Chapter 8

David
David met Lindsey and Kirk at the elevator. They were with another girl who looked like the quintessential bookworm. He recognized that he would probably never have stopped to talk to her if he’d seen her on campus.

“Allen, this is Jamie,” Lindsey said to introduce them.

“So that’s what the ‘A’ stands for,” Jamie said.

’Uh, oh—game over!’

“What are you talking about?” Kirk asked.

David kept a neutral look on his face and prayed Jamie was not about to out him before he’d even made it through his first day.

“I must have seen a floor chart, and it listed his first name as an initial.”

Thankfully, the elevator came to distract Kirk and Lindsey. Jamie gave him the ghost of a smile to let him know that he owed her.

David was amazed by the cafeteria’s transformation. Each table had a white tablecloth, and there was actual waitstaff. Instead of going through the food line, as he’d expected, they were handed sheets of paper with the evening’s menu.

“Is this how this always works?” David asked.

“Only at night. For breakfast and lunch, you go through the line,” Kirk explained.

“Tell us about yourself, Allen. I take it you grew up on a farm,” Lindsey said.

“Not exactly. My grandmother, father, and uncle did, but my father left the farm when he went off to college. My grandmother recently moved to Malibu with my parents, so only my uncle farms now. I grew up in a small Midwestern town. It was the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else,” David explained.

“What do you like to do?” Jamie asked.

“Normal stuff, I guess. Our high school was big on sports, so I played both football and baseball. In fact, I was thinking about trying out for the baseball team on Monday.”

Kirk and Lindsey each gave him skeptical looks. David had decided to refrain from totally deceiving them. It would be easier if they knew some truths when his true identity was finally unveiled.

“That might be harder to do than you think,” Kirk weighed in.

“I’m sure it will be,” David conceded.

Their conversation was interrupted by Veronica and a girl with two guys David didn’t know yet. He didn’t have to know their names to guess what they represented, though. David had a friend, Halle James, who was also an actor and had grown up around the business. While he had filmed one of his movies, he’d stayed at her house when he was in LA. Halle had taken David to a party that her high school friends were having. These four would have fit in perfectly.

“Fair warning, Allen. If you want to have any kind of social life at college, you shouldn’t hang out with these three,” Veronica said.

“Don’t you all have something better to do than harass us? Like torturing kittens or whatever it is you get up to for fun?” Kirk fired back.

The other girl looked appalled at the kitten reference.

“He’ll never fit in, regardless,” one of the guys commented.

“You’ve been warned,” Veronica said and then led her group to another table.

“You’ve been warned,” Lindsey mimicked snarkily. “I hate my roommate some days.”

“Wait,” David said. “She’s your roommate?”

“Yes, and she’s a total entitled snot,” Lindsey grumped.

“Does she wear frilly panty sets?” David asked like he was a twelve-year-old horndog.

Lindsey had a look of horror on her face. Both Kirk and Jamie cracked up when they saw her reaction.

“Linds, he got you again,” Kirk observed.

“We were looking for a replacement when we met you,” Lindsey threatened.

David batted his eyes at her.

“But Veronica is every guy’s dream girl,” he whined and then smiled. “Until she opens her mouth.”

Kirk started to say something, but Jamie jabbed him in his ribs.

“No need to take it to the gutter,” Jamie warned him.

From that point on, their ‘get to know you’ dinner began to be fun. Kirk’s father was a Lutheran minister, and he was from San Diego. He was a junior majoring in English and had two younger sisters who were still in high school. Kirk planned to either be a writer or possibly a teacher when he graduated.

David had thought that everyone in the dorm had money and asked Kirk about it. He explained that his grandfather was wealthy, and both his father and he had trust funds.

Jamie’s parents were professors at USC, and they both taught in the Marshall School of Business. She explained that while her parents made a good living as professors, most of their money was made through savvy investments and consulting. She was also a junior and a business major. Jamie commented that David might run into her parents, Gerald and Julia Stratton, in some of his upper-level business courses.

Lindsey was from Seattle. Her father had died in an accident when she was ten. When she was twelve, her mother had gotten remarried to a Microsoft executive. Lindsey was an undeclared freshman and apparently changed her mind about her future major weekly.

David made a mental note to tell Coach Farrow that the food was every bit as good as he suspected. He doubted he could find a local restaurant that served a better meal.

When they were done, Kirk made an announcement.

“It’s time to initiate you into the group. Let’s show Allen our secret spot.”

If they hadn’t looked happy, David might have worried.

On the top floor, on the other side of the elevators, there was a door. David had assumed it was a janitor’s closet. It turned out to be a narrow stairwell that led to the roof. It had one of those emergency exit crash bars that set off an alarm when opened, but someone had disabled it.

“Welcome to our little slice of paradise,” Kirk said.

Their secret spot included three park benches surrounding a portable fire pit. There was also a cooler and a small stack of firewood. Kirk got busy starting the fire while Jamie grabbed four beers.

“I don’t drink,” David said as he handed the beer back to her.

“How are we ever going to get you laid if you’re a virgin and you don’t drink?” Lindsey asked.

“What makes you think Allen’s a virgin?” Jamie asked with an amused look at David.

“Tell her, Allen,” Lindsey said.

“I was brought up to never talk about stuff like that,” he said, acting put out.

Kirk laughed.

“Yeah, he’s a virgin.”

“I’ll have to help you lose your V-card,” Lindsey said.

“I’m flattered, but we’re not even engaged,” David said seriously.

“I didn’t...” Lindsey sputtered.

“You’re completely off your game,” Kirk said to Lindsey. “He totally got you again.”

“If you want my help, you better start being nice to me,” Lindsey warned.

Everyone got settled on a bench. It was a perfect night for a fire since it had cooled off after the sun had gone down. They all took a moment to watch the flames dance.

“Who gets to pick tonight’s topic?” Kirk asked.

“Topic?” David asked.

“When we get together, we like to talk about something. Our last one was ‘why are males fascinated with big boobs?’” Lindsey shared.

“I have one. Pet peeves,” Jamie said to kick the discussion off and then added, “And it has to relate to something that happened over break.”

“I have one,” Kirk said. “What’s the deal with the new cameras?”

They all looked at him funny because they had no idea what could be wrong with a camera.

“I remember when a picture was taken, there used to be a click or flash to tell you it had been taken. At least then you could go back to whatever you were doing. With the new cameras, there’s nothing. My mom insisted on getting photos of all of us. My mentally challenged cousin was put in charge of taking the pictures. He would point the camera at us and then just stand there. With no idea if he’d taken the snap or not, we all stood there with stupid grins plastered on our faces. We couldn’t move until he lowered it. I think he left it up just to mess with us,” Kirk complained.

David filed that tidbit away because it was so right. He wondered how long he could get people to pose.

Lindsey was next.

“At what point are you so comfortable with your significant other that you can tell them that they’ve gained too much weight?”

Both boys rolled their eyes. There was no way they were commenting on that.

“My boyfriend decided when he picked me up at the airport that I was much sexier before I gained my freshman fifteen. He gave me the goal of losing it all by New Year’s Eve.”

’Damn. And he’s still her boyfriend?’ David wondered.