Beneath The Skin(43)

Somehow, his slapping his own face reminds me. “Hey, by the way, Dessie is performing a new song at the Throng & Song this weekend. Clayton messaged me last night. You up for going?”

“I heard. Clayton messaged me, too.” He turns his head towards me. “Maybe I can bring Riley along …? She’d love it there, I think.”

I nod. “Sure, yeah. I need to meet this Riley chick.”

“You can’t have her,” he teases me.

“I can’t have the girl who writes about a woman who murders her husband? What a loss,” I tease back, rising off the couch. “When you finally get her in bed, remember to sleep with an eye open. Or to sleep cuddling an axe, either way.”

“Hey,” he calls out after me as I open the fridge, pushing through all the Chinese leftovers and half-empty sauce jars for something to eat. “How’d last night go, by the way? Other than getting my car broken into. Are you bringing Nell to the Throng?”

I sigh into the fridge. A part of me was hoping he’d magically forget all about my so-called date, too distracted by the broken window.

“I don’t think it’s gonna work out,” I admit.

“Why not?”

“She’s …” Anything I say feels wrong, like I’m betraying some kind of trust between her and I. “She’s got issues, I guess.”

“You were way into her, though. What happened?”

The cool air of the fridge keeps wafting over me. So does the stench of four-day-old lo mein and soy sauce. I shut the door, frustrated. “Is there not a damn thing to eat in this place?”

“We could grab a bite at the University Center before our afternoon classes,” Dmitri suggests. “Your treat.”

I have a feeling that due to the car incident, it’s going to be “my treat” for quite a while.

We ditch the apartment together and cross a cloudless campus, the sun beaming down on our heads. I feel like my skull is on fire by the time we reach the University Center, which is bubbling with students and teachers and noise at this time of day. The glass doors blind me as we pull them open and drink in the cool air conditioning inside on our way to get some grub.

“Six-inch or foot-long?” asks the sub lady.

“Eight inches when hard,” I answer.

“What?”

“I’ll take the foot-long,” I say, leaning over the counter to take a peek at the toppings. “Extra lettuce and banana peppers, please.”

As we enter the seating area, we’re nearly knocked over twice by crowds of other students pushing through the room, whether to leave or to come in and find their own seat. Heads and backpacks and noise are all that stand between me and the two empty seats we’re hoping to find. Trouble is, after nearly ten minutes of slowly pushing around the room, we don’t happen on a single damn place to sit.

Until a familiar voice cuts through the crowd. “Dmitri! Over here!”

Dmitri tugs on my sleeve, then guides me toward the voice. I lose my footing twice and nearly eat the floor until we arrive at a table with two available seats. A girl with messy, shoulder-length black hair sits across from a girl with even darker hair, but it’s jagged and short. One wears shades of green and the other, black from head to toe.

When the girl in black looks up, my stomach twists.

Not that it matters; she hardly regards my existence. “Dmitri!” she greets my roommate almost too sweetly—perhaps to show how very much she doesn’t notice or care for me. “Eric told me about your new story! The one about the corpse organ donor lover who’s looking for his heart back. Such a beautiful, dark premise.”

“Thanks, Chloe,” he mumbles. “These seats aren’t taken? You sure?”

“Nope.” She smiles at him—again, too sweetly—scooting over in her booth to make room. “You’ve been alright? Are you coming to see the play Eric wrote? It’s tomorrow night.”

“Oh, crap. That’s this week already?” Dmitri shakes the confusion out of his head. “Yeah, I’ll uh … of course. I’ll be there. Brant, you want to come?”

The table turns into ice the moment my name is uttered and I haven’t even sat down yet. Chloe, my ex from last year who should totally not still be holding a damn grudge against me, doesn’t even bother with the courtesy of looking up to meet my eyes. Instead, she just smirks at the mention of me, her whole face turning cool and pale as the Arctic Ocean.

So I provide the beachy warmth of the Caribbean Ocean. “Yep!” I exclaim, then take my seat next to the other girl at the table dressed in green, who regards me with mild curiosity. I realize with a start that I know her too. “Hey, wait. I know you. You’re … no, no, don’t tell me … You’re Dessie’s old roommate, right?”