Chapter 1

I remember meeting Cam (short for Camryn) for the first time at a Bavarian bar near my freshman-year dorm. It was the first week of my very first year of college, and after a dull week of reading through every class syllabus, I was ready to start testing the waters of the local nightlife. My fake ID managed to get me past the bouncer to get a few lagers that night, and it wasn't until I got buzzed off the third beer that I saw her. Camryn Prig. What an unbelievable smoke show. A girl so flawless that half the guys in the bar were trying to hit on her, one after the other, which wasn't surprising.

Cam had a perfect mixture of sultry and sweetness etched on her face. I'd later find out she was a Freshman like me, even though she seemed to project the confidence of a Junior or Senior year girl. Regardless of whether she was 18 or 22, it seemed like all the upperclassmen in the bar found her allure just as magnetic as I did.

Good god, her hair. Cam Prig had beautiful wavy brown chestnut hair fashioned in a bun with a cute pink bow tied in. But it was those eyes that really struck me. Her eyes were dark green and soft as if she could disarm you with her sweet gaze alone. Beyond the beauty of her eyes, there was so much more behind them, like some sort of guaranteed kindness. Sometimes, as my Freshman year progressed, I'd close my eyes and see hers. Those beautiful eyes radiating out to me, beckoning me like some sort of lighthouse emanating emerald beams, trying to get me to come to her.

The bottom line, Cam was just breathtakingly pretty. Like, really pretty. But not pretty in a way where she looked like she abused her looks. God, and those lips, too. The way they perused and unpursed together when she was listening to someone talk. But, almost as strikingly as her eyes to me was the way she smiled. It was disarming seeing those perfect white teeth give an encouraging and friendly grin whenever she graced the world with those pearly perfections. If I was any good at poetry, I'd probably fill a book with poems about her eyes and smile alone. Every part of Cam was wrapped up into a lovely, dainty college-coed vibe that everyone with a pulse could appreciate.

While her eyes, smile, lips, and hair were what I noticed first, the rest of Cam that first night I saw her was impossible not to check out, too. Cam's body was the feminine shape every guy dreamed of. A complete package. Above average height of 5'7', skinny (maybe a hair over 120 pounds), narrow waist, all arranged on an hourglass figure. Obvious and hard to ignore were her generous and perfect perky c-cup breasts that she couldn't hide in her conservative pink turtleneck sweater. Eyecatching was her flowing hips, legs you wanted to be wrapped around you, and from the looks of how high Cam was sitting off her seat, she had what looked like a very full and rounded butt. The tight, high-waisted, light grey Khaki pants she wore were doing her perfectly curvy thighs a big favor. Though I felt like a perv for getting a boner, looking at that masterpiece, It felt equally wrong not to be turned on.

While I stood there, picking my jaw up off the table, I watched at least four guys offering to buy her a drink. None of the guys who approached Cam noticed she already had a full beer next to her, but for each guy that took a run at her, she politely turned them down with a smile, one after another. While a fifth guy tried to flirt with her, I noticed her looking at a sign near the end of the bar advising Bavarian pretzels. It was subtle, but her eyes constantly flicked over to that sign. Being the sucker that I was, I saw an opportunity. I'd get my muse what she wanted. After ordering a sizeably giant hot pretzel, I waited for my moment. That moment came when she saw off yet another potential suitor, and so I made my move.

I'll never forget when she first looked at me. Those eyes absolutely melted my soul. They were so profoundly kind and passionate that I wanted to get lost in them forever. But as I stood there dumbly introducing myself and telling her my name, those green eyes gravitated toward my pretzel, and she smiled. While her face projected some sort of wrathful patience, she raised her glass to her face and took a tiny sip, her eyes still on me, waiting for me to say something that wasn't boring. I could tell she'd heard it all tonight, so I cut to the chase.

"Hungry?" I offered, holding out my pretzel to Cam and placing it on the small table she was sitting at, nursing her beer.

Without a single word, she warmly offered me the seat across from her, slowly pushing it out for me with her foot. Then she smiled at me for the first time in my life, and I was an addict from that moment on.

After I took my seat, trying to keep my cool and be smooth, she finally spoke to me. "Well, you sure know how to make an introduction, pretzel boy. Hi there." Her voice was feathery with an unmistakable air of confidence as if she'd descended from Mount Olympus herself. Everything about how she spoke was soothing to the ears, as if she was speaking from her chest and not her head. I'd never been in such a beautiful woman's presence all my life.

We chatted briefly and found out we were in the same major. Economics. I was in it for financial reasons. In high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my future, but my father pushed me down this path to follow in his footsteps. Cam's story was different, as it sounded like she was less interested in crunching numbers and more interested in helping people find financial stability. She wasn't entirely sure what that exactly meant for her future, but to her, that was a thought for another time. Unlike me, Cam didn't seem to care about landing a job that would make her a ton of money once she got a degree.

