“Hey.” Tess frowned at her, slapping her hands to her generous hips. “Is that some kind of dig at your roommate?”
Bailey blinked, appearing dumbfounded by the question. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, motioning to Paige. “No. It was a dig at her roommate.”
“Oh.” Tess immediately brightened and sent Paige a commiserating look. “I do feel sorry for you. We met her yesterday before you arrived. And she seemed a little…”
They all three glanced at each other, and Paige knew exactly what the other two girls were thinking. She felt a sudden kinship with them as she snickered. “Yeah. I noticed.”
She clearly remembered the wrinkled-nose look of disdain on Mariah’s expression after Paige had declined Mariah’s invitation to go to the clubs together last night.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll get a good night’s sleep before the first day of school,” Paige had politely answered.
And Mariah had snorted, making a prude face. “Aww, you’re a good girl, aren’t you? That’s so…sickening.” Then she’d dragged her boyfriend across the room to the door, calling, “Don’t wait up, grandma,” before disappearing until the wee hours.
“When she found out we were both freshman, she gagged aloud and asked if the entire building was infested with us.” Tess’s eyes grew big as she nodded, drawing Paige from her memories. “And, yeah, she actually used the word infested like we’re some kind of bug.”
“I told her not to breathe too deeply because we might be contagious,” Bailey added with a grin.
Bailey and Tess laughed, nudging each other with self-congratulations.
Noticing the easy companionship between them, Paige studied them a little more closely. “Did you two know each other before coming to Granton?”
“Oh, sure.” Bailey slung her arm around Tess’s shoulder. “We’ve gone to school together since Kindergarten.”
Tess tipped her cheek toward Bailey’s. “We’re actually best friends when she cares to claim me.”
Envy nipped at Paige as she watched them hug. “I wish I could’ve been able to do that.”
She missed Kayla already and wished she could’ve convinced her to come to Granton too. But not only was Kayla totally against the idea of Granton, she had no use for any college at all. She’d worked as a waitress ever since she’d graduated from high school and acted as if she was perfectly satisfied right where she was.
Bailey skimmed her gaze over Paige’s still-wet hair. “So you’re the one Tess just caught naked in the shower, huh?”
“Bailey!” Tess squawked, blushing. “Oh my God. How many times have we talked about your subtlety issues? Besides, I didn’t see anything. She had a big, fluffy towel on.”
Not sure whether to duck her head in embarrassment or slap her hands over her ears from the overwhelming inflow of conversation, Paige mumbled, “Yeah, that was me.”
Then her stomach growled, butting in on the conversation, and all three of them laughed. It wasn’t that humorous really, but with these two around, everything seemed suddenly entertaining. She couldn’t recall feeling so carefree in a long, long time.
“Hey, we were about to head down to Gibson Hall and scrounge up some supper,” Tess said. “Want to come with us?”
She murmured her acceptance, even as she swallowed down a rash of tears.
It had been forever since she’d felt like a part of anything. Aside from Kayla, she’d been disjointed from reality since Trace’s death. She hadn’t cared about clothes, or televisions sizes, or much of anything. Tess and Bailey’s overly easy acceptance of her was too touching to properly digest.
Tucking her still-damp hair behind her ear, she snagged her room key and student ID and followed them out the door. She didn’t even remember Logan Xander’s existence until she stepped into the warm evening air.
Then everything came flooding back. With a vengeance.
She faltered behind Tess and Bailey, scanning left and right to make sure she couldn’t spot him nearby.
Bailey glanced back at her and paused. “You coming?”
Not spying the murderer anywhere, Paige nodded and forced a smile. “Uh, yeah. Right behind you.” But when she followed, she did so with reservation, all her carefree emotions from a moment before shattered and blown away.
Baby steps, she reminded herself, as she forced her feet to follow her new friends. If she could get past supper, she would already be closer to attaining her goals.
If, being the key word.
