Chapter 4

“Look around you, ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Joska said as soon as he walked into the classroom. “Two of your peers—or should I say former peers?—have had the good sense to drop this class.” Then he gazed at us, his strong-jawed face stern and uncompromising. “There’s no shame in admitting defeat. If you don’t think you’re up to the task, then get up and leave now,” he said as he took a pen from his jacket pocket. “I’ll sign any drop slips now. Anyone? No?”

I think most of us were too scared to move, even if we had wanted to drop the class.

“So the rest of you think you’re ready for this class?” Then, surprisingly, he looked at the guy next to me. “Do you think you have what it takes to be an architect?”

“Yes, sir,” the guy said without hesitation.

“Don’t you think that’s fairly arrogant?” Joska asked the class at large.

We were too cowed to do more than stare back at him.

“What about you?” Joska asked, looking in my direction.

I blinked and felt my throat tighten. Was he talking to me?

“Don’t look like a deer in the headlights, young man,” he said.

He was talking to me.

“Yes, you. Answer me. Don’t you think that’s fairly arrogant?”

I looked at the guy next to me. He met my gaze evenly.

“Well?” Joska prompted.

“N-no, sir,” I said.

“N-n-n-no, sir?” he mocked. “Do you think you have what it takes to be an architect?”

The last thing I wanted was for Joska to pick on me, but I felt a sudden surge of defiance, so I nodded.

“Speak up!” he said. “Do you think you have what it takes to be an architect?”

I didn’t want him to pick on me for being arrogant, so I waffled. “Maybe,” I said.

“Maybe?” He looked at the rest of the class and made a mocking face. “Maybe?”

“All right, yes,” I said, my face heating with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “I’ve got what it takes to be an architect.”

“What’s your name?” Joska asked.

“Hughes, sir,” I said. “Paul Hughes.”

“Well Hughes-sir-Paul-Hughes, you’ve got to be more confident than that if you’re going to succeed as an architect. The young man next to you is confident, isn’t he?”

I looked at the guy to my right and then nodded.

“Good,” Joska said. “At least you realize that much. I was beginning to despair for your future, Mr. Hughes-sir-Paul-Hughes.” With that, he seemed to be done picking on me. He reached for a slim folio, opened it, and addressed the class. “For the duration of this quarter, you will be divided into project teams. Who wants to be a team leader?”

The guy next to me immediately raised his hand.

“Come on, gentlemen, and ladies,” Joska said, “don’t be shy.”

I was surprised at the number of people who raised their hands. After a moment’s hesitation, I followed suit.

“Not you, Mr. Hughes,” Joska said immediately. “Put your hand down.”

Like a whipped dog, I dropped my hand. What does this guy want from me? I wondered resentfully.

“What’s your name, Mr. Arrogant?” Professor Joska asked the guy next to me.

“Whitman,” the guy answered simply, having learned from my mistake.

“Mr. Whitman,” Professor Joska repeated as he made a note. When he turned to the next person with a hand up, he used his pen like a baton and waved derisively at the guy. “Not you, either. Put your hand down.”

The guy tensed up and scowled, but lowered his hand.

Then Joska turned to a girl in the front row. She was the only girl with her hand up.

“Do you know how few women architects there are?” Joska asked. “Miss...?”

“Fisher,” she said.

I waited for him to lambaste her for being a woman or something equally irrelevant. I felt a momentary pang of guilt because I was glad he was picking on her instead of me. But it was only momentary. I already didn’t like him, and I didn’t want to say something in the heat of anger—something that might get me kicked out of class, or worse.

“Do you, Miss Fisher?” he asked again.

“No, sir,” she said without hesitation. “But I’m going to be one of them.”

I’m ashamed to admit that I semi-gleefully waited for the axe to fall. To my utter amazement, Joska laughed.

“Plucky,” he said. “Probably deluded, but plucky nonetheless.” Then he actually wrote down her name.

I sullenly wondered why she was made a team leader but I had been dismissed out of hand.

The next few minutes were agonizing to watch. Professor Joska considered and scathingly dismissed two other people with their hands up. He even had critical remarks about the people he selected. In the end, he wrote down six names: the guy next to me, Whitman; the girl up front, Fisher; and four guys, Giles, Spaulding, Ivey, and Vang.

“With the unlamented loss of your two classmates,” Joska said, “there are twenty-four of you in this class. Hopefully, most of you can do simple math, and you’ve already realized that I’m going to create six teams of four.” Then he speared Whitman with his merciless gaze. “Since you’ve got enough confidence for two people, Mr. Whitman,” he said, “I’m going to put Mr. Hughes on your project team. I don’t think you need more of a handicap than that, though, so I won’t burden you with any dead-weight team members.”