Then we talked about family and growing up, diving deeper. I'd grown up with a stern father and a caring mother, both successful, in an upper-middle-class house and neighborhood in upstate New York. I was the middle sibling of three boys. The youngest brother, Scott, was the brother I got along with well. Scott was still in high school, and we bonded a lot by playing FIFA together or kicking around a soccer ball. He looked up to me, so I took it upon myself to be a good role model for him. The oldest brother, Owen, I didn't get along with much. He'd been a bit of a black sheep in the family growing up and had plenty of arguments with my parents. Not that I didn't like Owen. Generally, he seemed like he had a good heart, but I just didn't really know him. Given he was five years older than me, and I didn't really see him much anymore, our lack of a brotherly bond made sense.

Despite my privileged upbringing, I bristled with it, wanting to break away from under my dad's thumb but finding it difficult to find a way out from under his shadow. Through high school, I was relatively popular but not at the top of the social pyramid. Most of my friends came through soccer, my principal sport. Not to brag, but I was decent at it, often playing central midfield and being a destroyer, shutting down the other team's attacks. Yet now that I was in college, I didn't see the use in carrying on playing seriously. Soccer was fun, but I'd always seen it as a fun pastime and hobby, not something I'd take seriously (like my education).

Cam's family situation was a bit less traditional. She hadn't seen her birth father in over 10 years and was the child of divorce from a pretty early age. From the sounds of it, she didn't much care to see him again, given he was an alcoholic. Cam's mom sounded nice enough but had gone through three other marriages, one before Cam's dad and two more after, often picking men who didn't treat her the way Cam wanted them to. As for siblings, Cam had two half-sisters she sounded close to from two different dads and an older stepbrother she didn't talk to that much. One of her half-sisters, Melissa, was six years older than her and was a personal trainer. The other half-sister, Bellatrix, was two years younger, still in high school, loved dancing and cheerleading, and was living with her mom.

I listened to Cam fill me in on her sisters more. Melissa was always the responsible one of the sisters, sometimes taking on the role of a second mother to Cam and Bellatrix. The eldest sister had also managed to keep the only steady long-term boyfriend between the three sisters. Bellatrix was the wild child, already sneaking her way into college parties and being pried away from dirtbag older guys she chronically craved. All while Cam was explaining her sisters to me, I wondered where Cam fit in on that spectrum. It sounded like she'd dated in the past but didn't mention what her exes were like.

Cam's family didn't sound like it had a ton of money, so unlike me, she'd taken out student loans to go to college. She'd moved around a lot, growing up in Florida, moving to Virginia in grade school, and finally spending half of her high school career in Reno and the second half in LA. It seemed as if Cam didn't have any problems making friends. Unfortunately, she had moved so much that it was hard to maintain them, constantly rebuilding and having to start fresh. As for sports, she'd dabbled in almost everything but never found her calling. Sports, for Cam, had always been something to fill her time rather than something to get good at. Yet, given her pristine figure, I couldn't argue with her methods. Having a personal trainer for a sister probably didn't hurt either.

Throughout our conversations, Cam slowly munched on the giant pretzel I'd brought her. Though I'd meant to split it with her, she looked so happy eating it that I didn't interject. Instead, whenever I talked about myself, I watched her eat with pure joy and an interested smile as she listened. Part of me really didn't care if it was me or the pretzel that was making her happy.

Our twenty-minute conversation felt like hours, but once the pretzel was done, I noticed a cute pouty look on Cam's face that endeared me to her more. With no hot pretzel to fill her lips while I talked, Cam started doing more of the talking, letting me know about her favorite music, showing me some pictures on her Instagram from some of the places she'd been, and then regaled me with some of the shows she'd been watching lately. She was a very down-to-earth girl that didn't bullshit but also wasn't jaded. While we talked, I could feel the eyes of every other guy in the bar on the back of my head like daggers, seeing as I'd made more progress with the most beautiful girl in the room than anyone else.

Alas, the first moment I tried to flirt with Cam, she parried my attempt and directed the conversation elsewhere. Despite my thoughtful act with the pretzel, I could unfortunately tell she didn't have the same kind of interest I had in her. I got a solid twenty minutes of talking to her before she excused herself to the bathroom. Yet when she returned, she didn't come back to me. Some douchey-looking meathead intercepted her and was making his moves. He was direct and straight to business, touching her shoulder and leaning into her ear. My stomach sank as I saw Cam touch his chest playfully. It wasn't five minutes later that he was leading her out of the bar. I did manage to get a wink and a smile from her on her way out. Somehow, that made up for some of the disappointment I was feeling, like there was hope for the future. Maybe.

Luckily, I didn't have to wait long to see Cam again.