"Tayler, please!" My best friend Jessica's voice begged through the phone. I rolled my eyes, putting the phone on speaker and setting it on the counter so that I could finish brushing my teeth while she groveled some more. "I never ask you for anything."

I accidently spit some of my toothpaste at how outrages of a statement that was. "Are you kidding me?" I tried to contain my sarcastic laughter with my mouth full of foamy bubbles.

She giggled sweetly on the other end and then sighed. "Ok, so I ask you for stuff all the time, but I wouldn't usually ask you for this type of thing. I really need you today! Please? Just say you're coming." She demanded. "I can't go if you don't go, and that's just the way it is."

"I guess you aren't going then." I laughed to myself, already knowing the whole reason I'm in the bathroom getting ready was so I can meet her in a few hours.

I could practically hear the wheels in her head turning as she was trying to come up with what to say to talk me into coming to meet this guy with her. She already knows I never can say no to her, so I don't know why she's making such a production of begging.

"Tay-bae," she says my annoying nickname. "I'm really nervous."

I sigh to myself, Jessica has been my best friend for years, and though she can be demanding and a little high-strung, I love her and hate to make her unhappy. "Fine." I whisper, my heart already beating a little faster.

"What?" She asks, her voice pitching upward.

"Fine." I repeated myself. "I'll go with you to meet Germany." We giggle together.

Jess had been in a relationship that lasted the whole four years of high school, plus the first year after, but good old Garrison dumped her on her nineteenth birthday two months ago and Germany is the first guy she's talked to since. Apparently they'd had a thing at summer camp the year before our freshman year and then they lost touch. Since then, Jess had been with Garrison and her mystery guy was living two towns over from us, being the football star that then shocked everyone by deciding to join the Army instead of taking his full ride to college.

He'd reached out to her pretty much the exact second that she changed her Facebook status from in a relationship to single and they've been texting back and forth since.

"Oh!" She squealed, her voice echoing meaning she's probably in her bathroom getting ready like me. "You are the best friend in the whole entire world and I love you."

"You better." I sigh, noticing my cheeks were already growing hot just thinking about this.

Jess, always sensing when I'm retracting into myself, quickly started going over plans and making sure they sounded finalized enough that I wouldn't feel like I had the option to back out.

"Ok, so we are going to meet at the Chevron in town and you can ride over with me." She told me, hardly breaking to breathe. "We're supposed to be meeting there to watch a game, but since I just got out of the shower, I'm pretty sure we'll be missing the first quarter. I don't know who all is going to be there, but I hope it goes ok." She stammers on while I wash my face. "I'm so nervous about it. I haven't seen him in years, and you've seen his pictures, he is seriously gorgeous. Probably too good looking for me."

I shake my head, rolling my eyes even though she can't see me. "Jess, don't be stupid, you know you're gorgeous."

"You have to say that because you're my friend." Her voice is questioning, like she really is waiting for me to disagree with her. I don't though because even though I love her, there's no reason for me to have to further tell her what she already knows to be true.

"All the texts you've showed me prove that he is obviously interested in you, so he must not think you're not good enough." I tell her instead. It gets a little tiring to hear a girl who has always been effortlessly popular and pretty talk herself down. I remind myself that everyone has insecurities, even the most beautiful people, and I go back to listening to her talk back and forth about wanting to go, and then the next second threatening that she isn't going because she can't do this. "Jess, you're going." I tell her. "Now what should I wear?"

"Just something cute."

"Ok, so like what?" I twirl my straight chestnut brown hair around my middle finger and wait.

"Anything will be cute, but I'm wearing a tank top and my red skinny jeans."

I furrow my thin eyebrows, massaging out the crease that appears between them. I've got to remember to stop scowling all the time. This is why people tell me I have RBF, or resting bitch face. Its also going to be why I get wrinkles prematurely. I'm not even twenty yet and I'm already worrying about lame things like that.

I nearly drop all of my makeup out of my lap when my roommate, Macy, busts into the bathroom. "You going with Jess?" She asks me, eying the makeup and my rarely used curling iron.

"Yes, she is, since someone wouldn't." Jess snapped through the phone playfully.

Macy laughs, yanking the hair brush through her hair and winking at me. "Sorry, not sorry." She told Jess. "When the captain of the university lacrosse team calls to ask you out, you don't tell him you can't go because you already made plans to be your BFF's wingman."

"Hooker." Jess teases. "Doesn't matter, Tayler is a much better friend than you are anyway."

Macy checked her bright red lipstick in the mirror, then turned around and blew me a kiss. "She sure is." She says. "You girls don't do anything I wouldn't do." She calls, walking out of the bathroom, then turns back to face me. "Actually, don't do anything Sarah wouldn't do." She joked and we all laughed.