Handicap?! I mentally raged. Then I gripped the sides of my desk in barely suppressed anger.

“Can you handle that, Mr. Whitman?” Joska asked, blithely ignoring my sputtering reaction.

“Absolutely, sir,” Whitman said.

“Arrogant and reckless, I see,” said Joska. “I wonder how long you’ll survive in the architecture program, Mr. Whitman.”

“Until I graduate,” Whitman said. “Sir,” he added after a calculated pause.

I waited for Joska to explode in anger.

When he merely barked a laugh, Whitman relaxed a little.

“Now,” Joska said to the class, “when I call your name, raise your hand so your team leader knows who you are. Mr. Whitman’s team, Team 1. Mr. Hughes we know about, no need to raise your hand. Miss Poole...?”

A thin brunette raised her hand.

“Mr. Cardenas...?”

An Asian guy raised his hand.

An Asian guy with a name like Cardenas, I wondered. You don’t see that every day.

“Miss Fisher’s team, Team 2,” Joska said. “Mr. Haverty...?” With that, he quickly assigned the rest of the class to one of the six leaders. “Now,” he said, “everyone stand up. Team leaders, gather your teams and find seats together.”

We looked at each other like sheep. In my case, like a surly sheep.

“Do it,” Joska commanded when we hesitated.

Whitman smiled thinly at me as he motioned over Poole and Cardenas. When they joined us, we started to introduce ourselves. Most of the other teams were doing the same thing.

“Get to know each other on your own time,” Joska interrupted, “not on mine. Take your seats.”

We looked at each other in flustered disbelief and then sat down.

“Now, look at the people on your team,” Joska said. “You will love them or you will hate them. I don’t care which. All I care about are your projects and your designs. If you can’t get along with each other, tough. I’m not your mother and I’m not your priest, so don’t come crying to me.”

I looked at the people around me, wondering what they were like. Whitman looked self-possessed, but I thought I detected a hint of nervousness. Poole also looked serenely confident. The other guy, Cardenas, simply smiled at me when I glanced his direction. I hoped I didn’t look as worried—or angry—as I felt.

Then Joska got our attention, turned to the blackboard, and picked up a piece of chalk.

“Now,” he said, “we’ll begin your education on the fundamental principles of architectural design with a vocabulary lesson. First...”

I hastily pulled out my notebook and started writing, my anger suppressed but not forgotten.

“What a colossal prick,” I said as soon as class was over and I was safely in the hallway.

Our team had stayed together as we left the room. The others nodded at my assessment of Joska.

“Not much we can do about it, though,” Whitman said with a shrug.

For a moment, I studied the guy. He was taller than me by four or five inches, and while he wasn’t skinny, he wasn’t as solidly built as me. He had dark hair and blue eyes, and he was actually a pretty good-looking guy. As I stared at him, I tried to decide whether I liked him or not. I was leaning toward not.

“Hi, I’m Trip,” he said, ignoring my glare as he held out his hand. “Paul, right?”

Semi-reluctantly, I shook his hand.

“Samantha Poole,” the girl said. She was about 5’7” and thin, with dark brunette hair and hazel eyes. She wasn’t exactly my type, but she was pretty.

“Antonio Cardenas,” the other guy said with a thick Southern twang. He was taller than me, with an Asian’s typical black hair and dark eyes. “Nice t’ meet y’all,” he added.

“Nice to meet you, Antonio,” Trip said.

Then we shook hands all around.

“Look,” Trip said, “I know we don’t have a project to work on yet, but maybe we should at least get to know each other. That way, we can figure out who’s good at what and get ready for whatever Joska drops on us first.”

“It’s a basic design methods project,” Samantha said, fishing out the syllabus. “I’ve been doing some reading, and I don’t think the project will be that hard. It’s mostly a lot of drawing. We shouldn’t have to construct models or anything.”

“Hey, y’all,” Antonio said, “I’d love to stay and chew the fat, but I’ve got a two o’clock English class. I’m gonna have to haul ass if I wanna get there on time.”

“Okay, Antonio,” Trip said. “We’ll see you Monday. Have a nice weekend.”

“Y’all have a good one too,” he said. “Bye.”

I figured we’d talk about Antonio as soon as he left—an Asian guy, with a Hispanic name, and a twangy hillbilly accent?—but no one said anything, so I didn’t either.

