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  “How convenient for you,” he smirked.

  “If it matters to you so much, why don’t you ask her out?”

  “For you?”

  “Who am I, Cyrano de Bergerac?” I asked.

  “Your nose is way sweeter than that, cutie pie,” he replied, trying to give me a coochie-coo with two fingers.

  I smacked his hand away.

  When I didn’t respond to his joke he continued. “It’s your last semester. Sue me if I think you deserve to have some fun.”

  Maybe I did, but being with Kate was more than that. She deserved a lot more than a good time, though I certainly wasn’t against showing her one.

  “I saw the way she was looking at you on moving-in day. She likes you and, considering how much you’re trying to deny it, you must feel the same way.”

  “How about we get off me and talk about you for a change,” I said, proving his point without even meaning to.

  We hit the cement porch of the dorm. Tristan stopped. “Your romantic foibles are so much more fun, Chazzy,” he said, playing air piano with his fingers to wave good-bye before walking inside.

  I guess I couldn’t blame him. It hadn’t been only years since I’d been with anyone, but years since he could give me shit about it.

  As my best friend, he had a lot of time to make up for.

  Chapter Ten

  Kate

  It was finally Friday. I’d survived a whole week following my rules and not getting kicked out for being closer to middle age than teenager. I was even comfortable enough to go to the Student Financial Services office and fill out the application paperwork necessary to try for the scholarship I’d specifically chosen Hudson for. If I was accepted, I’d be able to carry on my charade for at least another year.

  Without even the slightest apprehension, I signed my name and handed over my doctored transcripts to lie about something I wanted yet again.

  I had a cautious contentment about things when I stepped out of the dorm elevator and headed toward my room to lock myself inside all weekend. That is, until I found the girls with insanely shiny brown hair and white teeth who had come to the floor meeting drunk splayed out in the hallway. They were drinking vodka straight from the bottle and laughing.

  Oh sweet nectar.

  I glanced down the hall hoping for the first time since class on Monday to find Carter so he could confiscate their bottle, get them the hell out of the hallway, and out of my line of sight, but he was nowhere to be found.

  I guess that was what I got for not admitting I’d actually been hoping to see him all week long.

  I headed toward my door trying to ignore the girls and the bottle they held so casually. I’d made it a week as a freshman without having one drink. That had been easy considering alcohol hadn’t literally been blocking my way—so close it could trip me.

  Every muscle tensed, my skin seemed to scream as I fumbled with my key. It was slipping in my cold, sweaty fingers.

  I could say I didn’t want to drink all day long, but my body knew different. My body knew saying no was never enough.

  “Hey,” one the girls slurred as she stood.

  “We locked ourselves out,” the one still splayed on the floor added. I guess she figured the one standing was talked out.

  Crap.

  “Can we hang in your room till maintenance gets here?” the standing one said.

  I guessed these girls shared the same brain. Inspecting them it was obvious they also shared the same body—long, lean, and athletic, the kind of girls who, in high school, would have made Dawn’s life hell.

  She would not want them in our room. I didn’t want them in our room.

  Fuck.

  “Um,” I said, searching the college-take-two part of my brain for an excuse. “My roommate wouldn’t like it,” I tried. That was safe. Not my fault you can’t come in my room with your bottle of stupid, delicious vodka.

  “You mean Twilight,” the one sitting on the floor said, laughing.

  “Yes, Dawn,” I corrected. Twilight, funny, but also mean; not like Dawn had probably been anything but to these pink-bubble-gum girls.

  “Is she home?” the standing one asked. She was so drunk she was swaying.

  “She means in her coffin,” the sitting one said, bending at the waist with laughter.

  “Not yet,” I said, deciding to ignore the coffin comment, because she could have had one under her bed. It’s not like I’d checked.

  “Then what’s the problem?” the standing one asked.

  I froze, desperate for a response to keep the crystal clear bottle of everything I needed to stay away from outside my locked door. I came up empty. There was no fighting drunk logic.

  Being drunk was like being a zombie with a need for alcohol instead of brains, or whatever your mind decided it wanted. Right now, these girls wanted in my room.

  “Fine,” I agreed, “but when Dawn gets back, you have to leave.”

  “Not a problem,” the sitting one said.

  Her compatriot nodded seriously, or as seriously as you can when you’re wasted off your ass.

  They stumbled into the room behind me and threw themselves on my bed in a fit of giggles. These girls were like I had been back in college-take-one. Fun came before studying, friendship and partying before grades.

  I envied them. I coveted what they had, the freedom of only needing to know where the next drink was coming from.

  The sad thing was that I lived in that artificial abandon only a month ago. Would probably still be if David hadn’t dumped and fired me.

  My head started to pound, the sweat slicking my hands seemed to slide up my arms to my neck, dripping into my cleavage. I glanced from one of them to the other—living, breathing proof why I was so lucky to have a roommate like Dawn.

  Thank goodness for Twilight.

  “I’m Steph,” the one who’d been standing said.

  “Alex,” the other one added.

  “Kate,” I replied.

