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“As in,theOaklynn?” Alec asked over his shoulder.
Keene shook his head to clear it. “The Oaklynn who’s Archer’s new tenant and lives in—”
“Yes!” Damien cut in sharply. “She’s that Oaklynn.”
But Alec kept going. “Sothisis the Oaklynn you went to Taco Tuesday with?”
“Wow, I’m beginning to feel famous,” I spoke up, fanning my face as if embarrassed.
“Oh, you are,” Keene assured. “If our buddy Parker hadn’t attested to the fact that he saw you twoinsidethe student union together, we’d probably be convinced you were just a figment of Archer’s wildest imagination.”
Squinting, I glanced at Damien. “Parker’s the drunk guy you had to take home, right?”
“Yes,” he confirmed and started to set his bananas into Alec and Keene’s cart, only to pause. “Wha…?” Swerving a dismayed glance toward his roommates, he demanded, “What the hellisall this shit?”
He pulled a Snickers bar up from between a bag of chips and a package of cookies and lifted his brows reproachfully at Alec and Keene.
“I call it pure deliciousness,” Alec announced proudly and grabbed the candy bar from Damien’s hand so he could unpeel the wrapper and take a big bite.
“What’re you doing?” Damien hissed, utterly aghast. “Don’t eat that before wepayfor it!”
Alec spat the bite into his palm, looking properly chastised.
“Oh my God,” Damien groaned and pressed a hand to his brow. “You two are fucking hopeless.”
Keene glanced at me as he motioned toward Damien. “Please tell us you can pull that stick out of his ass? We’ve had no success ourselves.”
“You’re our only hope, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” Alec pleaded, then popped the bite of Snickers back into his mouth before Damien could stop him.
I blurted out a laugh, and Damien sent me a scolding glance. “Don’t encourage them.”
“Sorry! I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” I held up a hand to continue my apology because it was taking me longer than I wanted to stop laughing. “They’re just so cute.”
“Ha!” Keene cried, slapping Damien in the arm with the back of his hand. “Did you hear that? She thinks we’re—wait.Cute?”
Realizing cute was not the term he wanted to be labeled, he spun toward me with both hands lifted in outrage. “What the fuck? No woman calls me cute.”
I only shrugged. “Sorry. I guess you should’ve thought of that before you went and acted so adorable.”
Butadorablewas apparently an even worse term thancutein his hierarchy. Grimacing and clutching his chest as if he’d been shot, he fell a step back, unable to accept my compliment.
“It’s his cheeks, isn’t it?” Alec asked, reaching out to pinch Keene right through his five o’clock shadow.
But Keene slapped his hand down. “Man! She called you cute, too.”
Alec only shrugged. “I’ll take cute,” he told me, smiling as if proud. “Oh, hey. That box looks heavy. Why don’t you put it in our cart?”
It literally weighed five ounces…if that.
“In fact,” Alec went on. “You should just do the rest of your shopping with us. Safety in numbers and all that. I mean, you heard about that sophomore who went missing from campus, didn’t you? Can’t be too cautious these days.”
When Keene lifted his brows and nodded encouragingly, I glanced between the two, feeling caught, before my gaze strayed to Damien.
His eyebrows wrinkled ruefully in one of those sorry-I-come-with-kids kind of apologies, and then he shrugged, telling me the decision was completely mine.
It wasn’t like I had any other plans, except the ones that had obviously just fallen through with Damien, so I shrugged too. “Why not?” I said. “Sounds fun.”
“Yeah, like a kick in the head,” Damien mumbled under his breath, while Alec hooted, “Right on!” and wound an arm over my shoulders as he turned us away from the other two and started me down the aisle.
