(If you are not an NBR member, feel free to skip to the end of the bold print.)

*To NBR Members*

Author's Note:
Welcome to my spotlight chapter, NBRers! I'm truly excited to get to share this with you and to receive your reviews. As I stated in the NBR book, this is my first hit at any romance, so any truly constructive criticism - edits or things you would revise - is greatly appreciated. Since this is the first chapter, the summary is basically a shortened version of the blurb, but I've copied the summary down below.

Also, my friend, jz81802 , will be helping me sort these reviews and keeping me organized in a Google Document, so if you see her poking around the comments section while you're reviewing, that's why. (She is also the amazing person who made me the awesome cover on the front!)

I hope you enjoy The Meeting, and thank you in advance for taking the time to review it. I appreciate your efforts.
~ Aurora

Summary:
When Penelope "Cassie" Walters agrees to attend her best friend, Alaira Gray's, crazy weekend party to help clean up afterwards, she prepares herself for the shady crowd from school that is bound to come. She plans to curl up in the corner with a book and hope that no one notices her. Holland Marks never would have pictured himself as one for parties. When one of his friends, Carter MacDonald, invites him to a popular cheerleader's end-of-summer party, he declines instantly. However, when he finds himself with a free schedule that evening, he decides to go to be Carter's sober driver. This is the romance-y part of the story, but nothing explicit. It switches between first (Cassie) and third (Holland) POVs.

Questions:
1. I have been told that the switching POVs, between Holland and Cassie, can be a little confusing. Did you find it to be so? Please explain.

2. Description is not my strong point. I can write too much or too little, but rarely do I hit upon the perfect balance. Did you find a good balance between story and description? Please explain.

3. I have never been in a romantic relationship to any degree. To that end, I was writing about something I have never experienced. Did the romance factor (practically the entirety of The Meeting) seem real or fake? Please explain.

[Beginning of Selection]

I vehemently shook my head. "Oh, no. Never again, Alaira. Never again."

"Come on," my best friend, Alaira, begged. "I need your help. You don't need to come the entire time."

I pressed my lips tightly together in a show of defiance. I would not, under any circumstance, give into her pleas. The issue at hand: Alaira was throwing a party over the weekend, since her parents would be out of town. She was inviting over half the school. She wanted me to help her with the cleanup afterwards.

I was refusing because the last time I had attended a party, I had gotten so drunk that I didn't even remember who I was, where I was, or why I was there. It wasn't something that I was proud of, and that one, tiny incident had led me to never attend a party again. Now, my policy was: "Avoid high school parties at all costs. Do not let best friend guilt into attending."

She played her final card. "Holland's going to be there."

While that got my attention, it also made me even more wary. I flashed back to the last time I had allowed her to talk me into going.

Images flew through my mind in a garbled, barely coherent slideshow: obnoxious music, rowdy laughter, hot crowds on all sides. Next thing I knew, I was wandering around a strange neighborhood in a drunken stupor, with no clue or memory of how I had gotten there. Nothing looked familiar, even though I had been in that neighborhood several times before. I vaguely remember collapsing in a random person's front yard, puking my guts out on their perfectly manicured grass. An engine drew my bleary attention. Someone got out and helped me stumble into his car. Once he had me situated properly, I passed out. The next morning, I woke up in Alaira's house, the events of the night before blurring into one endless nightmare.

I found out later that the boy who helped me had been the new British transfer from Eton, Holland Marks. As if that didn't make me embarrassed enough, apparently I had thrown up in his car on the way to Alaira's. Even now, my cheeks burned with the memory.

Unfortunately, Alaira also knew that I had also developed a very bad crush on Holland throughout the years, except I was still too nervous - and/or mortified - to act on said crush.

"Great, that really makes me want to go," I said sarcastically.

She persisted. "Please, Cassie, you know exactly why I want-" She paused, correcting herself. "Why I need you to go."

"I'll think about it," I muttered with a sigh, glancing at the clock mounted on the wall across from us. "Look, I've got to go."

She nodded, but her requests rang in my ears long after I had left the library for my piano lesson.

