The staircase was packed with rowdy revelers, most of them hanging onto the banister in an effort to remain upright. Pacey sat on the top step, staring down at the party, an untouched beer in his hands. He’d been relieved at the door an hour after Joey’s surprise entrance and since then, he’d been sitting in the same place, not drinking.

Joey, on the other hand, had been doing the exact opposite. He’d lost track of how many bottles and glasses she’d gone through, although he was still quite aware of how many horny men she’d left in her wake.

“What the hell are you doing, Witter?” His roommate, Marcus, sat next to him and gestured out at the crowd. “You’re sitting here like some sort of Christian Coalition member instead of being the life of the party like usual. What the fuck is up with that?”

“I’m not in much of a mood for a party.”

“Right.” Marcus laughed incredulously. “The day Pacey Witter isn’t in the mood for a party is the day that I turn down some nubile freshman because I’m not in the mood for sex.” He stood up and slapped Pacey on the back of the head. “There’s fresh meat down there, Witter. And you’re an idiot if you don’t go get you some.”

“So I’m an idiot.”

“Pacey, Pacey, Pacey,” Marcus shook his head. “You’ve had all the pretty young things on campus. You’re going to have to branch out into the outer schools if you want something new and exciting.”

“I don’t want to get laid, Marcus.”

“Right. Who are you and what have you done with the real Pacey Witter.” He poured some of his beer on Pacey’s head. “Get drunk, man. Whatever the fuck is wrong with you is going to be so much better under a layer of alcohol, okay?”

Pacey brushed the trickle of beer away from his eyes, trying not to get angry. He was just as obnoxious and loutish when the occasion called for it; it wasn’t Marcus’ fault that his evening had been ruined. “You know, I don’t get why you aren’t down there after some of that pussy.”

“Looking out for my brother,” he reminded Pacey, taking a step down. “Besides, the vantage point is much better from up here. You can see what’s real and what ain’t.” He gestured to one of the girls who was dancing, her low-cut blouse offering them both an impressive view. “She’s pretty hot, huh?”

“The blonde?”

“Nah.” Marcus shook his head and pointed at the woman he was talking about. “Her.”

Pacey followed his gesture, somehow knowing who would be at the receiving end of his attention. “Yeah. Hot as far as looks go. But everything underneath is cold as the fucking Antarctic. Unless you’re some pretty, golden boy.” He smirked and finally took a long drink from his beer, mirroring Joey’s movements. “Forget about her, my friend. She’s hung up on her high school sweetheart.”

“A real pansy, huh?” Marcus nodded. “Maybe she just needs a real man to show her the error of her ways. Show her that high school boy ain’t nothing but a sad excuse from the male gene pool.”

“More power to ya.” Pacey told him flatly. “Let me know if you can get in her pants. I’d be interested in finding out how many fingers you have left after the frostbite.”

“Daaaamn, Pace. You got something for this girl?”

Getting to his feet, Pacey shook his head and turned away from the party, heading back toward his room. “Nah, man. She’s all yours.”

Joey leaned against the wall and took another long drink from her beer. Tilting her head closer to Maureen’s, she nodded at one of the guys close to them. “What about him?”

“No.”

“You’ve got to get over that guy, Mo. He’s a jerk.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t see that coming to a frat party and getting wasted just so that I can hook up with some random guy is the answer, Joey.” She smiled. “Unless of course it was that guy we met when we came in.”

“Pacey?” Joey’s voice raised an octave. “Trust me, you’re a hell of a lot better off without him. You think David was bad, Pacey is David times ten.”

“I like bad boys, Joey,” Maureen reminded her. “The badder the better.”

“Pacey’s not bad like that. He’s not motorcycle-y and greasy and dirty. He’s…obnoxious and rude and self-serving. He only gives a shit about what he wants. And he’s likely to leave you just as the going gets good.”

“But you’d never met him before tonight?”

“I knew him briefly. But then I got over it.”