“What about you?” Trip asked Samantha. “Can you hang out for a few minutes?”

“Sure,” she said.

“So,” he asked her, “where’re you from?”

“Cleveland,” she said.

“Ohio?” I asked, a little surprised.

“Tennessee,” she said. “It’s near Chattanooga.”

“Oh, cool,” I said. “My girlfriend’s from Chattanooga.” Then it hit me: this is what Kendall was talking about. What if Trip and Samantha met Gina? How would I introduce her? To them, Kendall had just become my one and only girlfriend. With a mental sigh, I pondered how incredibly complex my life had become.

“Paul?” Trip asked a few moments later. “Are you still with us?”

“Yeah, sorry,” I said, shaking my head to clear it.

“That’s cool,” he said. “Where’re you from?”

“Atlanta,” I said.

“Oh, cool.”

“Where are you from?” I asked.

He and Samantha looked at each other and playfully rolled their eyes.

“I think this guy’s gonna be the thinker on the team,” he said to her. Then he grinned at me to take the sting out of his words. “I’m from Franklin,” he said. “It’s a suburb of Nashville.”

As we walked toward the dorms, we continued talking. Samantha lived in Humes—which was part of the Presidential Complex—and Trip lived in North Carrick. They did most of the talking, since I was still worried about Kendall, Gina, whom to call my girlfriend, and a million other things.

“It was nice talking to you all,” Samantha said as we neared her dorm. “I’ll see you Monday.”

“Seeya, Samantha,” Trip said.

I merely waved.

“So what’s your story?” Trip asked as we turned to North Carrick.

“Huh?”

“How’d you end up at UT? I mean, you’re from Atlanta, right? Georgia Tech’s got a good architecture program. Why not go there?”

“My girlfriend goes here. She’s a junior. Besides,” I said, “Tech’s a great school, but UT’s got a better design school.”

He nodded.

“Why are you at UT?” I asked. “Instead of Vanderbilt, I mean.”

“My dad wanted me to go to Vanderbilt, but...,” he said. Then a shadow crossed his face. It was fleeting, but I caught it. “I guess I just wanted to come to UT,” he said at last.

“That’s cool,” I said, wondering what he hadn’t told me. I hit the button to call the elevator and then we waited. “What floor are you on?” I asked when it arrived.

“Four,” he said.

“Really? Me too. Cool.”

“Hey,” he said, “you wanna hang out for a while? We’ve got the floor meeting at five, but I’m done with classes for the day.”

“Sure,” I said, warming to his outgoing personality. “My room or yours?”

“Mine. I’m supposed to meet my roommate after class. We were talking about shooting some hoops at HPER, but I don’t think I’m in the mood. Do you play basketball?”

“No way, man,” I said. “I’m short and white.”

“Pistol Pete’s white. So is Larry Bird.”

“But they’re tall,” I said.

“True enough.”

When we got out of the elevator, we turned right. As we walked down the hall to Trip’s room, I kept waiting for him to stop at one of the doors. My room was at the end of the hall, and the closer we got to it, the weirder I felt.

“What room are you in?” I asked at last.

“414,” he said. “Why?”

“You’re kidding me.”

He shook his head.

“Dude, I’m in 415.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

“Cool,” he said. Then he held out his hand. “Howdy, neighbor.”

I shook it as we grinned at each other like idiots. At that point, I decided that I liked him after all; it was hard not to.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m gonna drop my pack in my room. I’ll be over in a second. Which room is yours?”

“The one on the left.”

“Cool. Seeya in a sec.”

In my room, I found another note: Sorry about the other night. Maybe I’ll catch you at that floor meeting. Terry. I knew he hadn’t spent the night, but his bed had been slept in since I’d left for my eight o’clock class. I shook my head in bewilderment and locked the door as I headed out. When I entered the suite across the hall, the door on the left was open.

“Paul,” Trip said. “C’mon in. I want you to meet my roommate. Paul Hughes, this is Luke Devereaux. Luke, this is Paul.”

Luke and I shook hands. He was broad-shouldered and a little taller than me, with curly blonde hair and an engaging smile.

“Luke’s not from these parts,” Trip said.

“Oh?” I asked. “Where’re you from?”

“Houma, Louisiana,” he said with a sing-song accent.

“Where’s that?”

“Mais, I jus’ tol’ you,” he said in the same heavy accent. Then he said something else, in another language entirely.

“What’d he say?” I asked Trip. “Is that ... French?”