***

Holland Marks sighed in annoyance as he sat behind the wheel of his white BMW convertible, waiting for his friend. He finally rolled down the window, honking the horn as he did so. "Carter! We're going to be late!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" the boy yelled back. "And would you stop honking that horn so obnoxiously?"

Holland took his hand off the horn with an exaggerated flourish. "Well, maybe if you wouldn't spend so much time getting ready..."

"I'm sorry," Carter said dramatically as he got in the passenger side of the convertible, gesturing to his face as he continued. "But this doesn't just happen, you know."

Holland began to pull out of the driveway, thinking of several things that he could say to Carter. He settled on the least offensive. "You know the only reason I'm coming, right?"

Carter shrugged. "What do I care? It's not my issue if you don't want to have some fun tonight."

Holland eyed his new friend skeptically. "I think you and I have different definitions of fun."

***

Sure enough, just as I knew I would be, I found myself on the couch at Alaira's house the night of her party. Curse my thin skin and easily manipulated conscience. I hoped to curl up in a corner somewhere with a book, and hide until it was all over.

On the other hand, knowing high school parties like I did, it was almost certain that there would be alcohol and drugs, causing a raucous crowd to become downright senseless. The alcohol would be supplied by Alaira; the drugs would be brought from the outside. This rendered my "hiding in a corner somewhere" option...well, not an option.

Glancing out the window, I saw the first few trucks pull up. Resigning myself to a night of puking teenagers, risqué dresses, and leering boys, I pushed up from the couch, calling, "Alaira! They're starting to come!"

I heard her run down the stairs, her heels clicking on the hardwood flooring. I just shook my head when I saw her dress, a sparkle-covered, red, strapless, skintight affair with a slit on the right side halfway up her thigh.

"Oh good," she said. "And, Cassie, thanks for coming."

Shrugging as if it was nothing, I replied, "What are friends for?"

***

Holland finally pulled into 100 Insley Circle, wincing as he heard the already too-loud rock music blasting from someone's external speaker, reconsidering his choice to accompany Carter tonight. Before the BMW rolled to a stop, the passenger door was already open, and the occupant was heading for the house as Holland put it into park. He only shook his head in exasperation as Carter was joined by a very scantily clad girl, whose loose tank top hung off her shoulders and whose mini skirt barely covered her butt.

He'll be drunk before six, Holland observed silently as he got out of the car and double-locked it. He trusted the neighborhood's integrity, but the clientele at Alaira's party was questionable. The one time he had forgotten to close the sunroof of Carter's vehicle the year before, Holland had spent the next five hours scrubbing the interior to keep the party a secret from Carter's parents.

Reluctantly, he headed for the house, hoping to slip in the front unnoticed. No one at these parties ever used the front entrance.

His goal tonight was to fly under the radar and stay out of trouble. His parents were under the impression that their seventeen-year-old son was sleeping over at Carter's house, which was a half-truth. Holland planned to drive Carter home and spend the night there, after the party, so he could help cover for Carter from his strict parents.

Truth be told, Holland rather liked Carter's parents. They were nice enough. But Carter felt that they were too restricting. The MacDonalds were Catholic, and very rule-oriented ones at that. Meaning that Carter's curfew was nine o'clock (evil things happened after dark), he owned an ancient phone that still had minutes and used prepaid cards (too much technology could lend itself to the Devil), and he wasn't allowed to even contemplate having a relationship with a girl until he graduated from high school and college (serious relationships could be distracting from the Lord's work).

It was these strict rules that drove Carter to attend wild parties like the one popular head cheerleader Alaira Gray was throwing tonight. Holland knew this, of course, and that was why he had agreed to come with Carter. He knew Carter needed to get out of his house before he went completely stir crazy.

The party would most definitely end past nine. Hence, Holland's presence at the party. If he could get his friend back home by midnight, sneaking the boy into his house via a second story window, the parents would never know. Carter's parents were older and went to bed at eight-thirty. Due to Holland's parents' obliviousness concerning their son's whereabouts - and the lack of communication between the two sets of parents - it was highly unlikely that either set would know where their son was actually at tonight.

