#and i got the Page of Wands which would be a killer band name but i mightttt change it to the Page of Cups because. i mean the picture

[snobgoblin]

for my assignment we had to take pictures of ourselves and make an album cover to show our Photoshop Skills and I'm doing something. I don't know what that something is but I'm doing it. also woooo you get to see some of my outfits

I am unfortunately aware that some of this is from shien but. everything I wear is either gifted or thrifted we do Not support shien in this house

[gravelyhumerus]

Criminal Minds College AU

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Title: “I may just take your breath away”

Relationship: Jemily 

Summary:

Emily Prentiss, college sophomore, absolutely does not have a crush on the girl across the hall.  

Slow-burn Jemily college AU where they live across the hall and despite all odds, the universe pushes them together. AKA they’re silly gay babies who pine after each other for months. 

Read it on AO3

Tumblr:  One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen, Fifteen, Sixteen, (bonus scene), Seventeen, Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty, Epilogue

“Come in, it’s open!” Emily Prentiss yelled out over her music blasting out of the laptop on her desk. She was listening to her pregame playlist, which was chock full of throwbacks, middle-school jams and of course, The Killers to keep things interesting.

Derek Morgan pushed open her dorm room door and waltzed in. He had a pair of light blue jeans on, held up by a brown belt, with a white t-shirt on top. He jumped on top of Emily’s slightly-too-high bed, and bounced as he grinned at her. Derek was many things, shy was definitely not one of them.

“You look hot,” Emily said, with as much sarcasm as she could manage, looking him up and down. She could tell he dressed up.

“You know it, princess.”

Rifling through his backpack, he grinned as he pulled out two blue college-branded metal water bottles, filled with what was probably not water at all.

“I made us sangria!”

Emily laughed, then spun back around in her desk chair. She still needed to finish her makeup. She had her foundation and eyebrows done, but she needed to focus as she applied her eyeliner.

“Did you just mix some juice into the wine?” She asked, taking the bottle from him, having a sip of the fruity liquid.

“Yup! There’s going to be a keg there, but I wanted to give us options.”

Emily laughed before focusing on her mascara wand gliding across her lower eyelashes, trying to finish up so they could start preing for the party. She wasn’t quite dressed yet either, still wearing her class jeans and not her going out jeans (there was an important distinction between these that mostly involved whether or not she could wear them with a belt.) Morgan was about five minutes earlier than she expected. Moreover, the boy had only sprung the invitation to the party during their lab that afternoon.

As much as she hated to admit it, Derek was basically 90% of Emily’s non-academic social life, the second year boy already very well connected due to his football scholarship, letting him in on all of the good parties. Unfortunately that also meant for Emily that he would spring themed parties like anything but clothes, or no cups allowed on her with absolutely no heads up most weekends.

Emily will not wear a tote bag as a skirt again if she can help it.

Despite the excessive drinking and mixed bag of party attendees, Emily genuinely enjoyed the boy’s company. Anyways, he was the best beer-pong partner that she’s ever had.

“Can I hop on aux?” He asked, leaning over her computer before she could even protest.

“Sure,” she replied, knowing he was already on his own Spotify account and putting on his playlist titled ‘FOR THE BOYS and emily’ that he found hilarious. She knew she could get him to sing along to the Mamma Mia! (2008) soundtrack once he was a few shots in, but for now she resigned herself to wordless EDM.

He sat on her desk, bobbing his head along to the beat.

Emily reached into the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out a smallish bottle of vodka and two shot glasses, with their college’s crest etched into the glass. For a school that denounced drinking-culture, they had a shocking amount of merch for sale that encouraged it.

She filled each to the line, and slid one towards her friend.

“Bottoms up,” she said, as they cheersed the foul tasting liquid. Morgan grinned and winked at her before shooting it back with the confidence that only a nineteen year old could have.

Vodka still made her queasy, but being underage meant that the college students would take what they could get. Morgan’s senior friends would boot alcohol for them for an extra five bucks, but only every few weeks.

The one thing about the states that Emily still couldn’t wrap her head around was the backwards alcohol policy. Almost everywhere else on earth she would already be legally drinking. Hell, when she was 16 she was passed out in a ditch in rural England, drunk off her ass on legally acquired beer. Even now, if they drove north of the border, Emily could be off to the bars, no questions asked. America was absurd.