“He’s hot, Joey. He’s like sex personified.” Maureen took a drink from her glass, her gaze locked on Pacey as he stood up and started to leave the party. “I bet he kicks ass in bed.”

“He’s probably one of those guys who only gives a fuck for his own pleasure,” Joey stated, her voice strained. “Doesn’t care if the girl gets off so long as he’s having fun.”

“Like I care,” Maureen stated, pushing away from the wall. “If his other muscles are as nice as his arm muscles, I'm perfectly content with his pleasure. Hopefully those arm muscles come from doing my favorite type of push-ups.”

Joey grabbed Maureen’s arm, spilling her drink in the process. “Where are you going?”

She nodded toward Pacey who was leaving the party. “His room.”

“Don’t.”

“You want him, Joey? Because it doesn’t sound like you do, but maybe you’re just protesting too much.” She looked at her friend, her hands on her hips. “If you don’t, I’m going to have him. And I really don’t need your permission. Or your approval.” She tugged her hand free of Joey’s grip and started for the stairs. “Have fun without me.”

Joey stared after her friend, biting her lip to keep from speaking. She hadn’t seen Pacey in two years; she had no right to dictate who he slept with. Hell, even if she’d seen him yesterday, she had no rights on his sexual activities. And she didn’t care. Let him fuck whoever he wanted.

She just didn’t want to know any of the details.

Pacey lay back on his bed and stared up at the ceiling. He’d slipped a tie around the doorknob to keep anyone from bothering him, hoping that, should Marcus manage to get lucky with Joey, it wouldn’t happen anywhere in his immediate vicinity.

Rubbing his eyes with one hand, he sighed and forced himself into a sitting position. It was stupid and ridiculous to let the mere presence of Joey Potter ruin what was supposed to be a fantastic evening for him. Marcus was right. There were plenty of women, most of whom he didn’t know, to go around. And with luck, he could be drunk again in just a few minutes.

“Am I interrupting?”

Pacey turned his head to see Joey’s friend Maureen at the door. “I took a chance that you were playing the hard to get game instead of hide and seek.”

“Not hiding anything.”

“Well,” she smiled as she shut the bedroom door, “not yet.” Moving over to sit at the end of Pacey’s bed, she gave his a coy glance. “So, you were flirting with me downstairs.”

“I’ve been known to do such things.”

“And it all stopped when Joey walked in. So before this goes any further, I want to know if we’re going to have a problem with the fact that she and I are friends.”

“I don’t have a problem with it.” He turned so that he was facing her. “Do you?”

“Not in the slightest.” She set her drink down on the floor and moved closer to him. “In fact, I have a feeling you could make me forget I even know her.”

Pacey swallowed as her hand crept up his thigh to his crotch, cradling the slight bulge in his jeans. “You’ve heard of me, then?”

“Rumors.” She leaned into him and kissed him softly on the corner of his mouth. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Some of the girls say that if you want the best lay of your life, you put yourself in Pacey Witter’s hands.”

“It’s not my hands that do my best work,” he assured her, turning his head so that he could taste her lips. “Although they’re not bad.”

Maureen got onto her knees and pushed against Pacey’s shoulders, sending him back onto the bed. Stretching out beside him, she placed her hand back on his crotch, rubbing him through the denim. “You think you can live up to your reputation?”

His cock swelled underneath her ministrations, blood rushing to meet her demand. “Does it feel like I have any intention of disappointing you?”

“No,” she breathed, meeting his lips with her own. Pacey’s tongue entered her mouth as he reached over her to pull her closer, turning onto his side. He threw one leg over both of hers, trapping her hand against his cock and pulling her body closer all at once.

She tasted of smoke and alcohol; the steamy scent of too many bodies radiating off of her. The sound of the party echoed around them in the empty room as he kissed her, his tongue exploring her mouth as she gently kneaded the flesh in her hand. He thrust into her palm, the fabric of his jeans hissing between them. Pulling back from the kiss, Pacey traced his tongue down the length of her neck. “I’m going to fuck you, you’re well aware of that, right?”

