1
Alex
The parking ticket tucked beneath my windshield wiper was bright enough to see from halfway across the lot.
I noticed it when I came out of the business building, considered walking over to check how much it was, then decided I didn’t care enough.
I’d parked in a faculty spot.
Again.
Technically, I wasn’t supposed to park there. Technically, I also wasn’t supposed to have accumulated enough unpaid tickets last semester that Blackwell threatened to revoke my parking permit, but somebody in administration had apparently remembered my grandfather’s name was carved into the front of the building I’d just walked out of.
The threat disappeared.
My permit didn’t.
I kept walking.
“Ryan.”
I looked toward the lawn.
Hunter Prescott was stretched across a stone bench beneath one of the oak trees, sunglasses covering his eyes despite the fact that half the courtyard was shaded. Brady Hayes sat beside him with his feet planted on the grass, while Jake Calloway leaned against the low wall behind them scrolling through his phone.
I changed direction.
Hunter lifted his sunglasses when I got closer. His eyes were red.
I stopped in front of him. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
“Congratulations.”
“You’re high.”
“That too.”
Brady laughed.
I dropped my backpack onto the grass and sat on the wall beside Jake. “You couldn’t wait until after class?”
“I don’t have class.”
“You had class.”
“I made a personal decision.”
“You dropped it?”
“I didn’t go.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Feels the same.”
Jake looked up from his phone. “He’s been sitting here for forty minutes telling me he’s going to email the professor.”
“I am.”
“You’ve said that four times.”
“I haven’t decided what excuse I’m using.”
Brady glanced at him. “Dead grandmother.”
“Used it sophomore year.”
“Other grandmother.”
“Also used.”
I looked at Hunter. “You killed both grandmothers for the same professor?”
“No. Different professors.”
“Good. I’d hate for you to look suspicious.”
Hunter smiled and lowered his sunglasses again.
I’d known the three of them long enough that none of this required effort anymore.
Our fathers had been friends before we were born. There were photographs somewhere in my mother’s house of the four of us at five years old wearing tiny suits at charity events we couldn’t remember. We’d gone to the same schools, spent summers at the same houses, gotten drunk together for the first time at fifteen and learned very quickly that four teenage boys with too much money and parents who knew everyone important could get away with an impressive amount of shit.
College hadn’t improved us.
If anything, Blackwell had made it worse.
There were rules here. Plenty of them.
They just weren’t applied evenly.
Hunter had been caught smoking weed behind Prescott Hall freshman year and somehow left the meeting with the dean without so much as a written warning. Brady had driven his father’s Porsche onto the soccer field after a party sophomore year. Jake had gotten into a fight outside a bar last spring that should’ve ended with an assault charge.
It hadn’t.
Neither had mine.
Money wasn’t magic. My father had made that very clear whenever I pushed too far.
But money knew the right attorneys.
It knew the police chief.
It knew the university president.
It knew which calls to make before a problem became permanent.
I had spent most of my life understanding that difference.
My phone vibrated against my thigh.
Dad.
I declined the call.
Jake noticed. “Christopher?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you do?”
“Nothing.”
Hunter pushed his sunglasses onto his forehead. “That’s never true.”
“I haven’t done anything recently.”
“Better.”
The phone rang again.
I declined it again.
Brady watched me. “He’ll keep calling.”
“I know.”
“So answer.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Solid strategy.”
My phone immediately buzzed with a text.
Dinner. Seven. Don’t be late.
I stared at it.
Another appeared.
This is important.
I locked the screen.
“Problem?” Jake asked.
“Dinner.”
Hunter made a sympathetic sound.
“My parents like me,” Brady said.
“Your parents are in London nine months out of the year.”
“Distance keeps the relationship healthy.”
I laughed and looked across the lawn.
September at Blackwell was still warm enough that everyone seemed determined to pretend summer hadn’t ended. Girls lay across blankets in shorts and tank tops. Guys threw a football near the fountain despite a sign explicitly telling them not to. Music drifted from somewhere near the dorms, mixing with conversation and the occasional shout.
Blackwell University liked pretending it was dignified.
Old brick.
Ivy.
Stone buildings with dead men’s names engraved above the doors.
Parents paid seventy grand a year to send their kids here, then acted surprised when those kids spent four years drinking, fucking and developing drug problems inside historically significant buildings.
I liked the place.
Probably for all the wrong reasons.
“You’re coming Friday,” Brady said.
I glanced at him. “To your house?”
“No, Alex. My fucking funeral.”
“Could’ve been.”
“My parents left this morning.”
“That explains the sudden enthusiasm.”
Hunter sat up. “How big?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sent the address to half the school.”
“I did not.”
“You put it on your story.”
“Close friends.”
Jake looked at him. “You have eight hundred people on close friends.”
Brady shrugged. “They’re close to me.”
“Do you know all their names?”
“That’s not the point.”
I laughed.