“How was the rest of your day?” Emily asked him as she stood up, digging through her dirty laundry to find her other pair of jeans. She tossed aside her fuzzy pjs, a bra and an assortment of band tees but her jeans must’ve been at the bottom. She needed to do laundry but was ripe out of quarters.

“Eh,” he made a face, “I had to finish up that quiz for psych, but honestly I just needed to catch up on some readings. I had like fifty pages of a badly scanned book from like a hundred years ago to annotate.”

“Reading? In this economy?” Emily snarked at him, still rooting through the bin. She knew her blue jeans were here somewhere.

“Well I know you can’t read,” he replied in a haughty tone, “doesn’t mean the rest of us have to remain unenlightened!”

“Ha-ha.”

There they were, right at the bottom of the bin. She changed right then, with Morgan politely averting his eyes, despite the fact that both have seen just about everything in the year or so that they’ve been acquainted.

No, they didn’t hook up or anything, it wasn’t like that.

It was the strange phenomenon that only could happen in college where you get really close really fast. Emily’s RA had explained it to their first-year floor, likening it to soldiers in the war (Emily wasn’t sure if the metaphor was kosher, but it was apt.). Young adults first starting out in the world, free from their family supervision and previous lives, cling on to those around them for stability. The RA explained this as in a cautionary tale, explaining that this can lead to high emotions, to fights, and… a bit more.

This talk led into their floor-cest talk, which was apparently required in every co-ed dorm at their school. Emily was the first to point out the heteronormativity in that policy. Floor-cest, for the uninitiated, was the concept of hooking up with someone on your floor in the dorm. It was formally discouraged by residence life staff. It was easy to have meaningless sex, harder when you have sex with someone you live down the hall from. Things could get messy.

Emily and Derek got this talk on move in day, both sitting cross-legged on the floor of their common room as their RA, a bubbly girl named Carol, explained the fundamentals of dorm life. Emily has been dropped off by her mother’s driver, who helped her unload her things.

Emily was still reeling from being surrounded by happy families, of crying parents and bitter that her mother was too busy to even send her own daughter off to school. Not that Emily wanted her there or anything, but the gesture would have been nice.

She remembered the startling moment when Derek walked straight into her room and offered his hand, introducing himself to his new neighbour.

They shared a wall, the co-ed bathroom down the hall, and most of their free time for their first year at college.

He had assumed that the driver, Paul who was one of Emily’s favourites out of her mother’s staff, was Emily’s father, which started things off on an awkward note. Soon she was swept up in a whirlwind of his family: his mom and sisters who insisted that Emily pose for photos of Derek and ‘his new dorm friend.’

A year later, Emily and Morgan were basically siblings. Emily didn’t actually have any siblings, but after going to Chicago for thanksgiving with the Morgan family, she was pretty sure she had officially been adopted.

Last year, they had a much nicer dorm, one of the newer ones with big windows and nice common spaces. This year they were both living in the oldest residence, a beautiful red brick building, covered with ivy, but the inside was all painted this gross beige, and the paint would chip off whenever Emily tried to hang her posters. There was also no air conditioning, the showers didn’t get too hot and the kitchen smelt like eggs. It was definitely a downgrade, but at least Morgan was on the same floor as her again.

Morgan had lucked out and gotten a corner room with tons of windows, and Emily was right next to the bathroom and could hear when anyone flushed.

After donning the jeans and a black tank top, Emily grabbed her leather jacket and they were ready to go.

“Another shot?” Derek asked, grinning at her mischievously.

“Of course,” Emily said. “Where are we even going anyways?”

“Well, you remember David, the TA from our psych lab? His housemates are throwing a party in their backyard. I heard there was going to be a DJ!”

“David Rossi?” Emily said incredulously, “How did you swing an invite to that?”

“I can’t reveal all of my secrets, you know that pretty lady.”

Emily scoffed. It was probably through their mutual friend Aaron Hotchner, who despite not being much of a partier, was very in the loop about the happenings on campus.

