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I rolled my eyes over her dramatics. “Seriously? She won’t evengiveme her side. You’d take his side, too, if you spent any amount of time around either of them.”
Raina lifted her hands in surrender, saying, “Okay, I believe you,” but Jaylani furrowed her brow skeptically.
“He sounds sketchy as shit,” she flat-out admitted.
“Dear Lord.” I sighed and shook my head. “Pretty soon you’re going to start accusing him of being responsible for that missing girl whose roommate put up flyers about around campus.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Maybe he is.”
I snorted, and Raina sided with me. “Yeah, I heard the roommate was completely overreacting. All the girl’s stuff in their dorm room had been cleared out. She just dropped out of HaveU and didn’t tell anyone.”
When Jay opened her mouth to respond, I pulled a move from Thalia’s playbook and broke in with a distraction.
“And with that, I’ll keep your concerns in mind,” I promised abruptly. “Now what aboutyou, Jay? You haven’t said yet if my moving out has helped things with Scarlett?”
When Raina blurted out a scandalous laugh and muttered, “Well, I’d say so,” under her breath, my eyebrows rose.
Turning back to Jay, I demanded, “Okay, this sounds good. You better spill right now.”
“Well…” Jaylani started, flushing, and completely diverted by the question. Bubbling out a thrilled laugh, she dove into her tale about how her girlfriend had set up a candle-lit picnic dinner for her in the middle of their living room floor.
“That is so sweet,” I cooed, completely jealous but still glad to hear how happy Jay was to have her apartment back to just the two of them again.
As we finished our lunches and cleared the table before dumping all the trash, Jaylani regaled Raina and me with a story about how she and Scarlett decided to redecorate their bathroom, only to break a full-length mirror in the process.
“So now she thinks we’re going to have bad luck,” Jay concluded with a roll of her eyes. She refused to believe in anything superstitiousorsupernatural. “And there’s no convincing her otherwise. I swear, she’s more insistent about it than you were that time you thought you saw some dude on fire running down the fifty-yard line of the football field during the homecoming game our senior year.”
“Wait…you sawwhat?” Raina broke in with a dismayed laugh. “Was it some kind of stunt?”
I rolled my eyes. “No. It was just a trick of the setting sunlight, I think, since no one else saw it.” When her eyebrows rose in question, I lifted a hand and hurried to add, “I was three-sheets-to-the-winddrunkis what Jay always fails to mention when telling that story.”
“Ah…” Raina started to nod only to tip her head and frown. “During your high school’shomecominggame?”
With a wince, I admitted, “Yeah… I was a bit of a party animal back then.”
“She wasfunback then,” Jaylani put in, hooking her arm through mine as we left the student union behind.
“Ah, yes.” Sighing sadly, I leaned my face to the side so I could rest my temple along hers. “And now I’m boring and responsible, determined to be a good girl so I don’t flunk out of Haverick my first semester here.”
“Sounds smart to me,” Raina started, only for me to glance past her and spot a familiar figure exiting the history building.
“Oh my God!” Jarring to a halt, I grabbed Raina and Jaylani on either side of me to stop them as well. “Y’all won’t believe this.”
8
OAKLYNN
“What?” Jaylani asked, already glancing around. “What do you see?”
“Ooh, please tell me it’s a headless horseman charging across the quad,” Raina whispered excitedly.
“What?” Sputtering out a laugh, I shook my head. “No! It’s just…him.”
“Who?”
“Damien…my landlord.” Shaking both ladies’ arms, I added, “Thalia’s brother.”
Jaylani gasped and gripped my arm right back. “He followed you ontocampus?” Sending me an arch glance, she demanded, “And you say he’snota stalker?”