Maureen nodded and rolled onto her back, unbuttoning her shirt as she did so. “Oh yes.” Getting to his knees, Pacey unbuckled his belt then unfastened his jeans. He pushed the material down his legs then eased his boxers down as well. Maureen’s eyes were locked on his cock as he freed it, the hard flesh weaving slightly. “You’re going to fuck me with that and I’m not going to walk for a week.”

Pacey grinned cockily. “Pretty much.”

He pushed her legs apart, raising her short skirt over her thighs. The scent of her arousal permeated the room as he tugged her panties down and worked them off her body. The material was wet in his hands and he licked his lips as he looked at her. “You got me all wet,” she told him softly.

“Hell, I haven’t even started.” He leaned down, settling between her legs. He kissed the inside of her thigh, sucking on the creamy flesh before raising his hand to the swollen flesh of her labia. His thumb brushed the aroused skin and she gasped, arching her hips off the bed just slightly.

Placing kisses on her skin, Pacey worked his way up until his lips were poised over her, ready to taste her. Maureen’s hands were wound in his short hair, tugging on the strands as if urging him closer. He swept his tongue along the length of her cleft, flicking the hard nub of her clitoris with just the tip then pulling back as she shuddered with pleasure.

“Pacey!” Marcus’ voice preceded him into the room as he shoved the door open, pulling a pair of blondes into the room with him. Pacey buried his face in the sheets of his bed, grinding his overeager cock into the mattress. “Dude, your bitch is freaking out down there.”

“I don’t have a bitch, Marcus.” He hissed through gritted teeth. He managed to turn his head to glare at his friend. “Although I do have some business I’m trying to attend to here.”

“So I see.” Marcus whistled. “Damn nice business too. But your friend, the ice bitch? She’s down there practically fucking Matt on the dance floor. Now, I don’t mind that sort of display normally, because she’s pretty sweet to watch in action, but he’s ready to pin her to the wall and take what she’s offering. So unless you want her frigid pussy to cause him to lose his dick for a not-so-worthy cause, you’d better get your ass down there.”

“Let him.”

“She’s riding him like some fucking bronco, dude.” He grabbed a handful of Pacey’s hair and lifted his head off the bed. “Legs wrapped around him, arms around his shoulders. It’s like poetry in motion.”

“Jesus Christ,” Pacey forced himself off the bed, pulling up his boxers and jeans. Leaving them unfastened, he looked over his shoulder at Maureen. “I’ll be right back.”

“Don’t bother.” She gave him a glare and climbed off the bed, looking for her panties. “As liberated as I might be, I’m not about to put up with some guy leaving me hot and bothered on his bed while he goes off to rescue another woman.”

“I’m not rescuing her. I could care less if Joey gets herself fucked senseless. I just don’t want it happening where I am. Because ultimately when it comes down to the rest of the world finding out, I’m going to get blamed for it.” He slammed out of the bedroom, not sparing a glance for Marcus or his two friends. “I’m going to fucking kill her,” he vowed to himself as he stormed down the steps.

The entire party seemed to have formed one big circle around Joey and Matt. Not that Matt was doing much. Mostly he was just standing still while Joey straddled his hips, her legs locked around his waist, her ass grinding down against his cock, his erection visible to the entire party. Her shirt was open, revealing the red lace bra she was wearing underneath it. Matt’s knees were starting to shake and his hands on Joey’s ass were trembling.

Puffing out an angry breath, Pacey shoved the crowd out of the way and grabbed Joey’s arm, disengaging her body from Matt’s. Matt fell to the floor, his head hitting the ground loudly. Joey stumbled; her arm locked in Pacey’s iron grip keeping her from tumbling to the floor as well. Without a word, Pacey pulled Joey through the room and out the front door, heading for the storage room at the side of the house.

