get some miles in before practice at five?”
“What frat house?” Nate asked.
I shook my finger at him. “Don’t feed the troll, Sanders.”
Ansel’s cackle was remarkably troll-like. “I can’t remember. The one that’s near the greenway. Kappa maybe?”
“Wait, was this early fall?” Nate again, sounding thoughtful this time.
“Yep.”
“Holy shit.” Nate turned to Sam. “Remember that Kappa party when I found you passed out cuddling a tree—incidentally, quite close to the running trails? You were still hammered when we woke you up. Mark helped me lug you back to your dorm, and you kept talking about making out with someone, but you were hardly speaking English by that point. And—” Nate turned toward me next. “—this was the same night after you and Reid broke up. You got absolutely blitzed at that same party. You were so hungover you didn’t make it to any classes the next day, remember? You went through a whole sixer of Gatorade I brought you. It was the same night you wrote all that random shit on Reid’s door.”
“Oh my god.” I squinted, trying to dredge up any memory of Sam and coming up empty. Still, I couldn’t discount it as a logical possibility.
The skepticism in Sam’s expression vanished. “Holy shit. The one random memory fragment I have of that night was of writing on a door with Sharpie marker.” He cut a look at me. “Do you remember this?”
“I have a vague impression of kissing someone. Like, their lips. And something about Reid’s door. Of taping the dildo there. But it’s really blurry.” I covered my face. “I thought it was a girl I kissed, though. I don’t even know why. And I don’t remember anyone with me at Reid’s dorm. You don’t remember at all?”
Sam shook his head. “Not even a little. That’s fucking wild. And kinda scary.”
I frowned at Ansel. “Why did I ask you not to tell anyone?”
“Beats the fuck out of me.” He shrugged. “At the time, I figured maybe one or both of you were in the closet, so of course I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be responsible for outing someone. And then you never mentioned it again, so neither did I. So you two have been hooking up since then?”
“What? No!”
“Only since early this fall,” Sam said and wrapped his arms around my shoulders.
Mark spluttered. “Are you kidding me? That long? I was thinking a couple of weeks.”
“Aha! Now you know what it feels like to be completely blindsided by your roomies like I was when I walked into the kitchen to find you and Chet.” I smirked and craned my neck to glance up at Sam with a grin. “That’s kinda where it all started, isn’t it?”
“Shower,” he amended
“Shower,” I echoed, wiggling my shoulders against the rumble in his chest.
“Holy shit.” Mark’s bewildered exclamation had all of us cracking up. “This house has some kind of mystical power, I guess. Chet and I are the outliers. Does that mean Cam and Ansel are next?”
Cam raised his hands. “Leave me out of this one.” He gestured across his forehead. “Pretty sure ‘hot mess’ is written right there.”
“You’re not a hot mess. You’ve cleaned up well enough in my opinion.” I swatted him.
“The person I’m hooking up with doesn’t go to the U, so I think it’s safe to say the curse…or blessing, as it were, ends with you two.” Ansel took another swallow of his beer and set it aside. “What? You think I don’t have a social life? What do you think I do all the time?” he asked when we all stared flatly at him.
“Run?” I suggested.
“Bury bodies in the woods,” Mark offered.
“Jerk off with your own tears?” Nate’s contribution.
“He probably has a harem somewhere.” That was Eric’s deduction. “I get that kind of vibe.”
“I keep my business to myself.” Ansel lifted one shoulder and maintained his cryptic smile even when Nate shoved him.
“It bothers me that I don’t remember kissing you,” Sam said as we brushed our teeth and got ready for bed later. “Though the first time we kissed, which I guess was technically our second kiss, something felt familiar. I got the tiniest sense of déjà vu. I couldn’t place it, I just knew I liked it. Did you have the same feeling?”
I tore off a piece of dental floss, handed it to him, and he murmured a thanks, baby that went right to my fucking heart and melted it from the inside. I loved that he just slid into the endearment