New story after a long pause from any writing endeavours! This has been inspired by some of the foolish exploits of my male friends... and some of my female friends too, unfortunately. Please note that it is written with the use of British English and there'll be a few British references, but that hopefully won't cause any problems. Reviews would be lovely- please let me know what you think, this is only the prologue, and I have a lot in store for this story!

Peace and love,

midnightsweetheart xxxx

I wave goodbye as Mum and Dad drive off down the road, catching sight of a few tears escaping Mum's eyes as she strains her neck to see me one last time. Well- at least until I come home to ask for money.

I shut the door of my new home with a small smile of self-satisfaction. I'm finally back at uni after a long, uneventful summer and I couldn't be more excited. Home gets so boring when you're used to residing with a bunch of slobs and you're stuck living with back your melodramatic parents for three months.

Moving into my new kitchen, I gleefully notice Heather has a glass of wine ready for me, and I sneakily detect a few bottles of the stronger stuff sat behind her on the back counter.

"Are they for us?" I ask her.

"Nope," she responds. "The boys. We'll have to go to the shops before tonight to get something for ourselves."

"Afternoon ladies," a voice calls. As if on cue, the boys come barging into the kitchen. Adam gives me a cheeky wink before saying, "nice of you to finally join us, Jem. Good summer?"

"Not bad thanks. You?"

"Yeah it was alright. Don't I get a hug?"

I give him a hug, not wanting to admit that I've actually missed the git over the summer. All the boys, really, especially one of them. Brad has returned from the summer holidays with a new haircut, and he's only managed to look even more irresistible than he did before uni finished last year. I did not think it could be possible for him to look more like a sex god, but, obviously, I was wrong. He's even gone and got a tan.

Newly, more gorgeous Brad sits beside me on one of our brand new stools, playing with the label from one of those cheap bottles of beer from Tesco that taste like vomit.

"Wine, eh?" He murmurs. "That's sophisticated, Jemimah."

I grimace at the use of my full name.

"I'm a sophisticated lady, Bradley," I respond, reciprocating the annoying use of full names.

"Not likely," he scoffs. "Anyway, girls, are you ready to get on it tonight now the house is complete?"

"You know it!" Heather smiles, pouring herself another glass of wine. "Word on the block is that Daisy Miller's having a house party before the fresher's shindig."

"I hate Daisy Miller," groans Anthony from the corner of the room. "She was so annoying last year, and she makes us play all those irritating drinking games, can't we just drink here?"

"You only hate her cause she rejected you at the end of last year," Heather rebukes, not forgetting to add quietly, "with good reason."

"What does it matter anyway?" Adam asks, carelessly throwing another bottle of beer at Brad so that it almost whacks me across the head. "All us lads care about is getting to the freshers' party in one piece. We've got aims to fulfil."

"I bet you have," Heather groans, giving me a knowing look as the three of them start laughing idiotically.

"Don't act like you won't be in on it," Brad says beside me, noting the look of disapproval on my face.

Knowing that Brad is in on pulling freshers in the first place involuntarily pisses me off. This may be because I personally would like to be the object of his pulling tactics tonight but that is besides the point. He shouldn't be thinking about it... I was hoping he would have thought about me. Perhaps.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I try to say defiantly, taking a sip of wine with my little pinky sticking out. He just starts laughing at me. Fail.

"Yeah, ok, Jem, you're just pretending that you're not going to shark with us."

"Do what with you?" I ask him bemusedly.

"You know, shark," he shrugs.

No. I don't know.

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?"

"Heather, you know what I'm on about, right?"

"No idea, though I can probably guess," she replies, lazily taking another- large- sip of wine. "Please, enlighten us anyway."

"You know," Anthony starts, rolling his eyes at the two of us like we're the idiots. Again, no, I don't- why do these morons keep insisting that I would in the first place?

"When you go hunting for some freshers, and you've just got that- killer instinct. So you know you'll score."

Heather and I stare at him blankly.

"You sound like a sexual predator," she eventually mutters.

"Nah, it's just the lingo," he says, waving her comment away. "We just wanna pull some freshers. So we're going to go sharkin'."

"All I can visualise is you guys looking like full on twats with fins," I mumble irritably. Their plans do not sound good at all, especially when I have my own plans to get Brad in my pants.

"We don't do it together in packs," Brad laughs. "Otherwise we'd just be dolphins. We're playing the shark's game."

I look at him for a moment, waiting for him to say something that doesn't sound utterly nuts, before realising that he's actually being serious.

"... and we don't have fins," he adds, not registering the look of sheer disbelief on my face.

"Girls can do it too," says Adam, patting me and Heather on the shoulders. "I reckon you'd be quite good at it, Jem, especially after the foam party last term."

At this the three boys all burst out laughing, and I find myself infuriated that it's only taken them fifteen minutes to piss me off entirely. It's not like it's taken me all summer to erase the memory of throwing up over the hottest guy from the football club on stage or anything. No, not at all.

"Have you spoken to that guy since?" Brad asks me through bellows of laughter.

"No," I answer sharply- I doubt he'll ever speak to me again. I only went up to him to make Brad jealous. Clearly it didn't work.

"The freshers' do is excellent sharking territory," Brad goes on. "It'll be fun."

I feel myself burning as I gulp down another large mouthful of wine.

"I personally do not want to compare myself to a vicious predator," I say afterwards, "especially with freshers."

"Me neither," Heather agrees. "It's not as cool for girls to get with younger guys."

"Whatever," Anthony shrugs. "You can shark older guys. It's still the same principle."

"Ah, why are we even bothering to explain it to them?" Adam jokes with a big smile. "It's a very masculine concept, girls probably suck at it."

Brad has to stifle some laughter when he catches sight of my face. He chooses to run a hand through his recently-cut luscious dark hair instead.

"You're talking absolute crap," Heather retorts, shaking her head. "We don't need to... shark. Besides, what makes you think you'd be so successful?"

"Just look at us! We are the definition of sexy manliness," Anthony answers, flexing his arm muscles as if he has any to begin with.

"We're second years now," Adam adds, "the fresh will love us."

"We'll be fighting them off," Brad says confidently. "I know I can't wait."

With that, the three of them start high fiving themselves- as if to display even more how stupid they actually are- and leave the kitchen.

So, second year has started, and I'm already beginning to understand that Brad and I are no closer to getting together than we were at the end of last year, and, to gain any of his attention, I am going to have to fight off new, younger, competition tonight, on the first night.

Well, clearly, there's only one way to get his attention, and it's going to have to work more successfully than the pukefest that was last year's foam party.

I'm going to have to take part in this sharkin' business, and shark that boy under the table. Bradley Evans is bound to want me that way, right?