The pale moonlight told him everything he needed to know. Her eyes were glazed with booze and lust, her body tight with repressed sexual energy. “What the fuck were you doing in there, Potter?”

“I was getting close to getting lucky. Until you came along. That seems to be a theme with us, doesn’t it?”

“Not really, no.” He fished in his pocket for his keys, drawing her gaze down to his jeans. She ran a finger along the open fly, the light touch causing his body to respond. “Stop it.”

“Why?” She sank to her knees in front of him, using her hands to push the material further apart. She placed her lips against the thin cotton of his boxers. “Afraid you can’t resist me?” Her tongue snaked out and ran along the edge of his cock, outlining the upper border of it.

“Stop it.” He grabbed her hair and tugged her face away from his body. “I’ve done this dance with you before and I have no intention of doing it again. Get off your knees.”

“That’s not what you said last time.”

“No,” he agreed, transferring his grip to her arm and hauling her to her feet. “Last time I told you to get off your fucking knees and go fuck Dawson.” He shoved her away from him toward his car. “And you did just that. Now walk.”

She walked in front of him, giving him a nasty glare over her shoulder. “You never let me have any fun. You never have. Always the white knight riding in to rescue me even when I didn’t want you to.”

Pacey stopped walking and gestured back toward the house. “You want to fuck some guy you don’t know in front of a party full of people? Be my guest. Just don’t do it at my frat house, okay? Because the last thing I need is to see Dawson Leery’s sanctimonious face again when he inevitably blames me for your downfall.”

“I was having fun.”

“More power to you, Jo. Have all the fun you want. Just don’t do it around me.” He reached his car and unlocked it. “Get in. I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

“Fine. I’ll take you out and sober your ass up before you go home so that you don’t get a lecture, okay? And you can just tell the little man that I found you on a street corner and rescued you from the vice cops.”

“Were you fucking her?”

“Who?”

Joey leaned against the back door of the car, unwilling to look at him. “Maureen.”

“I was trying my damnedest, Joey. But once again, you got in the way of my sex life.” He walked around the car to the driver’s side and climbed in. “I’m going out for coffee. Are you coming?”

She slid in and shut the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “So you haven’t been suffering in my absence, huh? You’ve got quite the reputation from what I heard tonight.”

“And reputation is everything, right? What was your reputation in high school, Jo? Completely based in reality?”

“You’ve had girlfriends…”

“Yeah, I have. Just like you’re shacking up with Dawson.” He started the car and pulled out onto the street. “Let’s not pretend that we just broke up a day or two ago here, Joey. We broke up two and a half years ago. Yeah, I’ve gotten laid since then. Hell, I got laid about two weeks after you screwed Dawson. But that was still two weeks later than you.”

“I…”

“And don’t bother denying it, okay? Because I heard all the gory details at school the next day. From Dawson. In fucking technicolor. And then, when I didn’t believe it, because I knew you couldn’t be that much of a cold-hearted bitch, I went to Jen. And she told me without telling me. Because she was too fucking ashamed at having been any part of it. Nice that you used our friends to help you out with that little subterfuge, Joey.”

“I…” She looked out the window, not willing to face him.

“What hurt more than that though, was the fact that you came to me that next night, the night after you fucked him and you wanted to go down on me. One of my fondest wishes coming true, if only I hadn’t known the truth. What I can’t figure out is why you did it. Did the Potter hormones finally kick in and you wanted someone to compare it all with? Wanted a pocketful of experience to take to college?”

“I didn’t mean…”

“Fuck you.” He snapped on the radio and turned the volume up to drown out anything she might say. They drove until he found an all night coffee shop and pulled into the parking lot. Turning off the car, he didn’t even bother to look at her as he climbed out.

Joey hurried after him, sitting across from him in one of the smaller booths. They both ordered coffee and she waited until the waitress had gone before even trying to speak. “I’m not with Dawson anymore.”