Brady’s parties had been getting progressively more ridiculous since freshman year. The Hayes house sat fifteen minutes from campus on enough land that neighbors couldn’t complain about the noise even if they wanted to. The first time his parents went out of town, we’d had maybe fifty people over.
Last spring, there had been close to four hundred.
Someone broke a bathroom sink.
A girl ended up naked in the fountain.
Hunter woke up on a pool float at nine in the morning with one shoe and no memory of getting into the water.
Brady’s mother had replaced the sink.
Nobody ever found Hunter’s shoe.
“Pool open?” Hunter asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s September.”
“And?”
“And nothing. Just checking.”
Brady looked at me. “You’re coming?”
“Probably.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Then yes.”
“Good.”
Hunter nudged my shoe with his. “Bring the brunette.”
I looked at him. “What brunette?”
“The one from Saturday.”
I genuinely had to think about it.
Then I remembered.
“Lauren?”
“Was that her name?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
Brady laughed.
I was almost positive it was Lauren.
She’d been at my house Saturday with people I barely knew, stayed after most of them left and ended up in my bed around three. We’d hooked up twice before that. Maybe three times.
She knew what it was.
So did I.
I liked women. I liked sex. I didn’t particularly enjoy pretending either had to mean more than it did.
Most of the women I slept with understood that.
The ones who didn’t usually learned quickly.
“She won’t come,” I said.
Hunter looked interested. “Why?”
“Because I’m not inviting her.”
“Harsh.”
“It isn’t harsh.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“She knows I don’t date.”
Brady shook his head. “One day, one of them is going to murder you.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Can I have your car if she does?”
“No.”
“House?”
“No.”
“Watch?”
I looked at him.
He smiled. “Worth asking.”
That was when the administration doors opened across the courtyard.
I wouldn’t have looked twice if Brady hadn’t said something.
“Jesus.”
My attention shifted.
Two girls walked out.
One brunette.
One blonde.
I saw the blonde first.
And kept looking.
She was wearing denim shorts and a fitted white top, nothing remotely unusual for campus, but the combination on her was fucking distracting. Long blonde hair fell down her back in loose waves, catching gold where the afternoon sun hit it. She wasn’t tall. Maybe five-five. Slim waist, bare legs, enough curve through her hips that my attention stayed there longer than it probably should have.
Then she turned slightly toward the brunette beside her.
Her face was even better.
“Who the fuck is that?” Hunter asked.
“No idea.”
Brady looked over. “Which one?”
“The blonde.”
Jake finally glanced up from his phone.
The girls started down the steps.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the blonde was talking with her hands, visibly irritated about something. The brunette laughed. She shoved her lightly with one shoulder.
Then the blonde looked across the courtyard.
Straight at us.
Her attention moved over the four of us.
Stopped on me.
There was nothing shy about it.
Her gaze met mine, dipped briefly, then came back up.
I almost smiled.
She was checking me out.
Good.
I let myself look properly now that she’d done the same.
Nice tits.
That was my first thought.
Not especially profound.
Still accurate.
My second involved her thighs.
My third would’ve gotten me slapped if I’d said it aloud.
Hunter leaned forward beside me. “She’s fucking gorgeous.”
“Yeah.”
“I’d fuck her.”
“Congratulations.”
“You wouldn’t?”
I watched her push a strand of hair behind her ear.
“Obviously.”
Brady laughed. “Beautiful.”
“What?”
“You two are disgusting.”
Hunter looked at him. “You were staring too.”
“I can think someone’s hot without immediately announcing what I’d do to her.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
The blonde looked at me again.
This time I caught the exact second she realized I was still watching.
Her eyebrows lifted.
Not embarrassed.
More like she was calling me out.
I smiled.
She shook her head and looked away.
Fuck.
That was hot.
Hunter noticed.
“Oh, she has an attitude.”
“You’ve never spoken to her.”
“I can tell.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I have instincts.”
“Your instincts told you tequila and mushrooms were a good combination last month.”
“They were until they weren’t.”
The girls continued down the path toward the center of campus.
The blonde didn’t look back.
I watched her anyway.
Mostly her ass.
Hunter was doing the same thing.
“I’m talking to her,” he said.
“Go ahead.”
He looked at me.
“What?”
“You don’t care?”
“Why the fuck would I care?”
“You were staring at her like you wanted to eat her.”
“I do.”
Brady choked on his drink.
I ignored him.
Hunter grinned. “And you’re letting me have her?”
I looked at him. “She’s a person, not a fucking parking spot.”
“Very progressive.”
“If she wants to fuck you, fuck her.”
“And if she wants to fuck you?”
“Then I’ll have a better Friday.”
Hunter laughed.
There wasn’t anything deeper underneath it.
I didn’t know her.
She didn’t know me.
She was a hot girl on a campus full of hot girls, and I wasn’t going to start competing with my best friend over someone whose name I didn’t even know.
