through the silent darkness.
My body stiffened.
Footsteps approached, and a tall guy with dark hair and light blue eyes stood there, glaring down at me. “I said what are you doing?”
“No, you said what the fuck are you doing.”
His eyes absorbed the details of my face with disdain. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What’s your problem? You scared your little party’s gonna get broken up if someone sees me out here?” I gasped mockingly. “All that wasted beer and unused condoms. The horror.”
His eyes narrowed. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Not any funnier than you out here reprimanding me, frat boy.”
He dragged his hands through his hair as his head dropped back. “What the fuck?”
I unsteadily pushed myself to my feet, praying to God I didn’t fall face first in front of him. “No worries, frat boy. I was leaving anyway.”
He grabbed my arm, his grip tight as he stopped me from going anywhere. “Don’t come back here.”
A wave of nausea washed over me. “Excuse me?”
He clenched his teeth. “You’re not an Alpha Phi which makes you unwelcome here.”
A cold chill rushed up my spine, but I maintained my composure. “No problem. Your party sucked anyway.” I turned and walked in the direction I hoped my dorm was in, putting one foot in front of the other and trying to appear steady. Because despite his harsh tone and rudeness, the bastard stood on the curb, watching me until I disappeared into the darkness.
CHAPTER TWO
“Where’d you take off to?” Chantel asked as she breezed through the door of our room the following morning. She wore the same clothes she’d worn the previous night, but looked no less put together.
I sat up, trying not to puke as the sunlight filtering into the room intensified my throbbing headache. “Y’all were having so much fun. I didn’t want to bother you.”
“Did you hook up with anyone?” Chantel asked, slipping out of her wedges.
“Um, no.”
“Not even Ryan?” She shimmied out of her denim skirt and stood there in a tiny thong—as if it were normal to walk around someone you just met that way. “I saw you talking to him.”
“He was nice. Just not really my type.”
She grabbed her bath robe and slipped into it. “What is your type?”
I shrugged. “I guess I’ll know when I meet him.”
She turned to the closet and retrieved her toiletries.
“How long have you been with your boyfriend?” I asked.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she said.
“Oh, I just thought the guy you danced with…and then you didn’t come home…”
She laughed as she turned to me. “I want Chase to be my boyfriend. But he’s so busy with frat stuff and family stuff. He said if he had time for a girlfriend, it would be me.”
I nodded, understanding not wanting to string someone along if you had a full plate.
“Doesn’t mean I won’t make him change his mind,” she said with a sly smile.
I laughed, knowing from the brief time we’d spent together, that Chantel was someone who definitely got what she wanted.
***
Chantel slept soundly as I slipped out of our dorm room on Monday morning. Being a transfer student, I got whatever classes were available—which meant eight o’clock classes every morning for me.
I trekked across campus, admiring the beauty of the quad—the old cobblestone buildings with their castle-topped roofs and sidewalks lined with blooming magnolia trees. I pulled in a breath of fresh air, albeit ninety-five-degree air, but it wasn’t accompanied by a puff of cold air leaving my mouth like most mornings in Maine.
I found Roper Hall and climbed the steps to the old building, scanning the room numbers as I hurried down the nearly empty hallway. I stepped inside the classroom, realizing I must’ve been the only one who wanted to be early on their first day because all thirty desks sat empty.
Not wanting to be an overachiever, I moved toward the back of the room and slipped into the last seat in the second row.
Other students entered the room a short time later, taking seats all around the classroom until every desk was filled.
An older professor walked in and dropped his briefcase loudly on the front desk, purposely grabbing all of our attention. He handed out papers to the first person in each row, which they passed back to us, then addressed the class. “I’m Professor Irons. This is History 356, aka History through Film. If you’re in the wrong place, this is your one chance to escape.”
The girl in the desk beside mine grabbed her bag and hurried