“Did you invite you know who?” Derek asked, a bit too casually as Emily locked her door.

Emily refused to bite.

“She definitely has better things to do than hang out with the likes of us.”

---

“I’m a criminology major,” Emily repeated, the exasperation in her voice palatable.

The boy, who was on the rugby team as she already learned, had asked her what her major was. He misheard her and began asking her how she likes studying biology.

The music was loud and the boy was clearly wasted off his ass. She was pretty sure she saw him do a keg stand in the kitchen earlier.

Emily took another sip of her drink, keeping it close to her chest. She looked around. They were only five minutes off campus at a decent-sized student house. The room was close to being at capacity, the old home creaking under the weight of dozens of students crammed into the living room. Music blared on a strangely impressive speaker system. The party was at its peak in the backyard, and was probably only an hour from being shut down by the cops if it got much louder.

Emily had carefully positioned herself next to the open window, enjoying the slight breeze as the body heat was making the old house steamy with humidity. This also happened to be the location of the bong, but she accepted the trade-off.

Derek was currently playing king’s cup, a game Emily refuses to play, since last time she got roped into it she lost miserably. She was forced to drink the king’s cup: a mixture of shitty beer, whiskey, cider wine and whole cream from the fridge, as she had been a bit too slow with bouncing the ball into the red solo cup. Derek held her hair back as she puked off the porch that night.

Never again.

Emily squinted as a few people she recognized walked into the room. It was only a month into classes, so she really hadn’t had the opportunity to get to know the new random assortment of people in her building, lectures and in her general orbit but she was pretty sure she was starting to recognize some faces.

Entering the party was the blonde from the end of the hallway who always complimented Emily on her outfits when she passed and had the most colourfully decorated dorm in the entire building. ‘Penelope G.’ read her name tag pinned to her door in their RA’s loopy handwriting.

Next to her was a younger boy that she had seen in the cafeteria with Penelope before, and while Emily wasn’t that good at identifying ages, he definitely looked a bit too young to be at college. He was tall, skinny and had a mop of unruly brown hair. He was also wearing a sweater to a house party, which was a major beginners mistake. He looked around nervously.

A few seconds later, the door closed, only dumping an assortment of other boys into the already packed house.

Emily let out a breath she didn’t know she held, as she found herself hoping that Garcia’s other friend might have been joining her that night.

Derek had teased her already about the girl across the hall. Jennifer Jareau. “My friends call me JJ,” she had said. Second year varsity soccer player and communications major. The girl Derek was convinced that Emily had a crush on.

JJ was the kind of girl who propped her door open during orientation week and always waved at Emily when she walked down the hall.

She did not have a crush. She barely knew anything about her besides that she was blonde, athletic and was always smiling. Both had been so busy since school had started, and seemed to have completely opposite schedules that they hadn’t really gotten to really connect.

Whenever Emily was coming back to their floor, JJ always seemed to be leaving. And vice versa. Somehow they were on exact opposite schedules. Probably since JJ was a varsity soccer player with early morning practise, and Emily was a bit of a night owl (that was a polite way of saying insomniac procrastinator perfectionist.)

She seemed to hang out with Garcia around residence, Emily having spotted the two getting coffee or studying in the library together occasionally, hence Emily’s hopes that Garcia may have JJ in tow that evening.

JJ was also definitely, one hundred percent, completely straight. Fairy lights and Polaroid pictures on her walls straight. She even had a high school sweetheart that might survive the turkey dumping season. Emily didn’t know his name but JJ said the key word early on in the year: boyfriend.

Emily turned back to the boy in front of her, who was describing, in detail, how the stock market worked, without realizing that Emily was not paying attention at all.

He was quite conventionally attractive, with mussed curly hair and broad shoulders. He obviously was interested in her—or rather interested in talking at her and potentially sleeping with her—that despite herself, Emily decided to slot him into her roster for that evening.

Emily considered herself a reluctant bisexual. Women could make her heart skip a beat just by looking in her direction, and men could get it when the situation was right and she didn’t have any other options. The second half of this pleased her mother to no end, as when young fourteen year old Emily Prentiss had decided to come out to her mother—at one of their rare dinners together—she watched her mother grit her teeth and tell her to keep that to herself. Her mother had eventually accepted this part of her daughter’s life, but only under the assumption that Emily would eventually end up with a man, and keep the rest to herself.