  “Can I borrow those sometime?” Steph asked, pointing to my Uggs. My college-age camouflage was still working, even in such close proximity. Though boots to make me look nineteen when I was really twenty-nine were definitely not what my grandmother had in mind when she bought shares of Microsoft.

  “Sure.” I figured I might need to borrow something from her someday. It wasn’t like I wanted to wear anything of Dawn’s.

  There was a chance it would bite me.

  I sat cross-legged on the floor in front of them.

  “How’d you get stuck with the Princess of Darkness?” Alex asked, nodding her chin toward her bed.

  “We both needed a roommate.”

  “She needs a warden.” Steph took a long swig from the bottle and shoved it in my direction. “Want some?”

  “No, I’m cool,” I said, biting my lip so hard I could taste blood for how badly I did. If I were in AA, I would have gotten my month sober chip at the end of this weekend.

  A month, it was an accomplishment, but I wondered if it really was when your whole life was a lie.

  “What are you, a straight-edge-weirdo like your roommate?” Steph asked.

  Sullen, angry, and a straight-edge Dawn was the perfect roommate for college-take-two. I just had to make sure I stayed away from people like Steph and Alex for the next four years. Unfortunately they encompassed 99.9% of the students here, and they were in what was supposed to be my sanctuary, shoving liquor at me.

  Why did I keep tempting myself to break my rules?

  Or had I forgotten college was all about temptation?

  “No, I don’t like vodka,” I lied. I liked it fine. I liked anything that got me drunk. Sure, my preferred poison was always Riesling, but if someone else was buying I’d drink moonshine, or fucking Scope.

  “Me neither, I drink it like this,” Alex said holding her nose. It was adorably pink when she let go of it.

  “You could drink something else,” I offered.

  They both laughed.

 
“Vodka has the least calories,” Steph said as if she was explaining the secrets of the universe.

  I nodded. It didn’t, but why bother correcting her? Why waste the breath to tell them that drinking half a bottle of vodka was fun and cute now, but sad and pathetic later?

  That I was what happened when the party never ended.

  Alex peered at Dawn’s side of the room and shivered. “It’s like half your room is haunted.”

  “By Marilyn Manson,” Steph laughed.

  “Give her a break, guys.”

  “Why would you want to? Isn’t she like the roommate from hell?” Alex asked.

  “Well,” I said, my brain blinking to life as I crafted a lie, “the girl I roomed with at my last school was a Mormon.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” Steph asked.

  “At least they’re nice,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, but have you shared a bathroom with someone who has to wear their special underwear? It was always hanging on the shower rod, trying to convert me.”

  They both snort-laughed, and fell into each other.

  “You’re funny,” Alex said.

  “What school did you go to before?” Steph asked.

  Fuck. Think, Kate, think. “I don’t really like to talk about it.”

  They glanced at each other then back at me. A mysterious past was perfect. Whatever people concocted in their heads was way worse than anything I could tell them, even though my real freshman year had been pretty bad.

  A blur of drunken nights, hung over days and as many guys as I could sleep with in between.

  It would definitely be easier, smarter, to go with the partial truth that I transferred because I had “problems” at my last school. Why not use the real history that usually filled me with shame? No one would wonder why I wasn’t drinking, with my past.

  I swallowed. My throat was as dry as dust. It was getting harder and harder to convince myself not to drink; I needed to at least be able to convince other people.

  “You should come with us to a party tomorrow,” Alex said.

  “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I’m kind of trying to last longer than a semester here.”

  “We’ll keep you out of trouble,” Steph said.

  Though I doubted it, I couldn’t help but think about the weekend ahead. I could either spend it stuck in my room with Dawn shooting looks of death in my direction while she scribbled in her sketch book, continuing to avoid Carter even though I didn’t really want to avoid him, or out with Steph and Alex enjoying college-take-two.

  Wasn’t that the whole reason I’d gone back to school and pretended to be a freshman, so I could have the real college experience?

  I could go to a party and not drink.

  Couldn’t I?

  Chapter Eleven

  Carter

  I was on my way to the library Saturday night when I found Kate waiting in the dorm hallway in front of her room. I hadn’t been avoiding her, but I guess steering clear had been easier than admitting I wanted to see her. Her blond hair was in ringlet curls as shiny as ribbon candy, her brown eyes were lined with sparkly blue. She wore a tight white sweater and held her coat.

  She was beautiful and if I wasn’t her RA and on my way to the library I might have told her so.

  “Decided to come with me to the library after all?” I finally asked, even though she was not dressed for me or the library. It was better than letting her know she was making it hard for me to walk straight, to even talk straight.

  “You go to the library on Saturday nights too?”

  I nodded, trying to ignore how lame her question made me seem. “Every night at seven.” Who was I kidding? It was lame, but it also kept me on track.

  “I guess you’re going to pass Professor Parker’s class this time around.”

  “That’s the plan,” I said. “You look nice,” I added quickly, the words bubbling out before I could stop them, honestly it was the least of what I thought about how she looked.

  “I’m going to a party,” she said, avoiding my eyes like she was guilty. I couldn’t tell if it was because she was going or that now I knew about it.

