're going to drink, you're going to hook up with anyone you want, and you'll wear the hottest clothes."
• I looked at her already convinced. "Are you sure?” I definitely did not want to be a party crasher.
• “Yes, I do not want to leave you alone. I don’t want you thinking about that jerk or even crying over him. He’s not worth it.”
• Right on cue, I started crying again. "But I loved him so much, you know that.”
• “There are hotter guys in the party, there’s no way you wouldn’t see someone hot and attractive in a blinding way in a three-day party on the yacht. You just need to pack lots of hot bikinis.”
• “I do not have that and you know that. Yet we don’t have time on our hands.” I felt like crying again, I guess everything would make a brokenhearted girl cry. “I don't have anything with me but my class notes and my tears."
• "Lucky you," Phoebe said, smiling mischievously and going to her closet. "I bought extras because I wasn’t sure of the ones I would finally choose.”
• She went ahead to bring out the hot bikinis she hadn’t chosen. She threw three scraps of fabric onto my bed.
• I looked at them. These weren't any bikinis. These were geometric designs.
• And they were fucking hot.
• And daring!
• And revealing.
• How could she have picked something that revealing when she knew she wouldn’t be able to wear it!
• The first was a black fabric triangle sewed with dental floss. The second was a neon-red string bikini cut so high it seemed dangerous to me. The third was the shiniest metallic bikini, which consisted only of two silver coins.
• "Are you crazy?" I shouted, stepping backwards. "I'm twice your size. This won't even cover my aerolas."
• "Let Liam's ghost suffer."
• "Neither revenge nor hookups help with a broken heart."
• "Maybe not," Phoebe replied, throwing the red bikini at me. "But sobbing on campus won't help either."
• I reached for the piece of fabric. Liam's image appeared in front of my eyes: his heavy breathing, his strange partner pinned beneath him and his horrified expression when he understood that I was standing in the doorway. He had been my first everything and he threw it all away without even a thought.
• I looked down at the red bikini.
• I had never been interested in parties, I wasn’t a party girl. In fact, I hated the noise and too many people wasting time only to get drunk and laid at the end of the party.
• No, it wasn’t just my style.
• But I was already getting interested in the party, I mean, anything to take my mind off the scene I walked into a little over an hour ago.
• My boyfriend, in the arms of another girl.
• Fucking her with vigor like I wasn’t also giving him the candy.
• He had even been the first to have my candy and he had done this to me.
• "Fine," I said quietly. "Get me a cover-up."
• Half of Phoebe's closet ended up in my borrowed duffle bags before we left. An oversized knit sweater for the wind, three mini dresses, and two micro bikinis that made me sick when I even looked at them.
• I stood in front of her huge mirror, dressed in her clothes, wearing her perfume and feeling myself completely different.
• "Are you ready?" Phoebe asked, jingling the keys.
• I grabbed my duffle and got out of the room with her.