Emily looked around the room and wondered if she was going to have any other options that evening besides the very talkative boy.

Excusing herself from the company of…Matthew, she thinks was his name, she tries to find Derek, who had disappeared into the kitchen. Emily weaved through the crowd, steering past a couple making out in the corner.

She turned the corner and found Derek filling his cup with more beer from the keg. He grinned up at her and did the same for her.

“I hate beer,” Emily said to him, grimacing at the scratchy taste of the fermented barley in her red solo cup.

“Suck it up buttercup, you’re in college. You also complained about the juice from earlier.”

“Yeah well, watering down eleven percent wine is as bad as this five percent crap.”

“It did taste a lot better,” he agreed. “Who was that guy?”

Emily rolled her eyes.

“Matthew attempted to explain macroeconomics to me.”

“Oh god, is that what men are like out there?” He asked. “Guess you’re stuck with me tonight.”

“Lucky me.”

“Pong?” He asked, gesturing towards the row of tables set up in the backyard, through the open door and passed the crowd milling about near the speakers. The game seemed to be wrapping up, as the two teams shook hands and reset the cups to their original positions.

“Always.”

They found their spot at one of the tables across from their new opponents: Penelope and her very young looking friend.

“Penelope Garcia?” Derek grinned, recognizing the girl from their floor and walking up to her for a hug. Their rooms were facing each other, and they had apparently gotten the chance to get to know each other.

She grinned and hugged him, clearly a lot more sober than him having only arrived minutes earlier. There seemed to be a lot of hugging at house parties, Emily discovered when she moved to America, acquaintances became close friends once alcohol was involved.

She had bright pink glasses and a matching dress, with bright artfully done make-up highlighting her large smile. Emily knew that she was a CompSci major and had loaded her dorm room desk with monitors and the largest computer set-up that Emily had seen in her life.

“Derek, my love,” Penelope replied, gushing over Emily’s friend in an unexpected, but not unsurprising way. “Fancy meeting you here! And Emily! Have you two met my fine young friend here, Spencer?”

She gestured to the boy, who waved awkwardly.

“Hi, I’m Spencer Reid,” he said.

“He’s like a boy-genius or something. He already has a degree in mathematics and he’s currently working on his second degree in engineering. Isn’t that très cool? We met at the club fair last week.”

“I’m double majoring in philosophy,” he added.

“How old are you kid?” Morgan asked him, quick to the punch.

“Uh- sixteen?” Spencer seemed to ask, shrinking into himself a bit. “I skipped a couple of grades.”

He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose, a brown sweater with a white shirt collar poking through and had tucked his brown hair behind his ears. He was still taller than Penelope, but the smattering of acne and wide eyes made it clear that he was very much a kid.

“More than a couple!” Morgan exclaimed.

He shrugged.

“Are you in intro to logic with Williams?” Emily asked, realizing that she had recognized him from somewhere.

“Yes, I am. Though I find his repeated chess metaphors a touch reductive.”

“You’re right about that. Like, we get it Willy, you play chess. Big whoop,” Emily said, then introduced herself.

He smiled at her, slightly less awkwardly this time but with a touch more confusion.

“And this is Derek Morgan,” Penelope piped in, “the most gorgeous football player I know.”

“Do you know any other football players?” Spencer asked.

“Now you hush!” She admonished him. “We have a game to play.”

“Do you two have something to drink?” Derek asked them, moving back towards their side of the long fold-up table, which was crudely painted in their schools colours.

Emily took a sip of her beer, wondering if the boy should be drinking.

Penelope babbled about how it was Spencer’s first college party, and how she was so excited that it was this one because look at the pretty string lights decorating the backyard and the fact that there was a keg, like in the movies.

Smiling at her new neighbour, Emily thought that this might also be Penelope's first college party.

Derek returned with a cup of water for Spencer, and some beer for Penelope. Spencer seemed relieved at the gesture, smiling as he took a sip. Emily marvelled at her friend's kindness, despite what anyone said about drinking culture on campuses either way, it was tough to attend a party and not drink, putting his drink in a matching red cup gave him the appearance of participation.