“I’ve heard that song and dance before, thanks very much.” He grabbed the salt shaker and toyed with it, not meeting her gaze. “Besides, I don’t give a fuck. I thought I made that pretty clear. You can fuck who you want, Joey. Just don’t make it look like I might be in any way responsible.”

“You didn’t talk to any of us after the whole thing happened, so I doubt you know what went on.”

He met her gaze steadily. “You fucked Dawson. Then the next night, not realizing that I knew the whole deal, you came over and offered to finally…what did you call it, Jo? Consummate our love? Yeah, you offered to consummate our love with me. When I stopped laughing in your face, I told you to go away. Then you sank to your knees and unbuttoned my jeans. I told you to go fuck Dawson since that seemed to be what you preferred. You left.”

“A lot happened after that.”

“Yeah? I don’t care. You and Dawson couldn’t manage happily ever after? My heart goes out to you.” He smiled at the waitress as she set his coffee in front of him, the barest hint of his innate charm causing her to smile in return. After she left, he turned back to Joey, the smile completely gone. “Just do me a favor, Jo. Drink your coffee, be sober. Go. Home.”

“He was dating Gretchen at the time, you remember?” Pacey sighed and poured sugar into his coffee, ignoring her question. “Well, I found out, after he fucked me, that he’d been fucking her for months. And when I went to see him that night after…after you, he told me that it had been fun and he really appreciated that I’d saved my virginity for him, but he was interested in other things now. Other people.”

“Aw. Poor Joey.”

His distinct lack of concern caused her to smirk. “Yeah. My sob story. So there I was, no Dawson. No Pacey. All of a sudden, I had to have a life on my own, which is what I’d told people for so long was what I really wanted. Only I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted friends. And I didn’t even have that. Jen wouldn’t speak to me because of what I did to you. And Jack would talk to me only when Jen wasn’t around. And you…it was like I was dead to you.”

“You were.”

“And now it’s damaged beyond repair,” tears danced in her eyes. “When I saw you tonight, all I could think of was that night on my bed, do you remember that night, Pacey?”

He shook his head. “The only memory of you that I have revolves around your mascara stained face as you looked up at me, begging me to let you suck my cock to prove how much you loved me.”

“We were lying there, just kissing,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Your hands were in my hair and you were stroking it. I wanted you so much, and I kept whispering it to you between kisses. You kept telling me to shush, said it wasn’t time, we weren’t ready. So I unwound your hand from my hair and I brought it down to my breast. Do you remember, Pacey?”

He took a drink of coffee, disinterest in his eyes.

“Your thumb brushed over my nipple and it tightened. I stared up at you in wonder, my whole body alive with heat. You’d made me feel that way before, but never so strong. You kept playing with it, brushing it just enough to make me want more. And then you planted a row of kisses along my neck, down my shirt until you took my nipple between your teeth.”

“I moaned your name then, raising off the bed and offering myself to you. I’d never wanted anyone or anything so much as I wanted your mouth on me. You sucked on me through my shirt, making a wet spot as your tongue played with me. I pushed you away and you were breathing so heavy, sure that I was going to end it there. But instead I pulled off my shirt and you groaned when you saw I wasn’t wearing a bra.”

Pacey’s hand gripped the coffee mug tightly, and he watched the liquid move in the cup.

“You came back to me and pushed your knee between my legs, pinning me to the bed as you took my breast into your mouth. You sucked on it, nibbled on the nipple, and licked me. And then when I thought I couldn’t take any more, you moved over to my other breast and did it all again. I ground down against your knee because I was so hot, I wanted you so much.”

She took a sip of her own coffee, her throat hoarse from the whispered words of passion. She fidgeted slightly in her chair, the memory burning hot in her body. “I begged you to stop, told you if you didn’t, I wasn’t going to be able to. So you pulled away from my breasts and kissed my stomach. Your mouth open, your tongue on my skin. Kissed me all the way down to my jeans, which you unfastened so slowly I wanted to scream.”

