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“Nunya.” She started to walk back inside, and I grabbed her arm before I thought about it, releasing her when she gave me an icy look.
“It’s only fair,” I said, shoving my wayward hand in my pocket. “You know mine.”
“Occupational hazard.”
My lips twitched reluctantly, and I allowed her to leave when she turned again to stalk away, watching the twitch of her skirt broodingly. I guessed Pinky would have to do for now, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that there would be a ‘later.’ As much as I hated the idea, If I had to come sit in this bar every night for the next month, I’d learn her name.
And once I learned her name, I’d learn how she liked to be kissed, and then I’d move on to how she liked to be touched. And then I’d show her how I liked to kiss, and liked to touch. Because in the space of minutes, between one evasion and the next, this pink-haired creature had started an itch that she was going to have to scratch.
Chapter 3: Gale
“Ican’t believe Housing is sticking us with a new fucking roommate nearly two months into the semester. What the hell is that all about?” Baron yanked a pair of sweats from his pile of laundry, sniffed, and started pulling them on. “I hope they don’t expect me to fucking chat and shit.”
“Just grunt as per usual,” Ezra said. Baron’s reserve was an ongoing joke between us. The only people he really talked to were us. We’d used him as a buffer with the occasional girl who couldn’t take a hint several times. After an hour of talking to his stoic, disinterested face, even the most obtuse figured out they were done. “God, you’re disgusting.” Ezra shook his head at Baron from where he stood in the doorway of his room. “Do you ever wash your clothes?”
“I’ve only worn these once, Martha Stewart.”
I rolled my eyes against their bickering and sank deeper into the sofa, pulling my headphones over my ears to drown them out. It was nothing new. They were like an old married couple, which made sense considering we’d been in high school together and then had been sharing a quad dorm since we were freshman here at Chandler U. We’d only ever had a fourth roommate in that first year, and the dude hadn’t lasted long. No one wanted to be stuck with the three of us.
We tended to be assholes.
Although, if I were honest, it was just me that was the asshole.
Baron Elias Whitmore was the classic benignly neglected child of American royalty, the product of actress Susannah Redmon and Texas oil privateer Jonah Whitmore. He’d grown up with nannies and in a series of private schools while his parents worked to get richer, everything he wanted provided as long as his reasons were valid.
His parents were pretty damn cool, on the whole. They’d trusted and valued his opinions enough to allow him to attend public school when he made that choice, and later to adopt me when we were juniors, giving me safety and all the creature comforts I could imagine.
And Ezra Titus Moore didn’t mean to be an asshole. He was just in his head all the time, solving equations and inventing more to solve when they were finished. The son of a wealthy trust fund gambler and a hooker who had died when he was a baby, Ezra had cut his milk teeth on poker matches and had been banned in every casino on the east coast for his frightening ability to count cards. He was brilliant.
But me… I was a legitimate asshole, mostly because I’d been fostered to be one. My parents had likely been decent people, but since I didn’t have enough good memories of them, I got to choose who I modeled myself after. Every foster family I’d been part of from the age of seven had been built by negligence and fueled by greed. Until I met Baron and he convinced his parents to adopt me, I hadn’t had a real friend or someone who cared about my welfare since I was little.
If I was into that kind of shit, I’d say it was almost fate that we had met at all. Baron’s parents were rich as Croesus, but almost hippy-ish in their handling of it and their son. Provided he had well-argued reasons, they allowed Baron to make his own decisions for the most part. Baron had no desire to be set apart by his wealth. He wanted to live in the ‘real world,’ as he put it, and be around ‘real people with real problems.’ So he had argued for public school instead of upper crust private, and ended up in my world.
We’d been tight from the start.
And now Chandler U. was going to toss fresh meat our way. I smirked to myself. At least the rest of the year would be entertaining.
“Gale!”
The sound of Baron’s shout filtered through vintage Springsteen vibrating through my headphones and I pulled one side away from my ear. “What?”
“Get the door.”
I pushed myself up from the couch, seeing that while I’d been zoning Ezra had shut himself in his room and Baron in the bathroom for his morning shit. A knock came on the door, loud and impatient. It had to be our roommate. Everyone else on our hall knew not to fuck with us. I strolled over and pasted a nasty expression on my face before flinging it open. Might as well start this off on the right foot.Which would be the wrong foot.
“Hold your fucking horses, I’m—” The words died in my throat. This wasn’t our roommate. “Can I help you?”
A tiny female—seriously, she only came up to my pecs, and Baron was even bigger than me—stood in front of me, one hand raised to knock again. She was wearing a hideous baggy sweater over a pair of jeans tucked into a pair of black combat boots, and pale blond hair with pink tips poured from beneath a gray beanie plastered to her head. As I stared in confusion, she lowered her hand and swept the beanie from her head, leaving her hair standing on end. “Took you long enough.”
With that statement, she picked up a duffel that I’d only just noticed and pushed past me into the dorm. “Who the fuck are you?” I looked past her into the empty corridor. Maybe she was our new roommate’s girlfriend?
I shut the door and turned to her. She was looking around with curled lip, taking in every red solo cup, takeout container, and piece of clothing strewn about. Just like a female, I thought, annoyed. If she thought we were going to start cleaning up after ourselves to suit her hallowed presence, she and her boyfriend could make themselves at home somewhere else. This was our dorm, not hers—
“Jude Tiernay,” she was saying. “Which room’s mine?”
It took me a minute to catch up, and when I did the bathroom door swung open and Baron stalked out, stopping short when he saw the small woman standing in our common area. “Who’s—you?” he asked, the words tripping over his tongue.
“That’s what I said.”