  I also could have been projecting. Absorbed in my own guilt that I couldn’t be that kind of guy anymore—someone who could go to parties and not be stared down like a criminal the entire time. Or worse, feel like an asshole for even pretending it was okay to celebrate anything.

  I also couldn’t deny a distressing worry starting like a pain in my lungs. I knew what happened at parties. I knew what had happened at one party.

  “Where at?” I asked, working on steadying my breathing.

  She shrugged, “Alex and Steph are taking me.”

  The back of my neck prickled—an itch with no scratch. She was hanging out with Alex and Steph? Aside from what could happen at the party, it was probably a matter of two beers before they revealed who I really was, what I really was. Before I could no longer walk up and talk to Kate and feel totally stupid about everything I said like any other fumbling guy, before she saw what everyone else on campus saw.

  I guess I should have taken Tristan’s advice and asked her out sooner.

  “I didn’t know you were friends with them,” I said. The words felt black.

  “I met them yesterday.”

  Why was I surprised? Alex and Steph probably liked what I did about Kate—her humor, her spirit, the way she didn’t seem to care what anyone thought of her. The difference was they didn’t have anything to hide.

  “First party of the semester,” I said, leaning against the wall, trying to seem casual, even though my pulse batted against my jugular. “Keep your wits about you.”

  “Where else would I keep them?” she asked, her lips tipped up.

  The glow of her smile hit me right in the center of my chest.

  “Funny,” I said, trying to smile back, “but you get a few drinks in you…” I stopped.

  What was I doing? I wasn’t her father. I wasn’t even her boyfriend. I was just some guy who wanted to make sure she was okay.

  Maybe it was because I could sense she was trying her best to make sure of that too. She exuded confidence, but I could tell it was covering something else.

  I knew all about pretending things were okay when they were anything but.

  “I told you,” she said, focusing on my eyes so intently hers started watering, “I don’t drink.”

  “I know,” I said. I did, but that could quickly change. If the night with Jeanie taught me anything, it was that bad things happened when alcohol was around.

  “You don’t believe me,” she sighed.

  “It’s not my job to believe you.”

  “What is your job again?” she asked, putting her finger on her chin. Her lips spilled into a sensuous smile.

  It made me consider screwing my job and my secrets altogether and kissing her senseless right there in the hallway. Kiss her so hard she forgot about the party. Kiss her so hard whatever Alex and Steph might tell her about me wouldn’t matter.

  “Please be careful,” I said. If I wanted to do those things to her, imagine what any other guy who didn’t have his past stopping him would want to do.

  “I’ll be with Steph and Alex.”

  “Like I said,” I replied. But was I more worried about what Steph and Alex would tell her or who she might become with Steph and Alex?

  “Hey, they’re your students, Mr. RA, do something about it,” she said, her face turning red in a way that seemed so not like her. Not that I even knew her well enough to think so. Maybe I just hoped to.

  Besides, I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t stop them and I couldn’t stop her.

  I had no right to try.

  Tristan had said I should let her into my compartmentalized life, but this was not what he’d meant.

  “Okay then,” I said, forcing myself to head toward the elevator. “Have a good night.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What else should I say?” I asked, th
under in my ears.

  “Why are you mad?” Her face was a mask of confusion.

  “I’m not. Have fun,” I said, continuing toward the elevator and trying to keep my stomach level. I was definitely something, but it wasn’t mad.

  I wanted to pause this moment. Beautiful Kate, shining like a snowflake in the hallway while I was just her annoying RA, instead of whatever I might become after Alex and Steph got ahold of her.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kate

  Carter got onto the elevator as Steph and Alex stepped out into the hallway. They leaned against their door, rosy cheeked and clearly buzzing. They wore tight Republic jeans and even tighter scoop neck tops. Alex wore light blue, and Steph wore pink. Their makeup was perfectly applied to make their eyes smoky and their lips pouty. I always wondered when someone decided looking sexy was akin to being punched in the face.

  I was poured, thanks to shapewear, into my Seven for All Mankind jeans and a white cashmere sweater that showed off my supposedly nineteen-year-old boobs flawlessly. When you talk about the geniuses of our time, you must never leave out the inventor of Spanx and the push-up bra, especially when it came to taking ten years off.

  “Are you guys ready to go?” I asked, my subtle way of making sure they weren’t going to try to lure me into their room for vodka shots I would have to deny myself.

  “Why else would we be standing out here?” Steph asked.

  “Where are your coats?” I replied. Then, remembering I wasn’t their mom, I closed my mouth and eyes tight and braced myself for their OMG you are such a loser response.

  Because what I’d asked totally made me one.

  “Is this your first college party or something?” Alex asked.

  “Where are we supposed to put them when we get there?” Steph finished, her pink glossed lips pursing.

  I’d forgotten this detail. There was no bed to put your coat on at a college party. This was something that didn’t happen until later in life when you cared about your property because you’d purchased it yourself. After college, you also wanted to wear a coat because you realized your mother wasn’t just being a nag, and going outside without a coat in the middle of winter was asinine.