“Do we all know the rules?” Derek asked.

“The question you should ask,” Emily said, “Is if they’re willing to play by your rules.”

Emily had discovered that this game, depending on the people you were playing with, had radically different rules. While the premise of the game remained the same: there were six cups on each side of the table, into which you threw ping pong balls and whenever you got a ball in a cup, that cup was then taken out of the picture until there were no cups left. Depending on who you were playing with, the cups were filled with water or beer (Emily hated when they had beer in them, it make things sticky and it was very unsanitary), there were specific rules to what defined an airball, when one could get balls back, when you could call island and what was a permissible trick shot.

“Ha ha Prentiss,” Derek said to her, rolling the ping pong ball in his hands. “I wanted to know if they had played before.”

“Oh I’ve played before,” Penelope said, “and I am unbeatable.”

She waggled her fingers in a gesture that implied magic was involved.

“It’s simple physics,” Spencer added, “I’ve memorized the rules and common approaches. We’ll be more than fine. ”

“Ok pretty boy, let’s see what you’ve got. Eye to eye?”

Looking into each other’s eyes, rather than at their targets, the two boys aimed at the cups, with only Reid’s making it in.

“What the fuck Morgan,” Emily exclaimed as Penelope and Spencer whooped, “what even was that throw?”

With the other team having won the privilege of starting first, Emily was forced to toss her ball towards Penelope, who took it with a grin.

She threw first, missing the table entirely.

“Air ball!” Derek announced, leaping forward and waving his hands in front of the cups on their side, the rules granting him the ability to defend their territory.

Spencer frowned, apparently perturbed by this turn of events. He stuck out his tongue, aimed, and launched the ball, hitting Morgan right in the chest. The ball bounced off of it and fell straight down into the cup.

Derek’s draw dropped. Spencer and Penelope whooped in excitement.

“Derek, how did you lose us that cup?” Emily whined, pulling one of their cups to the side. One point to Spencer.

Derek, who had something to prove, lined up his shot. He gazed at his targets with the focus of a sniper, dunked the ball into one of their cups, dousing it with water, and rolled it in his hands, giving it a bit more weight. He aimed and fired off a quick shot into the centre-left cup. It spun around in the cup, floating above the water, but fell in. If the other team were crafty, they would have blown into the cup and Derek would have lost the point, but Emily sighed in relief when she realized that despite their first point, they didn’t know the rules well enough to beat the current reigning beer champs.

It was Emily’s turn. She took a gulp of her beer—she would always swear she was better when she was drunk because she didn’t think too hard about it—and threw. It neatly fell into the back right cup, scoring them two points for that round.

“Balls back!” Derek roared in delight.

Penelope tossed them, and the game continued.

They sunk one more shot on their turn. 3-1.

Penelope got another cup, Spencer missed. 3-2.

Derek’s ball bounced out, Emily sank hers. 4-2.

Only minutes later, after playing at breakneck speed, there were three cups left on the table and Derek and Emily were quite drunk, with Penelope not far behind. Reid, still very sober, was matching the duo with intense concentration.

It was his throw, with two cups left until his victory. He shots carefully, sinking it without a splash.

Derek and Emily had one cup to go. He went first, sending one barreling towards the cup. It hit the rim and instead of going in, it bounced towards Emily, who leaped forward and grabbed it before it fell off the table.

“Trick shot!” She yelled. Derek could try again, but only if he does it in an inventive way. At the frat house they spent a lot of time in first year, the only acceptable trick shot (under this house’s rules) was bouncing the ball off a poster of Obama. This time, Derek takes an empty cup, puts the ball in, and uses the cup to aim.

Somehow, it went in.

They leap into the air, yelling with delight. But they hadn’t won yet. The other team still had a redemption shot.

“How ya feeling kid?” Derek taunted, “Wanna give up now, save yourself the embarrassment?”

“Not a chance.”

He squinted at the table, lining up his shot with precision. With his left hand he licked his finger, sticking it up in the air like golfers do to measure the wind. Emily wasn't sure if this was a joke, something to psych Derek out, or something the boy was genuinely able to do. He frowned, seeming to ponder the information.

