I lean forward as if doing so will let me see more ofher.
She’s wearing some kind of tight, dark sweater that makes me want to check the rest of herout.
Every part of my body tingles, the frustration transmuting smoothly intoattraction.
I haven’t felt this way since I saw a ghost nearly four monthsago.
Hallucinations—another reason I need to get the hell out ofhere.
“Apparently, my roommate, Tyler, has taken up crack over thesummer.”
I blink at Beck’s phone in my face, and I realize the assembly’s done and everyone’s getting up to head for class or their dorms orapartments.
As we file out of our row, I scan the bodies ahead of us for the girl I waswatching.
I can’t find her. The disappointment is stupid because I’ve never even met her, but there was something magnetic abouther.
Classmates stop us to say hi or ask about our summers. Neither Beck nor I have class for half an hour, so we catchup.
I think I’ve lost track of my roomie when Beck grabs my arm, his face lighting up. “Hey, Ty! I got someone you gottameet.”
He tugs on me. “I told you I was a mentor,” he says, pulling to a stop near the doors. “Here’s mymentee.”
I stop next to him, and my entire bodystiffens.
The girl I was checking out is wearing black boots and painted-on jeans that make my abs clench. The sweatshirt’s short enough to show a tantalizing sliver of herwaist.
Her hair is longer than I thought, and I’m suddenly deciding how many times I could wrap it around myhand.
But when I see her face, every muscle in metightens.
Full lips, small nose, bright-amber eyes fringed with dark lashes. She’s brand new and so familiar Iache.
If there’s one smallmercy?
It’s that Annie Jamieson, the girl I was mentally jerking off to all assembly, looks as stunned as Ifeel.
2
“How many ofthe guys here eat pussy?” Elle, the blonde girl in the room next to mine who introduced herself when I moved in last night, asks from the seat next to me when the assemblyconcludes.
“Half,” Idecide.
“Then of the three hotties I spotted while the dean was waxing poetic about tradition, one-point-five might go down onme.”
I laugh as the house lights goup.
“I’ll even share with you,” she says generously as we rise from ourseats.
“Do I get the point-five or the whole one every otherweekend?”
“Depends how interesting you wind upbeing.”
The theater is huge and full, and I try not to be intimidated as I follow her out of our row. “So, no boyfriend you left behind in Nebraska,” I say, remembering our conversation from lastnight.
“Nope. I do comedy, so everything in my life gets put on display. Guys say they’re cool with it, but the first time you tell a room of people about how you found him jerking off to Meryl Streep,it gets strained fast. You want to be a musician, right?” she goes on without pausing forbreath.
“Yeah.”