“Check your assumptions there, Lukas,” says Sebastian. “Fair is fair.”
Lukas hesitates a moment, then nods. “You’re right,” he agrees.
Confused, I watch as all four of the guys scramble their cubes and pass them around the circle to the right. I’ve seen them do this before, when I interviewed them, but why are they doing it now?
Lukas solves his cube first, a smug smile on his face. Felix completes his puzzle just barely after him, followed by Sebastian and Elliot.
“Looks like I’m driving,” says Elliot, sounding resigned. “Who has the keys?”
Felix tosses him the keys before circling around to the other side of the car and settling into the backseat. Lukas holds a hand out for me to climb inside too. Looks like I’m in the middle then. I don’t even mind, I’m so charmed by the fact that they just competed to see who gets to sit next to me. It was probably the nerdiest competition ever, but that makes it all the more adorable, and it’s all I need to finally type my phone number into Lukas’s phone.
I pause before handing it back to him, though. Sebastian had a point earlier. Fair is fair. So I go to the home screen, smilinga little at the wallpaper, a big logo for the International Cubing Federation World Championship, and open up a text message to myself.
I’m certain Lukas is going to share my number with the others, and if their entire team has my number, I should have at least one of theirs.
I hit send on the text and hand the phone back to Lukas. When he glances at the screen there’s the barest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He taps the screen a few times, and I hear buzzing and text notifications throughout the car a moment later. I can only assume he’s forwarded my number to the others.
They really do share everything.
“Are we taking you straight home?” asks Elliot. His driving is smooth, and the way he grips the gearshift reminds me of the way he wraps those same fingers around a classic cube.
“We said we would.” Sebastian fiddles with the radio dial until something soft and symphonic hums quietly through the air.
“It’s still early, we could go to our place and watch a movie,” suggests Elliot, rolling up to a stop sign. He turns his head to look at me. “If you would like that.”
Would I like that? Going with four guys I barely know, to a strange house where they live, and no one knows where I am? I suddenly feel claustrophobic, boxed in by Felix and Lukas in the backseat of this SUV. Ronnie didn’t balk at them giving me a ride home so I didn’t either, but it occurs to me now that they could stop anywhere and brutally murder me. I could become a cautionary tale. A statistic.
I want to write the headlines, not be one.
I’ve never tried being like other college girls, dating and partying and focusing as much on the “college experience” as on my schoolwork, because I’ve seen the damage that can do years down the line. I’ve lived it secondhand, watching my momfawn over my narcissistic dad and struggle to stretch his single income with no work experience or degree of her own while he womanizes in every bar across town. I’ve played it safe all through high school and the first year and a half of college, but now look at me. I’ve gotten in a car with four guys I don’t know just because they showed me some attention.
My breathing quickens and I eye the windows. They’re all closed. This is a very small space. I can feel Lukas and Felix’s body heat and I start to sweat, feeling warmer than I did in the crush of bodies at the party. Is this what a panic attack feels like? I fight the urge to flail my arms out, climb over Lukas’s lap, and launch myself out of the moving car.
Things are not that dire yet. There are other ways out of this. I could text Ronnie an SOS, but Lukas and Felix would see me do it, and that might send them all into a rage and speed the murdering process along. But if I don’t try, it won’t matter how fast or slow my impending demise comes because no one will know it’s happening.
I slip my hand into my purse and wrap my fingers around my phone, then pause. Ronnie probably won’t see my text in time if she’s in the middle of hooking up with Trevor. I should also include Callie and Reyna on the message. I don’t know them all that well, but I do have their numbers. I can share my location and they can leave the party and come find me, assuming they’re not also having too much fun to bother checking their phones to see my plea. I try to think if there’s anyone else and come up empty. It never occurred to me until now that my all-work-and-no-play approach to life means I’ve made very few friends, and therefore have no one to help me when I’m about to be murdered and dumped in a ditch somewhere.
Felix must realize I’m spinning out, because he puts a hand on my back. “Hey, it’s okay.” His palm is hot on the skin exposedby Ronnie’s stupid sequin top. “You don’t have to come over tonight.”
“Yeah, we can do a movie night another time,” agrees Lukas, squeezing my shoulder.
Elliot locks eyes with me in the rearview mirror for a moment before returning his attention to the road. “We didn’t mean to spook you. I thought it might be nice to hang out, get to know each other a little without all those people around, but if it’s too much for one night, that’s okay.”
Sebastian turns to look at me, and the concern on his face helps to ease the anxiety wrapping around my chest. “We shouldn’t have suggested it. You don’t know us very well yet, and we said we would take you home. We shouldn’t have tried to change the plan.”
It seems that my fears of being gruesomely dismembered by them are unfounded. Real murderers probably wouldn’t be trying to make me feel better and promising that they’ll take me home after all. They probably are just nice, nerdy, normal guys who really do just want to watch a movie together.
Glancing out the window again, I realize that we’re only about two blocks from my college. How did we get here so quickly? It feels like we’ve only been driving for a few minutes. I guess time flies when you’re convinced you’re about to die.
“Which dorm do you live in?” asks Elliot, switching lanes and preparing to turn into the drive.
“How did you know I live on campus?”
“You told us earlier that you could get a ride from someone in your dorm,” says Elliot, then parrots back verbatim what I had said on the porch at the party.
I can’t help but be impressed. Is that really how his brain works, able to recall exactly what someone said or did, no matter how innocuous? No wonder he’s so good at solving his cubes so fast, he can recall all the patterns after just a glance.
“So you’re taking me home?” My thoughts are moving like sludge through my own brain, probably a result of the fading adrenaline from thinking the situation was more dire than it is. I’m so confused. My feelings have been all over the place since I spotted them across the room at the party. This whole situation is moving so fast. In the past two hours they’ve gone from faces on my phone screen, to saying they want my best friend to like them so they can date me, to maybe being about to murder me, to dropping me off at my dorm. I’ve got mental whiplash from it all.