“He’s just messing with you,” Trip said. “It’s Cajun.” Then he turned to Luke. “Paul’s cool, man. He lives across the hall. He’s an architecture major too. He’s in my Design class. You know that madman Joska I told you about? That class.”

“I feel for you, man,” Luke said to me in a normal accent. Then he grinned.

I couldn’t help but grin in reply.

“Houma’s in Terrebonne Parish, right on the oil patch,” he said, picking up the thread of our earlier conversation. “About an hour southwest of New Orleans.”

“Paul’s from Atlanta,” Trip said.

“Sandy Springs, actually,” I said. “But it’s a suburb of Atlanta.”

“Ah, cool,” Luke said. “A couple of suburban big-city boys here in little ol’ Knoxville.”

“Yep,” Trip said. Then he pulled out a chair and gestured to it. “Have a seat, Paul.”

When I did, he flopped onto his bed. Beneath it, I caught a glimpse of several long, low crates containing LPs. The top shelf above his desk was also lined with records. And where I had a computer on my desk, Trip had several expensive-looking stereo components.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he said when he saw me staring at the wealth of knobs and meters.

“His father told him he could have a car or a stereo for graduation,” Luke said in disbelief. “Do you know what this couillon picked?”

“The stereo?” I guessed facetiously.

“It’s a McIntosh,” Trip said defensively. Then he made his case to me. “I can buy a clunker car for two hundred bucks. But dude!” he said, pointing to his stereo. “It’s a McIntosh.”

“Couillon,” Luke repeated.

“What’s that mean?” I asked him.

“Couillon? It means he’s crazy,” Luke said.

“What about you?” Trip asked Luke without heat. “You’ve got every movie poster ever printed.”

Luke’s side of the room—by the window—was covered with posters for The Empire Strikes Back, The Deep, Jaws, Caddyshack, Blues Brothers, and more.

“What can I say?” Luke asked with a grin and a shrug. “The movie theater is air conditioned. D’you know how hot it gets in South Louisiana? So we don’t stay outside unless we have to.”

“Whatever,” Trip said with a laugh.

“How’d you end up at UT?” I asked Luke.

“My dad’s a UT grad,” he said. “I grew up hearing about how great UT is. So here I am.”

“What’s your dad do?” I asked.

“He’s a research chemist.”

“So you’re a chemistry major?”

He shook his head. “Close, though. Chemical Engineering.”

“How about you?” I asked Trip. “What’s your dad do?”

“He’s a record producer.”

“Cool,” I said. “I guess that explains your record collection. And the stereo.”

“McIntosh,” Trip corrected.

“Couillon,” Luke said again. Then he grinned at me sidelong.

“What’s your dad do, Paul?” Trip asked, ignoring Luke’s barb.

“He’s an airline pilot,” I said. “He flies 727s.”

“Oh, that reminds me of this great joke,” Luke said.

Trip rolled his eyes, but grinned nonetheless.

“Okay,” Luke said, slipping into a thick Cajun accent, “Boudreaux and Thibodeaux, they buy t’is airplane and start they own airline.”

Trip and I nodded.

“On they first flight to Jamaica,” Luke said, “one engine up an’ dies. Well, ol’ Boudreaux, he try t’ keep de plane in the air, but then de other engine up an’ dies too. So Thibodeaux gets on de intercom and says, ‘Bad news, folks. We gonna make an emergency landing.’”

Once I got into the rhythm of it, Luke’s Cajun patois was actually pretty easy to understand; it was lyrical.

“‘Since we over de ocean,’ Thibodeaux says, ‘all you folks who can swim please move to de left side of de plane. You folks who can’t swim, please move to de right.’”

Trip and I rolled our eyes at Luke’s dramatic pause, but we were hanging on every word.

“Well, them folks sort themselves out and Thibodeaux, he come back on de intercom. ‘Thank you folks. When we hit de water, we want all you on de left to swim for shore. For all you folks on de right ... on behalf of Captain Boudreaux and me, we’d like to thank y’all for flyin’ Cajun airlines...”

Trip and I groaned as Luke howled with laughter.

“What the fuck’s going on in here, you guys?” a new guy asked as he stuck his head through the open doorway. He was about my height, but skinny, with shoulder-length limp brown hair and glasses.

“Hey, Jeff,” Trip said. “C’mon in. Luke was just telling a Boudreaux and Thibodeaux joke.”

“The one about the talking parrot?” Jeff asked.

“Mais, non,” Luke said. “I tol’ that one yesterday.”