I have another moment as we're giggling where I feel so out of place. I wasn't popular in school. I wasn't a loser exactly, but I wasn't in either. I was pretty much just there, and then after school was over, I met Jess. Jess went to a different high school than me, but once we became friends, I was suddenly friends with people from my own school's coolest kids. Sarah, Macy, and Jessica are all great friends to me, but I always feel out of place. I'm just not like them.

Macy leaves for her date with Ryan, and I scrummage through my closet to find something that is cute enough for wearing over to a random stranger's house to meet him and his friends. I loathe things like this. Put me in a room with all of my friends in it, and I'm fine, fun even, but put me in a room full of strangers and I already know all I'm going to do is stutter and sweat and sit awkwardly hoping that no one talks to me. To make matters worse, Jess is just as nervous as I am. At least if she were going into this confidently, I could feed off of her a little, get some strength from her, but in this situation, I'm the one who needs to be strong for her.

I settle on a pair of black skinny jeans and a flowy purple top that is a little frillier than what I'd usually be wearing on a Saturday afternoon to watch a football game, but I don't want to show up looking like a slob.

I check my phone when I'm finished getting ready and Jess has already sent me five messages in the last three minutes. I swear that girl is hopeless sometimes.

I'm nervous, my stomach twisting and on my way out I decide to run by the fridge to grab one of Macy's beers to take with me. I'll need all the help I can get. I hop in the car and fly over to the gas station that's the halfway point between my apartment and Jess's house. She's already here, parked in the back of the lot with her mirror pulled down, simultaneously checking her reflection and also snapping selfies with her phone while she waits on me.

I pull my Prius into the spot beside her BMW convertible and I discreetly hold up my beer for her to see, then quickly twist off the cap and start chugging. I can hear her laughing as she rolls her window down so that she can get better pictures of me, I'm sure so she can post them all over her Snapchat story. "Get it Tay-bae!" She catcalls me.

After half the bottle, I know if I drink anymore that the first thing I'll have to do as soon as we get to his apartment is ask for the bathroom, so I hide the rest in my backseat and jump over into Jess's car with her.

I groan as soon as I see her. When she'd told me she was wearing skinnies and a tank top, I took that to mean pretty casual, but of course she was looking like a super model with her crisscrossed back tank with the black and gold sequins and her red skinnies tucked into her sparkly black cowgirl boots that cost more than my last power bill. I quite often feel less than when I'm beside her, but especially now. She was done up to the nines. Platinum hair swept to one side and her bangs braided back, her makeup bold and her contour was more on point than I'd ever seen it. "No wonder it took you four damn hours to get ready, Jess." I laugh at her, grateful to my idea for grabbing a little liquid courage.

In answer she holds up her phone and snaps a quick picture of us, sending it to mystery man Germany. "You know," I tell her. "I'm probably going to need to actually know his name."

When they started talking he'd been in Germany where his unit was doing a peacekeeping mission, so naturally when she first told me about him, I just called him Germany, and the nickname really stuck. Everyone knows about it but him.

"His name is Hunter, and oh my god he is so sweet and so hot, but I don't even know why we are doing this." She shook her head, pulling out of the lot and back out onto the busy highway.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

Jess swerved into the next lane to get onto the interstate, cutting off an old pickup truck and ignoring him as he flipped her the bird and laid on his horn. "You know how I am," she said flippantly. "I really like talking to him, probably too much, and I'm just a little scared of like actually catching real feelings for him." She tells me, reminding me again that anyone, no matter where they stand on the social ladder can have issues. "After everything that happened with he who shall not be named, and then now I meet the guy of my dreams again, it is too good to be true and I don't want to get hurt again."

I nod along as she talks. I know she has thick skin and will pretend to be confident and strong, but underneath it, she really is scared. "Look, I know you've been hurt before, but that doesn't mean you should just give up." I tell her. "Germany has been trying to pick you up for months now and you don't want to let him in because you're afraid he'll be like...he who shall not be named." I smile. "But you can't compare every guy to that asshole, or you'll never let anyone close enough to you again to be happy."

Jessica turned to smile at me and I shied away from the glow of her gaze. "This is why you're my best friend." She nodded.

I roll my eyes at her to take the attention back off of me. "Yeah, that's why I was your third choice on who to bring with you today." I remind her.

"Whatevs Bevs." She shrugs. "I just knew you wouldn't want to come, and Sarah was looking forward to picking up any potential single friends of his that might be there."

"Too bad she's got the stomach bug then."

Jess slapped my knee as she took the next exit going way too fast. "Maybe he will have a friend for you." She laughed. "Although, how incredibly awful would it be if you and one of his friends hit off and Germany totally hates me and then we have to run into each other at your wedding and parties and stuff?"

I snorted a laugh at her as her turquoise eyes got bigger. "You think way too much, and besides, I'm not looking for anyone either, remember?"

Jess nodded, seeming a little more relaxed now that she didn't think the rest of our lives would be ruined if I ended up falling for one of Germany's friends, but then she narrowed her eyes at me. "You know, someone should take their own advice." She said gently. "It's been years for you, Tay. You can't let Seth-."