He aimed. He tossed it. He sunk the redemption shot.

They were in overtime.

“You can do it princess,” Derek told her, watching her with utmost intensity. Emily adjusted her stance, chugging back the last of that glass of beer, feeling the alcohol with greater focus than before.

She glanced around at the other team, but out of the corner of her eye she caught a familiar face looking at her: Jennifer Jareau from residence. Her not crush.

She was looking at her. Watching her play.

A swell of nervousness flooded up through her lungs, and she forced it out by huffing a breath.

She needed another drink. Moreover, she needed to focus.

Emily threw it. If it made it in, then they won. If she missed, Spencer and Garcia had another shot at redemption. They couldn’t lose this, not now, not in front of… uh, everyone. She was definitely not thinking about JJ in this situation. That would be something a frat boy thought about. She didn’t want to win beer pong to impress some girl, she wanted to win because she had pride.

The ball sailed through the air, Emily held her breath. It caught the lip of the cup, teetered. A splash announced that they had won.

Thank god.

With a whoop, realizing what they had done, Emily and Derek roared with joy, jumping into each other and hugging in their celebration. A few onlookers clapped, noticing how close the game had been.

They pulled apart and reached out their hands to their opponents.

“Great game,” Emily said, shaking Spencer's hand, “Really.”

He grinned despite his loss.

“Honestly I understand the principles, it’s simple parabolas and high-school level physics,” he frowned, “Unfortunately, I need to work on translating those parabolas into the real world.”

“We’ll work on it Spence,” Garcia grinned, shaking Emily’s hand while smiling at her younger friend.

Emily realized that in their celebration, Derek had spilled quite a bit of beer onto Emily’s sleeve and down the side of her shirt and it was currently dripping onto her boots. Emily sighed, handing her friend her cup.

“I’ve got beer all over me,” Emily sighed, “Get me a refill? I’m going to try to find a bathroom.”

Derek nodded and turned back to their new friends, chatting about how impressed he was with their game.

Emily felt a bit sticky, feeling the beer coat her bare arm. Walking back into the house, she glanced at the kitchen sink trying to see if there was any paper towel or something there, but no luck. The sink was full of dishes, the counters covered in assorted empties and cups, without a dishcloth in sight. Not wanting to rifle through their drawers, she made her way towards the staircase.

There was a couple making out on the staircase, which was not something Emily would do herself. It seemed a bit precarious since alcohol was involved, but, to each their own, she thought. Emily opened a couple of the doors upstairs before discovering one of the most disgusting washrooms she’d ever seen.

There was only one thing in the shower: dawn dish soap. The boys who lived here must use that for their bodies. Emily shuddered. On the sink were some toothbrushes, razors and some floss, but for some reason, no soap. Emily found a roll of toilet paper on the floor (ew), and wadded it up to try to reduce the wet spot on her side and hopefully from smelling like a brewery when she returned to residence.

For a moment, Emily found herself gazing at herself in the mirror, feeling hazy and a bit unsteady. She checked her make-up, noting that her dark red lipstick was holding up, but her mascara had smudged under her eyes giving her more of a goth vibe than the alt look she typically went for.

Emily sat down on the tub, patting the toilet paper against her wet clothing, feeling very drunk now that she was seated. Dammit Morgan, couldn’t he have spilled his beer on himself instead of her nice shirt?

The thud of the music was muffled, but there was a ringing in her ears that made everything feel very quiet. That was until there was a thundering of footsteps and the sound of a girl announcing: “I’m going to vom, right now.”

Emily sat, jaw dropped, as a red headed girl threw open the bathroom door, kneeled down on the floor next to the toilet, and relieved herself from the contents of her stomach without so much as a knock. The girl coughed into the bowl, yacking up what was probably way too much beer for the poor tiny girl.

“Oh my gosh,” said another voice, at the door, “I’m so sorry. We didn’t realize there was someone here! ”

Emily looked up, realizing the voice came from no other than Jennifer Jareau.

“JJ!” Emily said, not really knowing what else to do with the girl heaving at her feet.