“Jeff,” Trip said, “this is Paul Hughes, from across the hall. Paul, this is Jeff Hamill. He lives in the other room.”

I stood and shook Jeff’s hand.

“Jeff’s an EE major,” Trip said.

“EE?”

“Mais, don’t he know nothin’?” Luke asked with a grin.

“Electrical Engineering,” Jeff said.

I couldn’t tell where he was from, but his accent was definitely from north of the Mason-Dixon line.

“Paul’s an architecture major too,” Trip explained. “He’s in my Design class.”

“The one with the Nazi professor?” Jeff asked.

“Joska,” Trip and I said at the same time. Then we grinned at each other.

“How long have you all known each other?” I asked. “I mean, you seem to know all about each other.”

“A couple of days,” Trip said. Then his eyes widened in surprise. “You don’t know anything about your roommate and suitemates?”

I shook my head. “I haven’t even met my roommate.”

“You’re kidding,” Jeff said as he sat down on the corner of Trip’s bed.

“Uh-uh. It’s completely weird,” I said. Then I told them about the notes and constantly missing Terry.

“What about your suitemates?” Trip asked.

“Do they have real hick accents?” Jeff asked. “One guy’s kind of weasely looking and the other guy’s big and quiet?”

I nodded.

“Yeah,” he said. “I met those guys.”

“What’d you think?” Trip asked.

Jeff merely shook his head in disapproval.

“Yeah,” I said, “I didn’t know if they were dicks, or just being funny.”

“Yeah, well,” Jeff said, “where I’m from, ‘Hey, fuckin’ four-eyes ... just kidding,’ isn’t funny.”

“Where are you from?” I asked, changing the subject.

“Philadelphia,” he said. “But my family moved to Knoxville two years ago.” Then he shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“But I bet it’s not Philly,” Trip said. “Or Nashville, Atlanta, or New Orleans, for that matter.”

“Mais, non,” Luke said. “This ain’t no Big Easy.”

“Knoxville’s okay,” I said. “I mean, no, it’s not a big city, but it’s not so bad.”

“It’s a good place for hiking and stuff,” Trip said.

“And it’s cooler than New Orleans,” Luke added. “Not much, but it is.”

When the suite door opened in the foyer, we all looked up.

“Floor meeting in ten minutes,” Cary, the RA, said.

“Okay, Cary,” Trip said. “Thanks.”

“Is that guy a little ... funny?” Luke asked when the foyer door closed after Cary left.

“Funny how?” I asked.

“Do you think he indulges in the love that dare not speak its name?” Luke asked with a semi-serious air.

“Who cares?” Trip said with a laugh. Then, “Nah, Cary’s cool. He’s just not as manly as you are.”

“I am a manly man,” Luke said. “I have hair on my chest to prove it.” With that, he pulled down the neck of his shirt to reveal a thick patch of curly blonde hair.

“Yeah, you’ve probably got hair on your palms, too,” Jeff said. “You hairy fuck.”

“He’s right,” Luke said to Trip in an aside. “I am a chronic masturbator.”

My jaw almost hit the floor.

Then Luke looked at Jeff. “But you still haven’t explained those thick glasses, Jeff. And is that the delicate odor of shaving cream I smell on your palms?” With that, he and Trip grinned at each other and then the two of them lunged across the room.

Jeff had been expecting them, and darted out the door.

Yelling and laughing, Trip and Luke ran after him.

I shook my head in amazement and followed. I took my time to shut their room door, so they were halfway down the hall by the time I stepped into it. Surprisingly, Jeff was safely in the lead.

I laughed in wonder and then jogged to catch up.

“Hey, Cary?” I said after the floor meeting.

“Yes, um...?”

“Paul,” I supplied.

“What can I do for you, Paul?” he asked.

I leaned closer to him so no one would overhear me. “Can you tell me which guy’s my roommate? I don’t want to miss him.”

For a moment, Cary looked perplexed. Then he shook his head in irritation.

“What?” I asked.

“You know, I don’t think I saw him here,” he said at last.

“You’re kidding me.”

Cary shook his head.

“This guy exists, right?” I asked. Then I frowned at the biting sarcasm in my tone.

“Oh, he exists.” Then Cary Got It. “You mean you still haven’t met him?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, dear.”

“I guess we’ve just got different schedules. But I still wonder where he’s spending the night.”

“And why he wasn’t at the meeting,” Cary added. Then he smiled at me. He was trying to look reassuring, but it didn’t work. “I’ll talk to Wade, the hall director, and see if he knows anything.”

