It made me smile, even though my mind struggled to bounce back from the phone conversation I’d wrapped up with my dad a few minutes ago. “Why? Missing the motherland?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not Russian, Blair.”
“I know. I just like saying it.” I grabbed my Ethical Theory textbook out of my backpack and went back for my notes. “Are you going home?”
“I think so, yeah.” She didn’t look terribly excited about the prospect.
“Logan staying stateside?” I guessed.
Audra’s cheeks turned pink and her hand curled around her phone. “Yes. He’s going home to Connecticut.”
Something about Audra’s boyfriend rubbed me the wrong way. Not having an actual reason to dislike him, however, I kept my negative thoughts to myself. She seemed happy enough. We were only nineteen, and she was my sorority sister, not my actual sister.
“Well, I’m sure you guys will talk as much as always. So, like, a hundred texts a day, average.”
Her cheeks reddened further. “Shut up. I can’t wait until you meet someone you actually like so I can dish all of this shit back your direction.”
“Fat chance. The guys on this campus are a dime a dozen.”
“True. If Zachary Flynn couldn’t hold your attention, who could?” she mumbled, looking down at her phone when it buzzed.
I didn’t bother to answer. She wasn’t listening anyway, and I didn’t want to talk about Flynn. I had liked him. He hadn’t been bad in bed, either, but his notoriety had made me uncomfortable. It had been easy to convince myself it was no big deal, but the first time camera flashes had blinded me coming out of a restaurant, the lies had blown up in my face. Maybe it was because of my dad, or how he’d brought me up, but being noticed—or worse, remembered—gave my hives. Literal ones.
“I’m going to the library,” I said, grabbing my textbook and iPad, then shrugging into a jacket. Seventy degrees meant a slight chill in Florida, and even though I’d grown up in Manhattan, it hadn’t taken long for my body to adjust to the balmy Southern weather.
“What?” Audra looked up, blinking to dislodge the glassiness hazing her eyes. She’d never had a boyfriend before—probably because she had four slightly scary older brothers—and this Logan thing was out of control. “Why are you going to the library? No one studies at the library.”
“I need to, um . . . do some research in the stacks. Some of the reference materials for this take-home test aren’t online yet.”
For the first time in weeks, Audra’s distraction didn’t make me want to smack the freckles off her pretty face, because it meant she didn’t question my flimsy excuse. Questions weren’t welcome. Not when it came to my dad, and certainly not when it came to the part-time “job” I worked at his request.
“Okay. Don’t forget about the meeting tonight. We have to review housing applications.”
“Got it.” Audra and I had been elected—not that we’d run—to oversee the freshmen and sophomores requesting to move into the Kappa Chi house next semester. We were required to fill the house, and since upperclassmen preferred to live off campus we weren’t above forcing newbies in to fill up the rooms.
It’s how Audra and I had ended up living here as roommates, but that had worked out fine. Much better than my disastrous freshman year trying to keep Kennedy Gilbert from killing herself. She seemed to be doing well, now, and she and her boyfriend, Toby, were living together in a pretty swanky beachfront place. I was happy for her, but not sorry to be living with someone normal. Or someone who had been normal before she started secret dating.
I looked down at my outfit. Yoga pants and a Kappa tee were no good—I needed a skirt and blouse at the least, but my suit would be better. No way would Audra fail to notice me changing clothes, so I gathered the suit and a blouse on their hangers, then paused. “I’m going to stop at the cleaners. Do you want me to take anything for you?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Hold on.” She put down her phone and slid off the bed, then dragged four dresses and one skirt out of her closet, tossing them on my bed. “Thanks.”
That was easy enough, except adding a stop at the cleaner’s to my list.
None of my sisters interrupted my escape from the house. I passed through the massive white columns and stepped down into the parking lot, enjoying the cooler brush of air against my cheeks. Autumn was my favorite time in New York. This time of year, late October, was perfect. The trees would be changing, the air would taste crisp and smoky, and the sky would be impossibly huge and blue. I missed it, and not just the weather. The people, more than anything.