Dishonest? Maybe. But Carter would have gone whether Holland went or not. Better safe than sorry, Holland thought.

***

I eyed the impromptu dance floor on the Grays' pool deck with trepidation. I needed to keep an eye on Alaira, and that was where I had last seen her heading. Frowning, I began the dangerous journey into the sea of teens. I finally spotted her over by the edge of the pool, an open beer in her hand as she threw back her head and laughed at something the girl she was talking with said. Relieved that I had found her and she wasn't in trouble, I cast around for a dark place to sit and read my book. I wanted a place to see and not be seen.

Finding one near the hedges that lined the Grays' property line, I hurried over and sat, opening my worn and well-read copy of The Deathly Hallows.

Smiling to myself as I resumed my place - the memory where Snape was begging Dumbledore to save Lily - I immersed myself back in the world of Harry Potter, envisioning the leaf-strewn hilltop, Snape's pleading look, Dumbledore's fury.

However, I had only flipped past one page when I heard a voice. "May I join you?"

I flinched and lost my page, startled. Glancing up into the face of the one person I had been aiming to avoid, I searched for a polite way to decline. "Uh..."

Holland took it as a yes, plopping himself down right next to me. As I opened the book back up and flipped through to find my place again, hoping he would leave when I proved myself antisocial, he spoke. "You never struck me as a partygoer."

I murmured a brief response, something along the lines of, "It's my friend's deal, not mine..."

"Especially not after last time," he said lightly, a teasing tone in his voice.

My cheeks immediately turned red, and I turned my gaze sideways to look at him. "You still remember that?"

"Kind of hard not to," he replied with a grin. "I still can't get the stain out." Clearly, he thought he was being funny. It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell that his words were causing the exact opposite effect.

Now thoroughly humiliated, I jerked a nod out, and stood. "Yeah, well... Sorry about that. Now, if you'll excuse me-" I turned to go, hoping to avoid further mortification.

He rose quickly to follow me. "Wait!" I paused. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring up a bad memory." He added quietly, "Lately all it seems I can do is stick my foot in my mouth."

He sounded genuinely sorry. Hesitantly, I returned to my original spot, accepting his apology with another nod of my head. I sat again, and he followed. As I reopened my book, he said, "Oh, you're a Potter fan?"

"Yes."

"What part are you on?"

Without looking up, I answered, "The Prince's Tale. The part that tells about Snape's past."

"Snape," he mused. "I've never really liked him."

That got my attention. "Snape was one of the best characters in this series!"

Holland snorted skeptically. "Sure." A pause. "He was a Death Eater; he never grew out of it. The only reason he protected Harry was because-"

"He loved Lily," I interrupted. "And for your information, this entire series wouldn't have happened if it hadn't been for Snape." He waited impatiently for me to continue. "Snape told Voldemort about the prophecy. That's why Voldemort freaked out and went to kill Harry, but ended up killing Lily instead, which enabled the Ancient Magic to activate the protection around Harry the rest of his life until he could kill Voldemort."

Shaking his head, Holland said with a long-suffering sigh, "Let me guess, you're a Malfoy fan too?"

I rolled my eyes. "It's Draco, and yes, I like him too."

"How can you like all these villains?" Holland asked in exasperation.

"Because I do," I responded with a raised eyebrow. "Let me guess. You're a James Potter fan?"

I never should have brought up that question, because that made Holland launch into a long explanation of why James was so much better than Snape - let me tell you, he's not - which took up much of the rest of the night.

~~~

Eventually, I found out that Holland hadn't come to party either. He, like me, was there to help a friend out, though his job was as a sober driver.

"And you're courageous enough to come to these things?" I questioned, gesturing at the wild revelers around us.

Holland shrugged. "I do it for his safety."

"That's a good reason," I said with a smile.

As he stood to leave, he casually called over his shoulder, "You know, I'd like it if you started going to parties more often. Gives me someone to talk to."

I was left there, frozen in place, his words replaying in my mind. Somewhere, I wondered if they had a double meaning.

Finally, I shook myself out of the stupor that his comment had put me in and began the cleanup, silently admitting that it was one of the best nights I had ever spent with someone.