Real.
I looked around the table. None of these friends knew the first damn thing about me. I was one of the most popular guys in school, with no shortage of female attention. A “manwhore,” as the Americans liked to say. Everyone knew my name, yet I was close to no one. They only knew the fun guy who made them laugh, not the guy with the messed-up brain and crushing loneliness…
Shut it. You have everything. No one likes a whining wanker.
I found myself scanning the cafeteria again, but Harper was gone.
“Two more classes to make a better first impression,” I muttered.
But I arrived late to history. She was in front. I was in back, sitting next to the pretty actress, Tessa Carlyle, whom I began flirting with immediately. Like a program I couldn’t override.
Strike two, Mercer.
I hustled to piano class—almost ran, actually—but arrived to find the dozen or so others in the class gathered around the door and a messy, scrawled note that was taped to it. Professor Wolfe had cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances.”
Disappointment sank sharp teeth into me. This new professor, Ezra Wolfe, was rumored to be someone famous too. Legendary, even. But perhaps the delay was for the best. It was day one, and I was already bloody beat.
I caught Harper’s eye as she turned to go. She went one way while I went another. When I turned to look over my shoulder, heat swept over the back of my neck again, this time pleasant. Wanted. Her eyes flared. She quickened her step and rounded a corner, out of sight.
Strike three.
“It was lovely to meet you, Harper Bennett,” I murmured.
Back at my two-person apartment in Atlas Hall—the international dormitories—my roommate remained absent as well. I’d been told his name was Easton Locke and that he was a junior, but I’d yet to see him in the flesh.
Maybe he’s an actual vampire, currently sleeping under his bed.
All I knew of him was that he played guitar and rode a motorcycle. This I deduced by using my exemplary powers of observation: He’d left an instrument case and a motorcycle helmet on his side of the bedroom.
I opened my chemistry book and used my iPhone’s Spoken Content function to read Chapter 1 out loud. I committed all of it to memory, then all of Chapter 2 for good measure.
I was exhausted by the time I’d finished. But Harper needed me to not let her down, so I wouldn’t.
Chapter 3Harper
“So? How is it?” Vanessa Gerard asked over the phone. “Gold toiletsand a personal butler to walk you to class?”
“Not quite, but you’re not far off either,” I told my best friend back home. I tapped my pen and looked out the window from my desk. Only a few scattered lights from my neighborhood. The forest was quiet and dark. Lonely. “I miss you guys.”
“Please.” Vanessa snorted. “We’d all give our right tit to go to the gleaming castle on the hill.”
She sounded bored. Or pissed off. Almost eager to get off the phone, and we’d been talking for a grand total of four minutes.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Yeah, it’s a great opportunity, but—”
“Great opportunity? Bitch, you practically have a golden ticket to MIT or NYU or wherever the hell you want to go. The rest of us are wallowing in the dirt, hoping for community college at best.”
I swallowed a sudden rock in my throat. “I thought you were happy for me.”
“No, I’m sorry. I’m PMSing like a fiend. I am happy for you, Harp. We all are. Just jealous as fuck. Anyway, tell me all the things.Any hot guys? Any hot,richguys?”
On cue, Orion Mercer’s face floated in front of my vision.
“I suppose.”
“Rich as hell, I bet,” Vanessa said. “Way better than the scuzzy guys hanging out at the E-Z Stop parking lot.” The bitterness was back in her voice again. “Any prospects?”
“I don’t know. There’s this one guy who’s sort of infuriating—”
