2. Mason
2
MASON
“I didn’t know cafeteria food could actually taste good,” Jude said.
I clapped my best friend on the back. “Told you.”
Jude stopped on the landing and looked back at us. We’d taken the stairs since the elevators were full of people moving in. “You were right about this place, Mason.”
“Damn straight. What do you think, Parker?” I asked the question before I remembered. Parker was a couple steps below me, and when I turned to him, his expression was blank. “Parker?”
With effort, he focused on us. “What?”
“Nothing,” I said. I turned back to Jude and exchanged a glance. Last year, Parker had been our roommate in another dorm. Back then, he’d been a normal guy. Young, a bit idealistic, but a normal dude. Now he was just a shell of his former self.
Jude and I jogged up the stairs. “I wonder if the new guy’s here yet,” Jude said.
“I hope he’s not a prick.” That was the one bad thing about getting the best suite in the entire building. It was built for four, and that meant we’d be getting some random dude assigned to us. That sucked, but hopefully he’d be a cool guy or he’d keep to himself. Or hell, maybe he’d suffered a breakup over the summer, too, and would be as quiet as Parker.
“What’s his name again?” Jude asked.
“Kyle.” We weren’t supposed to get that information ahead of time—the university had stopped giving it out years ago because too many people had looked up their future roommates online and asked for reassignments based on their social media posts. But all it had taken was flashing a smile at a pretty student worker in the housing office, and I’d found out his name. Hadn’t been able to find him online, though. Maybe the dude was Amish or something.
Jude held the door open on the sixth floor. I strode through and we waited for Parker. He was a few years younger than us, but we’d all started graduate school last year. Back then, he’d been like an eager puppy nipping at our heels. Now he was still like a puppy, only a sad, downtrodden one. I didn’t have a steady girlfriend—no time for one—but if I did, I hoped I’d take it better if she dumped me.
Not that a woman had ever dumped me.
Jude unlocked the door and paused. The hall light was on, and I was pretty sure it hadn’t been when we left. “Kyle?” he said.
No way was I going to stand here hovering at the door. If the dude was here, he knew there were three more of us coming. Hell, the suite had space for twice that many—that’s why I’d worked so damn hard to get it.
I marched into the suite and glanced in the bedroom. Three bunks were empty—one wasn’t. Shit, did we get a roommate who went to bed before seven p.m.? Maybe he really was Amish.
Jude poked his head in the door of the bedroom, but I went all the way inside, determined to meet the man we’d be rooming with for the semester.
The dude was curled up in a large blanket like he was a burrito. He was?—
Shit.
I paused a couple feet from the bed, staring down at the figure sleeping on it. Jude appeared by my side, and Parker trailed in after us. Even he let out a breath of surprise, and I was glad he was alert enough to see what was going on.
“Well… guess our new roommate’s not a prick,” Jude said.
“And doesn’t have one, either.” The light from the hall illuminated the face of our sleeping bunkmate. I’d pictured some guy Parker’s age with maybe a five o’clock shadow by this time of the day.
Instead, the sleeping figure had clear skin, dark eyelashes, pink lips, and shoulder-length hair.
And she was definitely not a dude.
What the actual fuck?