Page 7 of Good Boys Don’t Bite

“Oh my God.”

“You asked him whether compulsory voting would actually increase political literacy or just increase random voting.”

Sophie looked genuinely offended now.

“How the fuck do you remember that?”

Elliot shrugged and handed the coffees back. “Good question.” She laughed again. People usually did. Bellweather University moved around them in its usual Monday-morning rush. Students crossed Hawthorne Quad in every direction, some dressed as though they'd been awake for hours and others wearing sweatpants, hoodies, and the unmistakable expression of people who had discovered consciousness against their will. Bicycle tires whispered over brick pathways still damp from the morning frost. Somewhere behind the humanities building, a groundskeeper attacked fallen leaves with a blower loud enough to make conversation briefly impossible whenever he turned toward the quad. October had transformed the campus. The ivy climbing Whitmore Hall had gone dark red. Maples burned orange around the library steps. Leaves covered the grass despite the grounds crew's increasingly hopeless attempts to remove them, and the old brick buildings looked particularly pleased with themselves beneath a pale blue sky.

Bellweather was beautiful in autumn. The university made sure everybody knew it. Photographers had been crawling around campus for the last two weeks collecting images for brochures. Smiling students beneath orange trees. Smiling students carrying books. Smiling students drinking coffee beside buildings constructed before their great-grandparents were born. Bellweather sold tradition almost as aggressively as it sold education. At sixty-eight thousand dollars a year, Elliot supposed it should sell something.

“Are you going to Langley's thing tonight?” Sophie asked.

“What thing?”

“See? You don't remember everything.”

“That wasn't an answer.”

“The departmental mixer.”

Elliot grimaced.

“Exactly.”

“I have class until six.”

“So?”

“So afterward I'm going home and pretending I don't know anyone.”

“You?”

“Occasionally.”

“I don't believe you.”

“That hurts.”

Sophie adjusted the coffees against her chest. “Come. It'll be fun.”

“It absolutely will not.”

“You'll know everyone.”

“That is exactly why it won't be fun.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Be boring.”

“Planning on it.”

“See you, Elliot.”

“Later.”

She disappeared into the crowd. Elliot continued toward Whitmore Hall. Three people greeted him before he reached the steps. He knew two of their names. The third called him Eli. Elliot didn't correct him. He held the door for a professor balancing a laptop bag and an armful of papers, returned a freshman's dropped student ID before she realized she'd lost it, and stopped long enough to answer a question from someone in his statistics seminar about an assignment Elliot had also forgotten existed until that exact moment. By the time he reached the second floor, he had four minutes before class. His phone vibrated. Elliot pulled it from his coat.

RONAN: You left your charger.