Chapter Four
LOGAN HEADED STRAIGHT to Gibson Hall as soon as he clocked out at the juice bar. He’d worked through lunch, and after serving other people drinks and snacks this afternoon, he was starved.
His muscles ached too. All morning, he’d tensed up every time he’d entered a classroom. After running into Paige Zukowski twice, he’d waited until the last possible second, then slipped in right before the class started to scan the faces first and make sure they didn’t share another course together before he tiptoed to a seat. He’d looked for her when he exited every building and had even held his breath whenever he spotted a dark-headed girl getting into his line at the juice bar.
Almost too hungry and exhausted to care where she was now, he entered the campus’s main student dining hall, ready to visit just about every food station they had to offer. He paused in line at the door to pay his entrance fee. He pulled a thin wad of cash from his pocket, wondering not for the first time if he should’ve roomed in a dorm this year. Meals had been free here when he’d been a dorm resident his freshman year.
But so much close proximity to so many other people had nearly suffocated him. Three years ago, he’d actually been looking forward to living with a large group and maybe trying to get into his dad’s old fraternity. But one fateful night had changed all that. These days, he couldn’t handle crowds. It would be too easy to hurt someone else.
After a year of surviving in the dorms, he’d rented an apartment and rested a little easier with his solitude.
“Yo! Designated Dave,” a voice called as soon as he paid his discounted student price.
Since Dave was what pretty much everyone called him, Logan lifted his face to acknowledge the greeting. Jerod, a member of Phi Gamma Delta, drew near with a welcoming grin, holding out his hand to fist bump with Logan.
Having given up trying to correct people that his name was not Dave, Logan obligingly rapped his knuckles against Jerod’s. “What’s up?”
“We’re having our Fiji Islander this Saturday and need to hire a DD. You in?”
Logan nodded. “Yeah, sure. I don’t have to work at The Squeeze that night, so, I’ll be around.”
He’d purposely asked for the first weekend of school off at work. That was when all the raging parties took place. And there were never enough willing people to stay sober and play the responsible designated driver for them.
“Cool, man. Thanks. You’re a life saver.”
Jerod took off again without sticking around to make small talk. Not that Logan minded. He’d grown used to the whole loner thing. If he didn’t play the dopey DD at every mixer on campus, he doubted anyone would bother talking to him at all or even know who he was—wrong name or not.
He shuffled a step forward in the pizza buffet line behind a group of jock-looking guys discussing the next football game. Logan didn’t listen as he scanned the crowded tables, scouting for an empty place to sit once he filled his plate.
Skimming his gaze past a small round table where three girls sat, he did a double take when glossy black hair captured his attention.
Paige Zukowski picked at her salad and side of fruit like a girl with no appetite. Sitting between two other ladies who talked animatedly around her, she listened to their conversation without adding a lot of input.
He wondered how well she knew them. Had she already told them about him? Had word spread far?
Jerod obviously hadn’t known; otherwise Logan doubted the fraternity brother would’ve asked him to DD
. But who did know?
His muscles seized as more tension filled him. A headache was beginning to throb behind his eyes. Watching Paige, he scowled, wanting to hate her.
He didn’t know a thing about her. But that didn’t matter. She was going to ruin him as surely as he’d ruined her when he’d taken her brother away. He deserved it, yeah, but he didn’t have to like it.
He’d thought all afternoon of where he’d go next, but his mind kept coming up blank. He didn’t want to leave Granton yet.
A girl with a wild mess of curly red hair said something to Paige, making her smile shyly. Color heightened the tops of her cheeks as she gave a soft blush. Logan sucked in a breath, unable to look away.
Damn, she was pretty, no matter who she was.
Tucking a piece of her long, dark hair behind her ear, she nodded and answered the redhead. He couldn’t hear anything they were saying over the racket in the busy dining hall and from his distance away, but he really didn’t need to. She didn’t seem all that familiar around her acquaintances. They must’ve just met.