“Thanks, I guess,” I said.

“Anytime,” Cary said with a smile.

With that, I headed back to my room. Sure enough, it was empty. As I walked back into the foyer, my suitemates’ door was open a crack. When I heard T.J. and Glen talking, I stopped to eavesdrop. I know I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help myself.

“So I guess there’s only three of ‘em on the floor,” T.J. was saying.

Glen didn’t reply.

“They’re all in the other wing, though,” T.J. added.

I cocked my head to the side and wondered what they were talking about. I was about to knock on their door—and pretend I hadn’t heard their conversation, of course—when T.J. spoke again.

“As long as I don’t have to listen to their jigaboo music,” he said, “I don’t care where they live.”

Glen merely grunted.

“UT should keep ‘em all on their own floor, though,” T.J. continued. “That way, we wouldn’t have to smell ‘em either.”

Great! I thought to myself. I’ve got a missing roommate and two racist suitemates. Isn’t my life shaping up to be just peachy?

“And what about Cary the Fairy?” T.J. asked, laughing at his own rhyme. “That guy’s a faggot if ever I saw one.”

At that point, I disgustedly locked my room door and then quietly opened the door to the hall. I held it so it didn’t make a noise when it shut. Then I walked across the hall.

“Come in,” Trip said when I knocked on the door.

He was sitting on his bed, strumming an acoustic guitar. The strains of “Behind Blue Eyes” died as he looked up.

“Hey, Paul. What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to see what you all were up to,” I said.

“Trip was serenading me,” Luke said from his bed. Then he winked. “I think he’s in love with me.”

“I think you’re in love with your right hand,” Trip said.

“Don’t listen to the bad man, sweetheart,” Luke said to his raised palm.

At that point, Trip and I lost it. Shamelessly, Luke continued whispering sweet nothings to his hand, which only fueled our howls of laughter.

“What the fuck are you guys laughing about now?” Jeff called from across the foyer. A moment later, he stepped into the room. Behind him, another guy appeared.

“Hey, Paul,” Trip said, “this is Hector Vega, Jeff’s roommate.”

Unlike Antonio Cardenas, Hector actually looked Hispanic.

“Nice to meet you,” I said as I shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you too,” he said.

Well, I thought, he might look Hispanic, but he sounds like pure Tennessee.

“Hey,” he said, “I’m starving. Do y’all wanna get something to eat?”

“Sure,” Trip said. “Luke?”

“What do you think, sweetheart?” he asked, holding up his hand.

Trip and I snickered.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Jeff asked. Then he looked at Trip. “Is he talking to his hand again?” When Trip snickered instead of answering, Jeff shook his head. “You’re sick, Luke,” he said. “And don’t ever touch me with that hand again.”

Still laughing, we all headed to the Presidential dining hall.

On Sunday, I got up, worked out, took a shower, then met Kendall and Gina for breakfast. Over the past couple of days, Gina had come out of her shell and was acting more like the girl I loved. She still wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being at UT, but she didn’t seem to blame me anymore.

“Still no sign of my roommate,” I said as we sat down at a table by a window.

“Really?” Gina asked.

“He’s still MIA. I don’t even think my RA’s seen him in a couple of days.”

Then I looked up and almost choked on my toast. The petite brunette and her cute blonde friend—from my Art History class—were sitting two tables away. They were looking right at me, and smiled when they caught my eye. I smiled in return, and they resumed their conversation. Then I hastily looked to see if Kendall or Gina had seen the exchange. I felt my face heat when Kendall arched an eyebrow.

“They’re in my Art History class,” I said.

“Who?” Gina asked.

Kendall merely smiled sardonically.

“No one,” I said, trying to sound disinterested. “Just two girls. Anyway, I still haven’t seen my roommate,” I repeated.

“So you said,” Kendall replied, her eyes sparkling mischievously.

“That’s weird,” Gina said, completely missing the exchange between Kendall and me.

“It sure is,” Kendall said. Then, while Gina took a bite of her breakfast, Kendall nonchalantly turned to look at the two girls from my class. Fortunately, neither of them saw her look. When she turned back to me, she arched an eyebrow again.

I felt my face heat further.

“It sure is a pretty day, isn’t it,” Kendall commented.

“It is,” Gina said. Then she gazed out the window, oblivious to Kendall’s double entendre.

I cleared my throat meaningfully and took another bite of toast.

“Is that all you’re eating? Toast?” Gina asked, momentarily saving me from Kendall’s teasing.