Ana really wants Grey to kiss her, to the point where this desire is TEH MOST DRAMATIC THING EVAR!!  Yet, in typical ‘romance heroine’ fashion, she does nothing except sit there in his arms and really, really want it.  Doesn’t make a move on him, doesn’t say anything, just wishes a lot.

If you want to kiss him, Ana, then do it.  Well, no, say you want to kiss him.  Just doing it would be quite an invasion.  Still, you are allowed to express your sexual desires.  You don’t have to lay there passively and just hope the stuff you want actually happens.

Grey puts her back on her feet and lets her go.

And the only thing I can think is that I wanted to be kissed, made it pretty damned obvious, and he didn’t do it.

You did no such thing!  You just laid there passively and thought really hard!  That is not making anything ‘damn obvious’!

Though if we’re going to get into ‘damn obvious’ territory, Grey did want to kiss her and held back.  Which Ana should know, as she described the whole event in exacting detail.  But, no, the fact that he didn’t go through with it means he doesn’t want her.  So…does this mean since Ana didn’t kiss him either, that she didn’t really want to?

Ana cries in her own head about how the guy doesn’t want her and then cries for real in her car about how he doesn’t want her.  That’s a lot of crying over a guy that you’ve met twice.  I know he’s hot, but…you met him twice and spent the whole time thinking he’s an arrogant control freak.  Get over it.

Back at home, Kate knows Ana has been crying and they have that annoying talk where the Supportive Friend assures the Heroine that she Really Is Hot, No Really. 

Okay, if Ana/Bella is supposed to represent the average woman/girl and be a focal point for the reader’s own insecurities, then what’s the point of making her actually hot?  I know everyone woman is beautiful in her own way, and there’s a lot of stress that the media places on women to fulfill impossible standards, but these characters actually are the hotness that other women can’t achieve.  They just refused to acknowledge that for some reason.  Why can’t they simply be of average hotness and get the guy because they are smart/funny/sweet/whatever?  Why can’t they actually be normal women instead of being supermodels who think they are subhuman?

This is not the way to assure women that they really are beautiful.  We know what we look like.  We aren’t idiots.  We aren’t insecure because we’re just blind to what we really look like.  We’re insecure because people keep trying to tell us what ‘hot’ is, and then they judge us by how we measure up to that standard.  Having a character who doesn’t even know what she looks like simply makes her look like an idiot.  It doesn’t make us think “Oh, my squishy nose/love-handles/frizzy-hair really could be the Standard Level of Hot, too!”  We aren’t idiots.  We know what we look like.  We want to not be judged by what we look like.

Ana mopes some more about how Grey so obviously doesn’t want her.  You know what, I wouldn’t want to date her either.  All she does is whine.

Skip to the end of Ana’s final exams.  Ana gets home and finds a box on her doorstep.  It contains all three volumes of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, first edition, mint condition.  They come along with a card that reads “Why didn’t you tell me there was danger?  Why didn’t you warn me? //  Ladies know what to guard against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks…”  Obviously the books are from Grey, and obviously he is trying to warn her away because he is Bad News.  But…why is he warning her away with a $15,000 minimum gift?

Grey is an idiot with no idea how to interact with…well, anyone.  When you warn people off, you don’t simultaneously make them indebted to you unless you are a manipulative twat.  And that’s what a $15K gift does to a person.  It makes them feel obligated to do something in return, creates a feeling of guilt and debt.  A guy with that much money knows what it does to the people around him.

Later, at a bar, Ana drunk-dials Grey and demands to know why he sent her books.  Grey ignores her question and asks how she’s getting home from the bar, because apparently it doesn’t occur to him that she’s a fucking adult out with friends, celebrating the end of finals, and maybe, just maybe, one of them actually foresaw this whole ‘getting drunk at the bar’ thing and made plans to get home.  Since, you know, that’s what adults tend to do when they make plans that include drinking at a bar.  Ana refuses to tell him where she is, and I have to admit, drunk!Ana is a little amusing.  Grey says he’s coming to get her anyway, because as we established earlier, Grey does not know how to deal with people.  Apparently he’s charming in interviews, and once you go beyond that, he shows how inept he really is.  I guess all that claptrap earlier about how he’s succeeded in business by reading people is just bull.