He hoped she wasn’t comfortable enough to tell them about her brother’s murderer whom she’d almost shared a class with earlier in the day.
He froze, petrified, when she glanced toward the line of people waiting to sample the pizza buffet.
She didn’t spot him, thank God, before she turned to say something to the girl with the multi-colored hair. Maybe his ball cap had helped disguise him. He had no idea, but he considered it a close call. Too close.
“Hey, it’s your turn.” A finger poked him in the back, reminding him where he was.
Logan stepped aside to let the guy pass him. “Go ahead. I’m not hungry.”
Ducking his chin, he hurried for the exit. Once he made it to the outside air, he stopped to close his eyes, drawing in a deep breath.
Frustrated curses rose in his throat. Seeing her three times in one day was not good. If this was how the rest of the semester was going to progress, he was screwed.
Digging back into his pocket, he counted his cash and wondered where he could go near campus to get a two-dollar meal. With a sigh, he shoved the pair of bills back into his pants and decided it was going to be another ramen noodle night.
Oh, the joy.
Didn’t matter. At least he was still here. He hadn’t caught any rumor about his past, and no one had chased him off campus. That was something to celebrate.
One day down, only six hundred and thirty left to go—give or take a few—before he could graduate and leave of his own free will.
Chapter Five
PAIGE’S SECOND DAY at Granton went much smoother than the first. She actually attended every class on her schedule, and she didn’t spot any tall guys with nearly-shaved heads anywhere. But every time she left her building, her gaze continued to dart back and forth, searching for him, knowing he was out there somewhere. Too close for comfort.
When she didn’t spot him again by the end of the first week, she finally began to relax—at least, she didn’t flinch whenever she saw a guy out of the corner of her eye. She made her decision to stay permanent and official by hopping online and scouting for a decent part-time job.
Tess and Bailey invited her to eat with them each evening, and she looked forward to that. But she didn’t grow any closer to her roommate, Mariah.
Paige had assumed that the guy Mariah was with the first day was her boyfriend. But now she had no idea who that dude had been. Mariah went out every night that first week…with a different guy each time. And she’d only stayed in one evening, which had been to lead some aggie boy in a cowboy hat, boots, and a big belt buckle to her bed, where they’d made sounds under the covers that Paige wanted to erase from her memory for the rest of her life.
She didn’t like to judge, but she was a little scandalized her roommate could be such a ho-bag and act so proud of it.
On the first weekend of the semester, Mariah dressed up in a long grass skirt, a fake coconut bra, and sandals. She’d looped half a dozen leis around her neck before she trooped out the door, snidely telling Paige to have a good night reading.
Since Paige really had planned on reading, she knocked on Tess and Bailey’s door to engage them in a little non-ho-bag fun just to spite Mariah, only to learn her suitemates were leaving to head home for the weekend.
So she stayed up late watching TV by herself instead of cracking open her book. Mariah hadn’t made it back by midnight, which didn’t surprise Paige in the least. She climbed into a comfortable pair of jammies, doused the lights, and hit her pillow. She wanted to call Kayla, just to hear her voice but knew her friend would be able to detect Paige’s loneliness, so she nixed that idea.
Staring at the dark ceiling above her, she lay in bed, wondering what she’d do with a marketing degree. Like magic, the boring subject rendered her unconscious almost immediately.
A loud thud tore her from troubling dreams where she’d just walked into some hazy corporate office wearing nothing but a bra and panties while everyone else in three-piece suits gawked and laughed at her. Instantly awake, she tightened every muscle in her body as a strange scratching followed, accompanied by high-pitched giggles.
“Here. Let me.” A muffled male voice joined the muddled sounds, stopping the eerie scratch.
Orienting herself, Paige realized she was hearing a key in her door lock. Mariah must be home. With company. Again.
She craned her neck to get a glimpse of her alarm clock.
Three a.m.
“Whoa. No, don’t sit down out here, Mariah. I almost got you inside. Just wait a second.”
