I’m speechless for a moment, unsure what I can say. I’d expected him to brush it off or even laugh, but instead, he seems completely unfazed.
He cocks his head as I watch him, and I realize with a start that he’s waiting for my reply.
“Oh, um, no.” I pull away, and this time he lets me. “It’s broken.”
Not a lie, but still, I can’t manage to say it to his face.
Surprisingly, he doesn’t push like I expected him to. Instead, walking past me down the path a ways before calling for me to get moving.
“Come on, slowpoke, we need to grab your books and laptop before the store closes!”
Are all guys this weird?
My thoughts go to the only other guy I’ve ever had any kind of anything with, and I shake my head. Hopefully, Julez is nothing like him.
Of all the damn rooms in the whole school, they put her with me…
Wren, the girl who has been the bane of my existence for years, is now not only here but in the same dorm.
I’d thought I was rid of her; sure, she’d choose another school to attend when she didn’t start last year.
I should have known I couldn’t get that lucky, that she wouldn’t just leave me alone and let me have this.
I’ve worked too hard to let her take it all from me again.
“You're going to wear a hole through the floor,” Nolan says, walking into the kitchen, hair wet and a towel around his neck.
I’d spent all morning in the library only to come back and find most of them gone. I’d originally come back to eat something, but seeing her things and smelling her throughout the dorm had pissed me off all over again.
“Fuck off,” I tell him as he moves past me to the fridge, grabbing out his sushi from yesterday. It’s on the tip of my tongue to give him a hard time, but I think better of it.
“Can’t you talk to your dad?” I ask, cringing as I say it aloud.
He freezes for a moment, his back tense at just the mention of his father, and I feel like an asshole.
But this is important.
“It’s bad enough she’s here. I don’t need herhere.” I wave a hand around the dorm, our sanctuary. “Wedon’t,” I emphasize because he knows as well as I do that having her here is going to make our lives harder.
Nolan thaws but doesn’t turn to face me, instead keeping his back to me as he sets his box on the counter and fills a glass with water from the tap.
“I thought you said he wouldn’t fill that room. Wasn’t he the one who suggested the gym?” I say ‘gym’ loosely; it’s really only something Nolan can use, but that’s what we call it because anything else will raise suspicion.
“It was.” I hear the strain in his words, forced out through clenched teeth.
Nolan and his father don’t get along, and I can’t say I blame him; he’s an asshole, but he’s also the dean.
I’ve never asked him for anything, but I had to at least try.
Wren has been here less than a day, and already she’s messing everything up. I can’t even study without worrying about her and what she’s planning. She’s a distraction.
Some of my annoyance melts away knowing Nolan isn’t happy either, though I can’t be sure if it’s because of Wren or me bringing up his father. Hopefully both.
I drop onto the couch opposite the one she slept on last night, unwilling to sit where she’s been.
“She’s not like us, co-ed or not. Putting her here seems like some kind of sick, cosmic joke. This school is huge and has accommodated mortals for years. Can there really be no more open rooms?” I ask aloud, though I don’t mean for him to actually have an answer; I’m sure he doesn’t know, but I’m hoping that maybe we can come up with something.
“There really are no openings.” I whip around to find Titus coming in through the door, his face set in his usual scowl.