Ana goes outside for some fresh air, and Jose follows her.  Then he proceeds to be a total shit and kiss her while she’s too drunk to stop him.  She clearly panics, says no, and tries to push him off, but he keeps going.  I know he’s drunk, too, but…damn.  You’ve got to be pretty far gone to think it’s okay to kiss a girl who is busy shoving at your chest to get you off.  At least it’s in keeping with Jacob and his quasi-rapist episode.  (Oh, right, this ‘isn’t the same as the fanfic.’  Because in this version ‘Jacob’ spouts off random Spanish words while everyone pretends it isn’t racist, while in Twilight he had random Native American stereotypes while everyone pretended it wasn’t racist.)

Grey shows up, and Ana barfs all over the place.  She is very clearly drunk off her ass and not in any position of giving consent, but no one says a word to Jose about what he did.  Jose just slinks off back inside, because he knows who the Alpha Male is.

This is the first time Ana has been drunk.  Alright, fine, she’s 21.  I didn’t get drunk until I was 23.  I’m also every bit as much of a lightweight as Ana.  But!  I had friends around me that didn’t let me out of their sight, and I was cut off as soon as I started acting out.  That’s what good friends do.  Especially ones that are old enough to be past that ‘rebel for the hell of it, throwing up in the parkinglot is cool!’ phase.  Ana’s friends, on the hand, are all jerks who don’t give a shit if she poisons herself or wanders into the street or passes out in a corner.

Grey found Ana by tracking her cell phone. 

Stalker, my subconscious whispers at me through the cloud of tequila that’s still floating in my brain, but somehow, because it’s him, I don’t mind.

THIS IS TOTALLY STALKER ACTIVITY.  Okay, guys, here’s the deal.  Tracking cell phones is illegal.  It’s possible for those with enough money, but unless you have the right paperwork and it’s also your job to do it, it is illegal.  Grey is breaking the law in order to keep tabs on some random woman he barely knows.  It is scary as fuck, particularly because 1) Grey has more money than god and 2) he’s just shown a complete lack of regard for her privacy.  So, by only a very small leap of logic, we can presume that he’d have no problem using his money to invade and keep track of every aspect of her life.  None of this is negated by the fact that he’s hot.

Now, some of this is forgivable because she’s drunk.  She’s not thinking clearly.  But I’m going to go ahead and lay a bet that the book doesn’t let her change her mind once she sobers up.

“Christian, please, I need to tell Kate. She’ll worry.” His mouth presses into a hard line, and he sighs heavily.

“If you must.”

(Uhg, don’t ever split up a person’s action and dialogue like this.  It’s sloppy and confusing and amateurish.  Okay, on to the non-grammatical issue.)  IF YOU MUST?  Is he honestly trying to act like ‘letting’ Ana go and reassure her friend that she isn’t being kidnapped is some sort of concession?

Okay, now we have reached control freak territory.  And yet, despite all the furor she raised before about not being allowed to call him by his first name (notice she’s doing it anyway), she doesn’t bat an eye at this line.

They go inside to talk to Kate and find her putting the moves on Elliot, Grey’s brother.  Ana is shocked – shocked! I tell you – at the fact that Kate is aggressively lusting after Elliot.  I’m torn on what to think.  On the one hand, having sex with someone you met while drunk (which Ana says is the likely outcome of all this) is a very bad idea, just from a safety standpoint.  On the other hand, Ana doesn’t think about that, just about how embarrassing it is that Kate’s such a slut.  Apparently she has no concern for her friend’s emotion and physical wellbeing. 

Grey tries to take her out of the club, and she passes out in the middle of the dance floor.

So, yeah, this is the chapter in which absolutely everyone just took a nose dive into ‘horrible shithead’ territory.  (Oddly enough, except for Ana, who is so much easier to put up with when she’s drunk.)