14. Diego
DIEGO
Mia bounced on the balls of her feet as her friends walked toward us. She was a bundle of nerves, and I couldn't figure out why.
Because I was her partner, perhaps? Since the day she moved in, she’d seemed uncomfortable.
That wasn’t abnormal for students who’d been through a lot in their lives, but her discomfort seemed to be only around me.
From what I’d observed, she had no problem hanging out with any of the others, even Cody, who was normally very standoffish.
Even Raymond, who was normally a pain in the ass.
It wasn’t that I expected to be universally liked, but she seemed to have no problem talking to anyone else in the house.
Mia’s friend, a pretty young woman with long dark hair, gave her a hug. Then the guy did too.
He almost poked her eye out with the bow slung over his shoulder, which didn’t exactly endear him to me.
“This is my roommate,” Mia said, gesturing my way. “And this is Tori and Jayden.”
“I’m Diego,” I said, since Mia had forgot to mention my name.
Tori smiled, a real one that reached her eyes. “Nice to meet you.”
Jayden held out his hand and we shook, his expression puzzled. “You look familiar.”
Tori elbowed him, but I didn’t see that he’d done anything wrong. Did she think he was implying that all Latino people looked the same? I hadn’t taken it that way.
“Mia says you know this campus backward and forward,” I said.
“He does!” Tori responded like a proud parent. Then she turned to Mia. “You didn’t tell me you were doing this. It doesn’t really seem like your thing.”
Mia shrugged. “I guess we all need a little adventure sometimes.”
It was a good answer, considering she had been browbeaten into doing this just as much as I had.
This had been Aaron’s idea, and now he couldn’t even participate.
But maybe the fresh air and a change of scenery would do me some good.
Sometimes, when I spent too long on my coursework, I hit the point where not even all the coffee in the world could get me to focus.
A woman with a clipboard stood on a table and called the teams to order, going over the rules.
I’d last been on a scavenger hunt in middle school. This one was a little different.
We’d get a list of things to locate on campus, which she called checkpoints, and instead of collecting them, we had to take pictures with them and submit them to the scavenger hunt website. The checkpoints could be done in any order—except for the last one.
“Check them off on your paper,” the woman added, “so you know which ones you’ve done.”
Someone began distributing one list per team. Mia took ours. There were a few more instructions, but nothing we hadn’t already heard.
“Want to do the first few together?” Tori asked.
“Sure,” Mia said.
Jayden and I exchanged a look, sizing each other up. Why, I didn’t know. It was just a Halloween scavenger hunt. But men did that sometimes.
The organizer blew a whistle—not as loud as the one I had around my neck—and it felt like the start of a race.
Except I had no idea what we were racing to.
Jayden quickly scanned the list. “Let’s head over to the architecture building. There are a couple of checkpoints in that area.”
“Sounds good,” Mia said, with a quick glance up at me.
Some teams were already running across the quad, but we just took off at a brisk walk. Not that I had anything against running—I jogged most nights—but I was determined to use this opportunity to get to know Mia better, and to see if she could become more comfortable with me.
And neither of those things could happen if we were running around like madmen.
“What’s the first checkpoint?” Tori asked.
“The Column Courtyard. It’s behind the building,” Jayden supplied.
Mia studied the list as we headed that way. “We have to take a picture with a Doric column. Which one is that again?”
Some distant part of my brain remembered that there were three types of classical Greek columns, but not what they looked like. I pulled out my phone and looked it up.
Jayden led us on a winding path that eventually cut through a huge row of hedges. And then we were in a paved area with dozens of columns ranging from about four feet tall to nearly twenty.
“This is… weird,” Mia said, voicing my thoughts. Only a few of the columns were normal looking. Some were made of glass. Others had faces carved in them. One looked like Swiss cheese.
“Every graduating architecture class designs and builds a column to add to it,” Jayden explained. How the hell did he know that?
I scanned the courtyard and spotted a six-foot tall column that matched the image on my phone. “That one is Doric.”
Jayden and Tori positioned themselves in front of it, with Jayden putting his arm around Tori as she took a selfie. Then she frowned at the screen.
