No, no one was looking. They didn’t see.
Her steps slowed as she neared her room. The door was closed, but she could tell Waverly was there from the twist in her gut.
Should I go somewhere… wait till she’s gone?
She hesitated, deliberating.
Oh well—she’ll be out soon enough.
She reached reluctantly for the doorknob and went in.
Robin’s roommate was packing half her closet into a Luis Vuitton bag on her perfectly made bed, and, thankfully, was too busy dictating her travel plans and retrieval instructions into a cell phone to do more than glance huffily at Robin.
Robin crossed to the far corner of her side of the room, stripped off her wet clothes, found a long sweater on the floor to pull on over her leggings. She kept her back to her roommate, who traveled peevishly from her closet to the suitcase on the bed as if she were alone in the room.
Waverly Todd was beautiful. Apart from that, she had no redeeming qualities. Certainly, she must have been punishment for some terrible transgression in one of Robin’s past lives. A preening, prissy, size-two Southern belle, she could take up the whole room and all the oxygen in it no matter what she was doing.
She had followed her football-scholarship boyfriend out of Charleston to the hinterlands. A fish out of water in the cold East, she hated everyone around her with a black passion.
The girl clearly belonged in a sorority and had, in fact, been firmly interred in the Tri-Delt house, most prestigious on campus, until this year. Robin gathered that during rush week there had been some incident with the boyfriend that got Waverly kicked out of the house, and the boyfriend ousted from his frat as well. Waverly was fighting mad about her expulsion from the Greek golden circle into the outer darkness of general housing. She raged against her banishment and took her fall from grace out on Robin, the lowly civilian, by being generally insufferable in every way she could invent.
Robin’s only consolation was that her very existence was as annoying to Waverly as Waverly’s was to her.
Robin hung her detested coat to dry above the radiator, dug her Ancient Worlds textbook out of her backpack, and curled in the window seat with her back to the other girl.
The room itself was fantastic, really: diamond-beveled windows, a cozy, creaking recessed window seat, delicious dark mahogany paneling up half of the wall. But the decor was a battlefield, lines strictly drawn. Waverly’s half of the room was fussily, oppressively feminine: Laura Ashley linens and cut-crystal knickknacks perkily punctuated with various plush stuffed animals, a framed photo of the boyfriend on the dresser.
Robin’s half was dark and cryptic and arty: black sheets and worn Surrealist prints on the wall, the melted Dali watches a defiant blot in Waverly’s Martha Stewart universe.
Waverly finally hung up on whatever relative she was torturing and turned her full attention back to her suitcase. Robin bent over her book. She had no intention of actually studying, but she kept up the pretense of reading to annoy Waverly. It was working. Waverly watched Robin suspiciously, irritated to paranoia by Robin’s stoic refusal to acknowledge her presence. The silence fairly crackled between them. Finally, Waverly had to speak.
“You’re not going home?”
Robin turned a page, not looking up. “No.”
“You’re just going to stay here? By yourself?”
Robin’s eyes never moved from the book. “Looks like it.”
Waverly’s gaze narrowed; her drawl lengthened. “You never go anywhere, you know.”
Robin’s voice was flat. “I must be weird or something.”
“Or something,” Waverly sniffed.
The door crashed open and a tall, broad jock filled the door frame.
The boyfriend.
In the window seat, Robin stiffened, every molecule of her being instantly aware of him. If Waverly was a black hole, Patrick O’Connor was the sun, big and blond and full of life. Robin could feel her heart lifting, hope returning.
He swaggered into the room, duffel hanging from his shoulder. “Taxi’s here,” he complained in Waverly’s direction, Southern accent rich as butter. “Ready to roll?”
Waverly continued rearranging her suitcase, adding outfits she had no chance in hell of wearing over the four-day break. “He’ll wait,” she knifed back.
Robin kept her eyes glued to her book, raging inwardly. Why Waverly? It was always the golden, stupid ones who were chosen.
It was pathetic, really, a typical Southern disaster in the making. High school quarterback fucking what brains there were out of the prom queen. Prom queen bent on marriage, quarterback overflowing with hormones, scamming on every other girl in sight.
As if to illustrate the point, Patrick ran his hand along the curve of Waverly’s ass as she bent over her suitcase. She pushed him away. Unfazed, Patrick twisted his hand in her hair and pulled her head back to kiss her, full mouth grazing on her lips, dropping lower to nuzzle on her throat.
Robin’s jaw tightened; she pretended not to watch. Pathetic.
Even more pathetic was that against all logic and better judgment, Robin was hopelessly in lust with him. It was a stupid cliché, doomed, she knew—but Patrick was the only person at the school who’d paid any attention to her at all, who smiled when he saw her, as if she weren’t broken or damaged beyond repair. Granted, he lighted up for everyone, especially when he wanted something. But at least Robin felt there when he was around. At least he saw her. He saw her.
She’d listened to them make love in the dark, not knowing or caring that she was awake, and imagined herself under him, his mouth on her throat, his hands holding her down, his heat filling her—
She started back to the present as Patrick turned Waverly loose and flashed his grin at Robin, warm and brilliant. “Hey, Rob. Could not motivate myself out of bed this morning. I miss anything in Ancient Civ?” A direct blue gaze, irresistible.
Robin closed her book on her finger, kept her voice casual. “Besides that next Friday’s the midterm?”
Patrick’s look was comically dismayed. “Fuck a duck. I’ll choke.” His voice dropped, low and caressing.” ‘Less I can get your notes.” The Carolina drawl that was like fingernails on a blackboard from Waverly was a lingering tease in Patrick’s voice, full of warmth and promise.
Robin felt her knees go weak, but she put her book aside and stood, moving past him to her desk. She could feel Patrick’s eyes on her. He stepped to her side (so close!) as she flipped through a spiral notebook. The heat of his body beside hers made her stomach twist with longing.
She ripped four classes’ worth of notes on creation myths from the notebook and turned quickly, pages in hand, so he couldn’t see she was trembling. “That’s the last two weeks. You haven’t been for a while.”
He looked down into her eyes and she felt her breath catch. “Saved my ass. I owe ya—”
Waverly’s voice came from behind, a shrill note of warning. “Are you finished coming all over my roommate?”
Patrick winked at Robin, turned and hoisted Waverly’s suitcase, then his duffel bag, and then hooked an arm around Waverly’s waist and slung her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Waverly pounded on his back, her voice rising to a banshee shriek. “Put me down, you assholel”
Patrick ignored her and carried her out, calling cheerfully back over his shoulder. “See ya, Rob. Happy Turkey Day.”
Robin could hear Waverly starting to swear a blue streak, her voice fading down the hall.
She kicked the door closed behind them and stood still in the fading light.
CHAPTER THREE