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“The word doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling inside of me,” she says, melodrama dripping from her voice.

I pout. “I’m gonna miss you.”

“Me, too,” Violet adds, just as sincere as me.

“I am but a short plane ride away, my dears. Oh! That reminds me.” She reaches deep into her purse. “I have a going away present for you.”

I blink. “For me?”

“Uh-huh.” She rummages a little more, knocking contents around.

“But you’re the one going away.”

“Right. And because I’m going away, I need someone trustworthy to look after my place while I’m gone— ha!” She withdraws her hand, pinching a silver key between two fingers. “Naturally, I thought of you.” As she hands me the key, she glances at Violet. “No offense, Vi.”

Violet shrugs. “Oh, I wouldn’t trust me with that, either.”

I stare at the key in my palm. “This is a key to your apartment?” I ask to be sure.

“I figured — with you just starting school and all — you might need a quiet place to escape to. You know, somewhere you can study or take a nap or bang my brother.”

Oh.

“Huh?” I ask.

Violet sets her phone facedown on the table. “Well, you have my undivideds now,” she says.

“Courtney,” I scold.

“What?” she asks. “It’s gonna happen. And my place is way better than a sex van.”

“You don’t know that!” I pause. “What’s a sex van?”

Violet snorts. I blush.

Courtney smiles, but she backs off. “But seriously, would you check in while I’m gone? Not every single day, but once a week?”

I palm the key. “I can do that, yes.”

“It’s a nice neighborhood. Pretty quiet if you don’t count the upstairs neighbors with the toddler who seemingly never grows old, but you can only hear them from the kitchen. I mean it when I say it’s a good study spot — and it’ll be hell trying to find a study room in the library come finals week. Believe me.”

“Sounds good,” I say.

“Rent’s paid through the end of the year. There’s plenty of toilet paper in the hall closet. And condoms are in the bathroom drawer.”

I glare at her while she takes a cocky sip from her coffee.

CHAPTER 20

CONNOR

“Congratulations, gentlemen. It’s been a long day,” Kenny says from the second-floor balcony. His voice booms throughout the foyer of the Delta Xi house as he looks at each of us one-by-one. “You’re now one step closer to earning this...”

He lifts his shirt, revealing the black Greek letters tattooed into his abs down his right side.

Alpha. Delta. Xi.

I stand taller. My whole life, I’ve seen the same letters on my father’s ribs. On John Kirby’s ribs. A quick glance at Alex and Ben’s smiles beside me shows they’re thinking the same thing.