“I think we need to show the top of the column,” Jayden said.
She took another one and then it was our turn. Mia held out her camera, but only she and the column were in the shot. A bit awkwardly, I moved closer, putting my arm around her shoulder like Jayden had with Tori.
I caught a brief glimpse of the shot Mia took. Neither one of us were smiling.
“Did you upload it?” Tori asked. Each photo had to be uploaded to the scavenger hunt website where the powers that be—presumably some of Aaron’s student council buddies—were keeping track.
“The next one’s inside,” Jayden said.
He led us directly to a lounge area where an entire wall was made up of blueprints. According to the checklist, we needed to snap a photo in front of the one that showed the Langley observatory.
Mia and Tori took off, rapidly scanning the blueprints on the left of the wall, and Jayden and I tackled the right side with a bit less enthusiasm.
“So, you’re in grad school?” Jayden asked, sounding as if he was just being polite.
“Yes. I’m studying public health.” Okay, now it was my turn to make polite small talk. “How long have Tori and Mia known each other?” It couldn’t have been too long, given that this was Mia’s first semester here, but they sure acted like they’d known each other for years.
“Not that long. I met her first, at the coffee shop. It always pays to know the baristas.”
It was news to me that Mia worked at a coffee shop, but I tried not to show it. I made a mental note to find out where, for future reference.
“Found it,” Mia exclaimed, and she waved me over, whipping out her phone.
This time, we went first, presumably because Mia had spotted the correct blueprint.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that she was smiling for this one.
I liked her smile, even though I hadn’t seen it much. It was wide, open, and friendly.
At least when she was aiming it at people other than me.
There was one more checkpoint south of the building, and then Jayden declared that next we should hit the ones near the admin offices. As we hurried along the path, we saw other teams darting by. None seemed to be as sure of their destinations as Jayden was.
Another team came from behind and passed us, and we all instinctively moved faster.
After a few more checkpoints, Jayden finally came across one that had him stumped. “The president’s south view,” Mia read, looking at me with her eyebrows raised.
“Isn’t the president’s house near here?” The Langley university president had an official home on campus, though past presidents hadn’t always used it.
Jayden frowned. “I don’t know how we can get that pic.”
That problem was apparent after Jayden took us down a series of sidewalks, ending in a brick wall about ten feet tall. He gestured at the wall. “The southern view is right behind that.”
“Is there a gate we could get a picture through?” Mia asked.
Then Tori snapped her fingers, turning to Jayden. “Let me get on your shoulders.”
As if they’d choreographed it, Jayden knelt down, and Tori climbed on, her thighs on either side of his neck, her legs dangling down in front of him. He straightened up, hugging her legs to his chest, but it didn’t get Tori high enough to see over the wall.
But that didn’t stop her. She raised her phone up in the air and snapped a picture. Then she examined it and frowned. “Get closer to the wall,” she said. Jayden obliged and Tori was able to take a picture that she was satisfied with, somehow without dropping her phone over the wall.
Jayden knelt down and she hopped off, uploading the picture. Then he turned to Mia. “Want a boost?”
Before she could answer, I was at her side. “I’ve got it.” Jayden needed to focus on his own partner, not mine.
Mia gaped at me for a moment, but she put her hands on my shoulders when I crouched down. Then she swung her legs over, her hands on my head for balance.
I straightened up easily—she was light for a woman her height. Her thighs were warm against my neck, and I grasped her shins to make sure she didn’t fall. It took a heroic effort not to stroke her legs as Jayden had done with Tori.
“Got it,” she said, and I lowered her down. She hopped off the first second she could. “Thanks.” Her voice was somewhere between awkward and neutral, and I didn’t blame her. Neither of us could’ve predicted that any part of me would be between her legs today. Even if it was just my neck.
We set off again, with Jayden in the lead, until we reached the next checkpoint.
This was starting to feel like a double date—although not a particularly good one.
Tori and Mia walked side by side, their heads tilted together as they chatted and snapped selfies for the contest. Jayden and I watched them, making awkward small talk.
So much for Mia getting more comfortable with me. The only one she was getting to know better was Tori. And possibly Jayden as well.