Manhattanite. His Barnard admissions contact had put her in touch with a guy who worked in housing at Columbia. As soon as Clara had gotten hold of Marcus’s dorm and room number, she’d taken the train straight up to Morningside Heights. She needed to warn Marcus about Anastasia right away. Before he made a terrible mistake.
A thick-looking boy at the poker table gave Clara a quick glance before returning his eyes to the cards. “No girls in the dorm.”
One of the boys by the stairs—a particularly handsome fellow with brown hair and light gray eyes—approached Clara. “Don’t be such a flat tire, Aaron.” He gave Clara a dazzling smile. “I’m Thomas. Nice to meet you.”
“Clara.” She let her hand linger in his when he shook it.
“I’m afraid old Aaron’s right, though. You’ll get in huge trouble if someone catches you.”
“Oh no!” Clara said, raising her voice higher than usual and giving Thomas her best doe eyes. “I’m sorry—I go to school across the street, and I was so curious to see what a real Columbia dorm looked like.” Clara stepped closer to Thomas and touched his arm lightly. “Now I’ll have to leave without even getting to see a dorm room.”
Thomas’s eyes widened. He took her arm and led her a little away from the others. “Go around back to the second door on the left. From there you can take the back staircase and no one will see you.”
“But won’t the door be locked?”
“Naw, the lock on that door got busted a while ago. None of the RAs have reported it—they sneak girls in as often as we do.” He gave her a smug smile. “My room’s two twenty-five. I’ll see you there in about five minutes?”
Sometimes boys made things so easy. “I’ll see you there.”
Clara walked around the deep-red brick, ivory-trimmed dormitory and found the door. She grinned when the doorknob gave right under her hand. She walked into a deserted, concrete-walled stairwell. She took a deep breath, gripped the iron railing, and began to climb. Once she reached the second floor, she pushed the heavy stair door open and walked into the hall.
It was like stepping out of a dingy cornfield into The Secret Garden. Clara marveled that this was merely a college dormitory. The walls were wood-paneled and masculine. Her heels sank into the plush rug and sconces hung between each of the doors. There were even elegant wooden benches against the walls, in case Columbia’s men decided they couldn’t make it the last five steps to their rooms before they needed to sit down. She knocked hard on 237 when she reached it.
And there he was.
For a split second, Marcus looked the way Clara always remembered him. He wore the half smirk of a man who knew that no matter what he said, it would always be charming and clever. He was dressed casually in a blue silk button-down with rolled-up sleeves and tan trousers. His blond hair was still a little damp from the shower, and Clara could smell his spicy aftershave. His blue eyes were bright and engaging, his lips were full and kissable, and he had those long black lashes any girl would kill for.
Marcus was the kind of handsome that always took Clara’s breath away—not a handy thing when her nervousness was making it hard enough to breathe as it was.
But when Marcus recognized that it was Clara standing outside his room, his eyes hardened. Clara noticed his hands shaking a little, and he reddened when he noticed her noticing. He shoved his hands in his pockets and his lip curled. “You’re not allowed to be here.”
His words cut her like ice. He clearly did not want to see her.
And yet she pushed her way inside.
“Hey! What are you doing!” Marcus followed, rushing ahead and then turning on his heels to stop her—but they were already in the middle of the room.
It was huge, which made sense, considering Marcus’s parents had built nearly half the school. The far wall had two expansive windows with checkered curtains. The room was surprisingly bare of personal touches, though there was a framed photo of “Anastasia” on Marcus’s desk.
Clara’s breath caught in her throat when she saw the movie poster hanging on Marcus’s wall. Buster Keaton stood in a straw boater and a long coat, his wide-eyed face as stoic and deadpan as ever. It was a poster for Our Hospitality: the movie he’d taken Clara to see on their first date in Chicago. Marcus