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I tossed her the remote. “Find something you want to watch.”
“Just not a chick flick. I want something funny tonight. Something that’ll make us laugh so hard we’re scared of throwing our pizza back up.”
I opened the fridge. “I hear Trevor Noah’s new standup is hysterical.”
“Oh, Trevor Noah it is, then.”
I plucked us both a soda from the mini-fridge, then hopped onto Hannah’s bed. And as I poured that hot honey over my first slice of pizza, I drew in a deep breath. This was it. We had a week before classes started, then we’d be well on our way to tackling our second year of college. It felt good, no longer being a freshman, a stranger on campus, always questioning things. Registration had been easier this time around. Moving in had been a breeze. Sort of. And now, I got to spend quality time with my best friend for an entire week before classes dragged us to opposite ends of campus.
Hannah guffawed. “Oh, my God. My stomach. It hurts.”
I had to stop eating pizza in order to take deep breaths. My gosh, this standup special really was hysterical. It almost made it hard to eat.
Almost.
We stuffed ourselves stupid with pizza as the comedy show wound down. And just as we started throwing things into our small trash cans, I heard loud music rolling down the hallway. The walls thudded. Lights went off. And as I saw the soft glow of ethereal colors from underneath the doorway, my eyes slid over to Hannah.
“You know what that means,” I said.
She grinned. “Yep. It means decorating is going to be left until tomorrow. Because the first dorm party of the semester is already under way!”
She raced for her closet and started sifting through her clothes. The music grew closer. And closer. Until the loud music was all my brain registered. I had just enough time to put up a few music posters to offset the twinkling lights Hannah had already strung up on her end. Then I changed my pizza-covered T-shirt and slipped out of my tennis shoes. Hannah changed her outfit four separate times, giving me even more time to unpack the rest of my shirts and jam my underwear into a drawer in my dresser.
After she was done, she swung our room door open.
“Welcome to campus, guys. Woo hoo!”
A random voice filled our room before a string of fake flowers descended around my head.
“These. Are so. Cute,” Hannah yelled.
“Whenever you’re ready, there’s drinks and some snacks. Come enjoy yourselves!”
I nodded. “Thanks!”
I walked over to the window and peeked down. I saw students piling into the dorm as music started pulsing below us. Each floor of the dorm was gearing up for their own party, hosting a level-by-level concoction of drinks, snacks, dancing, and decorations. Strobe lights quickly filled the room. I peeked out into the hallway and saw Hannah with her hands in the air, already dancing with a drink in her hand, enjoying her ‘not freshman’ status.
“Come on! What are you waiting for!?” she yelled.
Rearranging the flowers around my neck, I started for the hallway, ready to make a new memory, usher in the new college year, and hopefully shake that massive brute of a man from my mind long enough to get some sleep tonight.
4
Max
“Hey, got a smoke?”
I rolled my eyes as Benji rode up on his rust bucket of a bike.
“No, I don’t.”
“Ah, come on, Max. You always have a pack on you.”
“And I’m not giving you a single one.”
Benji snickered as he parked his bike next to me. Most men didn’t dare do that. Not when I was at the helm. But he was my cousin, and he was an idiot. Booksmart, sure. But certainly not street smart. He didn’t understand how this game worked. How things were played. And as the guys smoked their cigarettes and shot the shit, I gazed across the street. At that damn dorm building.
For the second day in a row.
