Undeclared(23)
“Is that your kink? I haven’t had a girl ever call me Daddy before, but I’m open-minded.”
“‘Eww’ is the only response to that.”
I shook my head. I couldn’t tell if his flirting was just to cheer me up or lighten the mood, or if it was an invitation. I did know I didn’t want to talk about money or majors. “How is empire-building these days?”
“Slow, but I’ve got a plan.”
“Are you empire-building by yourself or with others?”
“Others right now,” Noah added. “Roommates.”
“How many roommates do you have?”
“Four.”
“Wow, and they all go to school here? Have I met any of them?” I was letting curiosity get the better of me.
“No, only Bo and I. Finn flips houses and works at his dad’s construction company, Adam plays in a band—although technically I think he lives off his trust fund—and Mal,” Noah paused, “I’m not sure what Mal does. ”
“That’s a lot of testosterone in one house.”
“Yeah, it can be fun, but also a pain in the ass.”
The mile walk along the campus was over before I realized it, and not once had Noah removed his hand from the back of my neck. He opened the door with one hand and placed a light pressure with his other to propel me forward. A huge clock over the reception desk declared it was nearly ten o’clock.
We sat ourselves in a booth and pulled out the slightly greasy menus that I hoped were tacky-feeling because of a cleaning compound and not something else. A waitress came over and took our orders. Noah ordered an egg white omelet with fresh vegetables and wheat toast, no butter. I ordered the number 2: eggs over easy, toast, and bacon.
“How did you come to live together?” I picked up the thread of our conversation. From across the booth, I felt Noah’s long legs stretch out next to mine, his jean-clad legs rubbing slightly against my bare leg.
“Bo and I went to the Americana bar down on Fifth one night.”
“Never been there,” I admitted. Lana and I stuck pretty close to campus. I wasn’t even sure I knew where Fifth was.
“I’ll take you sometime,” Noah said, nonchalantly presuming that we would be spending more time together. “Adam was in the band. He tried to crowd-surf an unfriendly crowd for some reason, and we ended up defending him. Not sure why, though. His music sucked that night.
“Ouch. What’s the band?”
“No band right now. He couldn’t play all summer, so they found a new guitar player. The band he was in was called Ten Speed.”
I made a face, and Noah laughed. “I know. I kept telling Adam that he couldn’t be in a band called Ten Speed and still hold his head up.”
The waitress brought our breakfast, and I watched Noah surreptitiously. I realized that I didn’t know until now whether he was right or left-handed. I knew a lot of other things about Noah, like that he and Bo had been friends since the seventh grade, when they got into a fight and were sent to detention together. Noah hated his father and loved tart things like Starbursts and Skittles, but he wasn’t much of a chocolate fan.
Four years of letters can make you think you knew someone really well. Sitting across from him for the first time watching him eat bland wheat toast, I wondered if my collection of facts stood for actual parts of the whole or simply random tidbits I could trot out if I was playing Noah Jackson Trivial Pursuit.
“What are you doing after breakfast?” Noah asked.
“I’m taking a picture of the Alpha Phis for a rush invitation.”
“Is that a regular photo or one of your special ones?”
“Well, it’s a miniature one, if that’s what you mean. It’s not like I invented the technique.”
“Are you going to show me how you do one of those?”
I shrugged slightly. “I guess, if you want.”
“I want.” He looked at me as if waiting for something.
“Like today?”
“Such an enthusiastic invitation.” He made a tsking sound. “Why yes, Grace, I’d love to come and be your assistant today.”
“I actually already have one—it’s Lana.”
“Isn’t she a member of that house?”
“Yes, but she’s a bad member who’s using me as an excuse to get out of her rush duties.”
“You know, if you weren’t doing it for them, they’d have to pay someone,” Noah said.
“Yeah but I’m happy to do it as a gift.”
“They think it’s good enough to put on their stuff.”
“I get that I can make money off of it. I just don’t want to.”