The fact that I wanted to get her naked didn’t make her special.
It made me twenty-two.
My phone buzzed again.
Dad.
I sighed.
“I’m leaving.”
Hunter looked up. “Where?”
“Class.”
All three of them stared at me.
“What?”
Brady checked his phone. “You’re voluntarily going to class?”
“Unlike Hunter, I’d like to graduate.”
“I’ll graduate.”
Jake looked at him. “How?”
“Family support.”
“You mean donations.”
“Same thing.”
I grabbed my backpack.
Hunter stood too. “I’m coming with you.”
“You’re not in my class.”
“No, but my car is at your house.”
I stopped.
“Why?”
“You drove last night.”
“Right.”
“Do you remember?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I remembered enough.
We’d gone out for drinks after Jake finished practice, which had turned into another bar, then somebody’s apartment. Hunter had decided at some point around one in the morning that driving was a bad idea, which was probably the smartest decision he’d made all week.
“I’m not going home until after class.”
“I’ll wait.”
“You’re going to sit outside my lecture?”
“I’ll find something to do.”
“That sounds ominous.”
He picked up his backpack from the grass.
Brady called after us. “Friday. Ten.”
“That’s early,” Hunter said.
“For normal people.”
“We don’t know any.”
I raised one hand without looking back.
We crossed the courtyard toward the humanities building.
Halfway there, Hunter glanced toward the path the blonde had taken.
“She was fucking hot.”
“Still thinking about her?”
“Yes.”
“You have the attention span of a goldfish.”
“I’m consistent.”
I laughed.
He looked at me. “You seriously don’t know who she is?”
“No.”
“New, maybe.”
“Probably.”
“I would’ve noticed her.”
“You notice everyone with tits.”
“Not true.”
I looked at him.
“Fine. Mostly true.”
We reached the building.
Hunter stopped outside.
“You want me to find out?”
“Find out what?”
“Her name.”
“No.”
“Really?”
I pulled open the door. “If I see her again, I’ll ask her myself.”
Hunter smiled. “You planning to?”
“No.”
That was true.
At least then.
My lecture ran twenty minutes over because Professor Lang apparently believed nobody had anything better to do on a Tuesday afternoon.
By the time I walked outside, Hunter was sitting on the hood of somebody else’s BMW eating a bag of chips.
I stopped.
“Is that your car?”
“No.”
“Do you know whose it is?”
“No.”
“Get off.”
He slid down. “You’re such a fucking dad sometimes.”
“I’m trying to prevent you from getting punched.”
“I can fight.”
“That’s what worries me.”
We started toward the parking lot.
“Guess who I saw,” he said.
I knew immediately.
I hated that I knew.
“Blonde?”
“Blonde.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“No.”
I looked at him.
He smiled.
“What happened to your instincts?”
“She was with someone.”
“That has never stopped you.”
“It was a professor.”
“Probably wise.”
“I do occasionally make good choices.”
“I’ll alert the press.”
He shoved my shoulder.
When we reached my Range Rover, I pulled the parking ticket from beneath the windshield and handed it to him.
“What’s this?”
“A gift.”
He looked at the amount.
“Jesus. They raised it.”
“Apparently.”
“You gonna pay it?”
“Probably not.”
Hunter laughed and climbed into the passenger seat.
I started the engine.
As we pulled out of the lot, my phone connected automatically and immediately started ringing through the speakers.
Christopher Ryan.
Hunter looked at the display.
“Daddy’s calling.”
“Call him that to his face.”
“I enjoy living.”
I answered.
“What?”
My father’s voice came through the speakers. “That’s how you answer the phone?”
“You’ve called six times.”
“And you’ve ignored five.”
“I was in class.”
Hunter covered his mouth to keep from laughing.
There was a pause.
My father clearly didn’t believe me.
“I expect you at the house at seven.”
“I saw the text.”
“Then why didn’t you answer?”
“Because you sent a text.”
Hunter turned toward the window, shoulders shaking.
I reached over and shoved his head.
“Are you driving?” my father asked.
“Yes.”
“Who’s with you?”
“Hunter.”
“Of course.”
Hunter leaned toward the console. “Hi, Chris.”
“Hello, Hunter.”
“Big fan.”
I gave him a look.
My father ignored him.
“Seven, Alexander. And don’t show up high.”
Hunter lost it.
I ended the call.
“You’re such an asshole,” I said.
“He loves me.”
“He tolerates you.”
“Same thing.”
I turned onto the road toward my house.
The blonde crossed my mind again.
Not because Hunter had brought her up.
Not entirely.
I remembered the way she’d looked at me.
The tiny lift of her eyebrow when she caught me staring.
The shape of her body in those shorts.
I’d fuck her.
No question.
If I saw her Friday and she was interested, I’d probably find out whether she looked as good without the white top as she did in it.
If Hunter got there first, whatever.
There would be someone else.
There always was.