“More coffee?”

Pacey looked up at the waitress, his eyes haunted. “Please.” He held out his cup and she refilled it. Joey just watched him as he pulled the cup back when she was finished, cradling it in his hands. He refused to look at her, refused to even acknowledge what she was saying.

As soon as the waitress was done, Joey spoke again. “I arched off the bed so that you could slide them over my hips and down my legs. You eased them off of me, moving away to do it and I cried out just a little because I missed feeling you against me. Then you lay beside me, your hand on top of my panties, your fingers putting just the slightest bit of pressure on me, just enough to let me know how much I was missing.”

“Is there a point to this?” He finally spoke, raising his eyes to hers. The normal stormy blue was black and wounded. “We almost fucked once. I know. I was there. I did all the work, remember? And then you ruined it all. You know what the worst thing was, Joey? It wasn’t that you slept with Dawson, although that ranks pretty fucking high on my scale of betrayal. It was that you did it so cavalierly. You just went from stopping me, which I took with pretty good grace considering the raging hard-on I had that night, to fucking him. No qualms, no questions. Even that wasn’t so bad. What hurt, what really hurt Joey, was that I had to hear about it from Dawson. I had to hear all the details.” He took another drink of coffee before slamming his cup back on the table, causing some of the dark liquid to spill out. “You think you’re turning me on by reminding me of what we did that night? You’re not. All you’re doing is forcing me to relieve every detail, echoed in my head by Dawson’s voice as he told me what he did to you, what you did to him.”

Joey’s eyes widened then narrowed as she realized the look in his eyes wasn’t pain from memories he’d pushed away. Not the right memories, anyway. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not. It happened soon enough that I was able to get on with my life. I’m really sorry that you and Dawson weren’t able to make a go of it. Except for the really sorry part. But don’t expect sympathy from me. Ever.” He picked up his coffee and drained it then stared at her evenly. “I’ll just ignore you until you’re ready to go, okay?”

She nodded, drinking silently from her half-full cup. After a few moments, she spoke again. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you tonight.”

“You didn’t embarrass me, Jo. You made an ass out of yourself. But hopefully everyone’ll be too drunk to remember.”

“You hate me, don’t you?” She asked the question as if it had just occurred to her. “That’s what this is. You aren’t jealous or hurt or anything like that. You hate me.”

“You know how Dawson used to always say that the worst moment of his life was when he walked out onto his porch that night and found out about us?”

“Yeah.”

“The worst moments of your life are ones you don’t ever want to look back on because they kill you. It wasn’t what you did that killed me, Joey. It wasn’t what you did that hurt me. It was the fact that you did it without any regard to me or to us. To this day I have no fucking idea why you slept with him, what you gained from it, what it meant to you. At least with us…when we were together, we knew what we were doing and why. We knew it was going to hurt people and we did everything that we could to keep it from happening because we didn't want that.” He swallowed hard and lay his hands flat on the table. “I got over you, Joey. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always love you. You don’t fall as hard as I did and get over it, but I don’t…you don’t own me anymore.”

“I never wanted to own you, believe me. After everything I went through with Dawson thinking I belonged to him, I never wanted to make you feel that way.”

“So set me free, Jo. Tell me why you did it. I’m getting tired of carrying this anger around. And I don’t want to hate you. I don’t want to remember Dawson’s voice when I think about loving you.”

Joey bowed her head to avoid his earnest eyes, not willing to meet them with her own. “I don’t have an answer for you, Pacey. I wish I did.”

“You don’t know why you fucked him?”

“I had reasons then,” she admitted. “None of which make sense or matter in hindsight. I was stupid. Stupider than usual. And I hurt the person I loved the most.”

Pacey nodded and slid out of the booth, sadness replacing the anger in his eyes. “Come on. I’ll give you a ride back to the party.”

She nodded and joined him, walking at his side back to the car. By his side, but a million miles away.

12/02/00