The door floated open. The light from the hallway blared against Paige’s face where she lay. Wincing, she drew up the blanket enough to shade her eyes. But curiosity caused her to peek out, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stranger bringing her roommate home tonight. Mariah did tend to draw a lot of hotties; Paige would give her that. If nothing else, the continuous stream of guys Mariah paraded through their room was nice eye candy.
Though she could see out of her hole in the blanket, she doubted anyone could see in simply because of the way she’d covered her head. She could freely gawk at tonight’s hottie without anyone being the wiser.
The figure of a guy took Mariah’s arm and carefully looped it over his shoulder. He wrapped one hand around her waist and walked her into the room. She slumped against him, her cheek pressed flush to his shoulder.
Wow, that must’ve been some party. Paige had never seen her roommate quite this wasted before. Weekends apparently brought out the best in Mariah.
Still wearing her Hawaiian-theme costume, Mariah giggled as she tried to take the plastic garlands from around her own neck to loop them over the guy’s.
“There. You just got leied.” She tittered at her own pun.
Enough hall light flashed over their faces for Paige to see Mariah being nearly carried to her bed by Logan Xander. She stopped breathing, though her blanket literally covered her from head to toe. Embarrassed, vulnerable heat coated her body like a rash. She could not believe he was in her bedroom standing mere inches away from where she lay in her pajamas.
“Thanks for bringing me home, Dave,” Mariah cooed, nearly drooling on him as she pressed her face so close to his. “I ’ppreciate it sooo much.”
Dave? Paige squinted, hoping she was wrong and her brother’s murderer wasn’t really in her dorm room about to sleep with her roommate.
He sounded winded as he wheezed, “Well, it’s my job.” He took her wrist, unwrapped her arm from around his head and gently lowered her onto her bed against the far wall—away from Paige’s bed, and yet way too close to Paige’s bed.
Paige saw his face clearly as he shifted, and there was no way he was this Dave character Mariah mistook him for. He was definitely Logan Xander.
“I don’t understand why you’re always the DD at every party,” Mariah slurred, plopping down so hard she dragged him onto the mattress right along with her.
He grunte
d as he landed. “Someone has to be.” He tried to untangle himself, but Mariah wrapped her arms around his neck, only ensnaring him more. “I should get back,” he added desperately.
Relieved he wasn’t going to start groping her roommate, Paige winced when Mariah caught his arm and pulled him to her. “Kiss me, Dave.”
He drew his face back hard, turning his mouth away from hers as he tried unsuccessfully to unclamp her hands from him. “No. Stop it. Mariah! Your roommate is like five feet away.”
“Who cares? She’d dead asleep.”
Logan gave an uneasy laugh. “Yeah, I somehow doubt that.”
“So what,” Mariah tossed out defiantly, once again moving in, trying to force a kiss. “It’d be good for the innocent little virgin. We could teach her a few things about the birds and the bees.”
“No thanks.” Logan struggled with renewed fury to free himself. “Trust me. I’m no tutor.”
The light from the opened door leading out in the bright hallway sprayed directly on him, and from her spying spot, Paige could see his face clearly. He looked almost scared in his frantic struggle to escape Mariah.
“I said no,” he growled, finally using just enough force to push himself away from her. Instead of shoving her back though, he propelled himself off the side of Mariah’s bed and landed on the floor with a thump.
Mariah scowled down at him. “What the hell is your problem? I’m throwing myself at you here, Dave.”
“I’m sorry.” He sounded truly apologetic as he glanced at the floor between his sprawled legs. “I just…don’t want to.”
“So you never drink. You never kiss girls. What do you do then?” She tipped her head sideways as she studied him. “You do like girls, don’t you?”
Logan looked up at her, and the expression on his face had Paige holding her breath. She couldn’t remember if she’d ever seen anyone look so tormented before. Watching him made her chest tighten as if she actually shared his agony with him. For a split second, she hurt. For him. For both of them.