"I don't want to talk about him." I snapped, more quickly than I had meant to, but everyone knows not to talk to me about him.

Jess didn't push it any further, she just went right back into obsessing over Germany.

We missed two turns, and by the time the GPS had rerouted us multiple times, we finally pulled up to his complex halfway into the third quarter of the game.

"Maybe I should just give him an excuse." She muttered as we circled the buildings looking for the right one. "We are already so late and he isn't going to like me anyway, I don't even know what I'd say to him now, and-."

"We are here and we are going." I told her evenly, knowing if I let her drive away now, I'd hear about it for the next three years how we missed out on this big opportunity.

"I'm gonna throw up." Jess shook her head.

"You'll be fine, and there it is." I pointed out the building marked 'I'.

Jess pulled into a parking spot, only slightly hitting the curb and then she squealed a little before swinging her door open and hopping out. I followed behind her, noticing it was a little cool for October in Texas, but I decided it was probably a good thing. There's nothing worse than wondering if I have pit stains.

Slowly, neither of us in too big of a hurry, we made our way over to his door. Jess and I exchanged nervous glances and I realized it was definitely a good idea for her to have asked our other friends to do this with her before me. She needed me to be strong for her right now, so that's what I decided to do. What do I care what any of these people think of me? I'm not the one here to impress anyone. Odds are I'll never see any of them again in my life. I tried to give Jess a confident smile, then I turned to knock on the door, only to smack my fist right into the center of a tall guy's very hard and very muscular chest.

"Well hello." He laughed, his voice deep and rumbling. "I don't usually start out meeting someone by them punching me, but you must be...uh, I can't remember." He shrugged, smiling over me to inch out and wrap Jess into a big bear hug. "I'm glad you finally came, although the game is almost over."

Mortified I stepped into the apartment to see four other people lounging on the couches. I was happy at first that at least it wasn't a huge group of people, but at the same time it was almost worse with it being more intimate. On top of that, there was only one other guy, obviously already taken by the way he was sucking face with the brunette on the couch next to him and then two other blondes were chattering away about something on the other end of the couch.

"Hi," the first girl called to me and Jess when she followed me in.

"Hey, I'm Jessica and this is my friend, Tayler." Jess introduced us, waving friendlily to them.

I half waved and the girls went back to what they were doing, ignoring that we were here. I turned to face Jess, silently eyeing her hoping that she noticed the fact that everyone else is wearing sweat pants and t-shirts.

"I'm Hunter," The tall guy came over to me, holding out his hand as he snaked his arm over Jess's shoulders, making her beam. When I hesitated to take his hand he started laughing, a deep throaty laugh, as he balled his hand into a fist in front of me. "Sorry, is punching like your thing or something?" He smiled. He had one of those half curled smiles that all super attractive and overly charming guys seem to have. As if it were possible, he was actually better looking in person than in the pictures that Jess had showed me. He had sandy blonde hair, cut short to his head and he had a strong jaw with deep indigo eyes and a dimpled chin sporting the slightest hint of five o'clock shadow. "Nice to meet you, um, what was the name again?" He asked, his fist still hanging in the space between us.

I quickly pounded my fist against his, willing myself not to show the embarrassment on my face. "Tayler." I reminded him and he nodded.

"Nice to meet you, Tayler." He smiled, all half smiles and charming. "Can I get you girls a beer?" He asked, already crossing around the bar and treading barefoot over to his fridge.

"Lord, yes." I sighed and everyone laughed.

Hunter peered over his shoulder and winked. "In that case, I'll grab you two." He chuckled to himself, hearty and loud.

Jess inserted herself into the kitchen, holding the refrigerator door open for him until he had all the bottles of beer out. The two of them talked back and forth for a minute, out of earshot from where I could hear them and I stood awkwardly in the living room uncertain if I should sit on the couch on the end closer to the makeouters or the gossipers.

Jessica brought my beer over to me and I took a deep swig. "I'm going to use the bathroom really quick." She whispered. "Want to come with me?"

I shook my head at her, now that I had my beer I was feeling slightly more at ease and I lowered myself onto the couch in a happy in between spot on the couch. Jess excused herself and Hunter hoped over the back of the couch to plop down beside me, nearly making me spill my drink and he smiled. "Jess was just telling me you did a little pregame of your own before you came." He laughed. "Do you always drink this much, or just when you're nervous?" I was a little uncomfortable by how close he was, but I wasn't going to let him see that.

"Who says I'm nervous at all?" I countered back.

I heard the toilet flush in the next room and I was eternally grateful Jess hadn't decided to take her time in there redoing her hair or makeup and leaving me alone too long.

"Playing tough, huh?" Hunter leaned back on the couch, propping his feet up on the table in front of us. "My kind of girl."