“You ok?” JJ kneeled down next to her friend, carefully pulling her friend’s long hair back, tugging a hair tie off her own wrist and collecting it so that it didn’t get anything on it.

Emily felt stupid sitting on the tub, not helping anything. She tossed the rest of the toilet paper in the garbage, placing the half-empty roll on the edge of the tub.

“Can I get her some water?” Emily asked, “To rinse her mouth?”

JJ looked up at her and nodded. Emily felt herself blushing slightly as she turned away. Who let one girl’s eyes be so big, and so blue. It was rude.

She returned a minute later having had to rinse her own beer cup out in the gross kitchen sink to make sure that she wasn’t accidentally giving this girl some random person's sketchy cup.

Emily remembered that earlier Derek said that it was a varsity party, so it did make sense that JJ was also in attendance. The whole team probably was. The other girl looked like a soccer player, she had that vibe.

Emily handed the cup to JJ, who gave her a grateful smile. Emily felt their fingers touch for a moment, before JJ turned to attend to her friend.

She tried to get her to take a sip, and Emily took the moment to look JJ up and down, taking in her light blue skinny jeans, black tank and high heeled boots. She was basically wearing the uniform of a straight white girl at a houseparty. Not to say Emily wasn’t also basically wearing the same outfit, pairing the jeans with combat boots and attempting to set herself apart with her black nail polish and eyeliner that her mother once called ‘a lot.’

In contrast to Emily’s fairly undefined thin body, she took note of the strong looking shoulders that flexed as JJ kneeled down on the floor. She was definitely an athlete. Emily looked away, checking her phone, feeling suddenly embarrassed for looking at the girl.

‘Where u go bbg????’ Read a new message from Derek.

‘Girl puknigh up hre’ Emily typed, ‘Got her waterr’

Emily blinked at her typos, pressing the red underlined words, hoping her phone would correct them for her. She wasn’t that drunk.

The two girls were talking quietly, and Emily decided to take her leave, but before she could the red-head beat her to the punch deciding that she wanted to puke in peace.

“Leave me aloooooonnne Jennifer,” she wined. “Get out, I don’t want any more fucking water.”

JJ pulled back, making a face and holding her hands up in the ‘I surrender’ motion. Emily hurried out into the hall with JJ on her heels. The girl kicked the door shut angrily, and the sound of her retching ensued.

“There was a funnel,” JJ offered as an explanation. She leaned against the door. “How has your night been?”

Emily blinked. JJ was making conversation. She didn’t want Emily to leave just yet.

“So far so good,” Emily replied. “Doing better than your friend, at least.”

“That’s not hard to do. So I guess you didn’t chug from a funnel yet?” JJ quipped, smiling and revealing a perfect, white smile.

“Oh I have that scheduled for one-thirty, actually,” Emily said, pretending to check her watch and grinning.

“Let me know before you do, I’d like to watch that,” JJ said casually.

A wave of heat rushed to Emily’s face as she realized that drinking from a funnel would entail Emily on her knees, with JJ watching her… a thought that she needed to push out of her brain immediately.

“I’ll have you know,” Emily said in retort, “I can chug amongst the best. I am no stranger to these sorts of parties.”

JJ grinned. “Oh yeah?”

“I’m a reigning beer pong champ, I’ll have you know.”

They laughed.

“I saw your last victory. Very impressive.”

JJ, in a controlled fall, slid down the door and sat down in the hall, resigning herself to waiting for her friend. Emily wondered if she should return to Morgan now, but unable to tear herself away from the opportunity for a conversation with JJ.

“I’m awful at pong,” the blonde admitted. “I miss every time.”

“You probably just need a good teacher.”

JJ raised her eyebrows, “oh yeah?”

“I mean,” Emily said, sitting down onto the top step of the staircase, facing her floormate, “it’s all about hand eye coordination. It’s basically a sport. You need a coach.”

They both laughed.

“Well if that’s the case, why don’t you teach me?”

Emily gulped.

The door opened, and JJ fell back slightly before catching herself.

“I’m going home,” JJ’s friend announced.

JJ looked up at her dishevelled friend and nodded, turning back to look at Emily apologetically.

“Another time?” Emily offered, smiling before walking down the stairs and rejoining the party.

Next chapter ->