Chapter 3
“So like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting janitor, or, you know, just skeezy, leering-at-college-girls janitor?” my roommate Jane asked.
“The Matt Damon kind, for sure,” I said. We were sitting on our beds, facing each other across the small room.
“So, secret genius and all that? Deeply, deeply misunderstood?”
I shrugged and pulled one of the decorative pillows my mom had bought for my room onto my lap, as if I needed protection. “Probably not secret genius.” I thought about the awareness in Lucas’s eyes, and what seemed like intelligence. But how the hell would I know that? “At least, I don’t think so.”
“But big, you said? And kind of brooding?”
“Jesus, Jane, he wasn’t Heathcliff or anything.” Was he?
Jane flipped onto her back and stretched her long arms over her head.
We were the same height—on the tall side—but Jane had more curves than me.
A fact we both hated. She was in leggings and a T-shirt, both hugging her body.
She wore her chestnut hair in a chin-length bob, sometimes straightening it, sometimes letting her wild curls run free, as they did now.
We didn’t know each other before we became roommates, but we’d known about each other our whole lives. Our fathers had been deeply entwined with each other when Jane and I were born. And perhaps were again, if my father’s instructions on keeping an eye on Jane were any indication.
For the first week, we’d warily circled each other, knowing we’d been placed together by our fathers, neither of us knowing exactly why.
The second weekend here, we’d gone to a party, gotten a little drunk, and done True Confessions back in our room, where we both agreed to disregard any directives coming from our fathers about each other, and just relax. Be friends. Real friends.
Which was an easy promise for Jane to make—she’d been ignoring her father’s directives for years. Had taken great pleasure in it lately, in fact.
Not quite so easy for me, though.
“Poor Lily,” Jane said, teasing in her voice. “A campus full of respectable, father-approved guys, and you fall for a ne’er-do-well townie.”
“I’m not ‘falling for’ anybody,” I said quickly.
Jane glanced my way and made a half-snort sound, then turned back to stare up at the ceiling.
“And we don’t know that he’s a ne’er do well,” I added. I wasn’t even sure what a ne’er do well was—Jane was always throwing out terms like that—but I figured it wasn’t good.
“Right. ’Cause all guys at his age, with the world open to them, become janitors.” She had a point. “I wonder if it’s some kind of community service or something. Was he wearing an orange jumpsuit?” Jane said, laughing now at her own wit, slight as it was.
I didn’t bother telling her that he wore jeans and a black polo…and wore them well. Instead, I threw my pillow at her and said, “Oh, shut up, already.” Which made her laugh all the more.
“What’s going on?” Sydney, our suitemate, said as she walked through the door adjoining our rooms. She had a sweatshirt on, and smelled like she’d just come from the outdoors.
Sydney O’Brien would not have felt afraid walking across campus at night. Syd would kick anybody’s ass at Bribury, faculty included.
“Our poor Lily has it bad for a townie,” Jane said. I wished I had the pillow back, so I could throw it at her again. Harder this time.
A look of distaste crossed Sydney’s face. Which was rich, since she was a townie herself, just a different town.
Sydney came from a rough section of Queens and was at Bribury on a scholarship. She and Jane bristled each other frequently, but there was also a grudging respect for each other.
I, of course, was the peacekeeper between them when needed.
“Seriously?” Sydney said, looking at me. She moved to my desk and sat down. “Please tell me Jane is full of shit.” She turned to Jane and added, “As usual.”
“Haha,” Jane deadpanned. “Not this time. Beautiful Lily, who could have any guy she wants, is going to slum it with a hoodlum.”
“I don’t know which part of that sentence to take issue with first,” I said. I looked at Sydney. “Basically, it’s all bullshit.”
Sydney studied me, and I didn’t like it.
Jane and I had grown up in spotlights, and Jane in particular had become world-savvy early on. But Sydney had us both beat when it came to life.
Sydney had lived. Though she was careful not to tell us much about it. It was as if she was reinventing herself at Bribury, cutting all ties to her previous life.
Part of me wished I could do that too, and so I admired Sydney. But I also worried about her.
There was a…desperateness…about how badly she wanted to fit in. I’d watched her studying how Jane and I dressed and acted. It wasn’t Single White Female. She didn’t want to be us. But she didn’t want to be herself, either.
“All bullshit, Lil? Really? Beautiful? Check. Can get any guy you want? Check.” I opened my mouth to object, but Syd raised a hand to stop me.
“Get over yourself. Just because you don’t seem to want any of the guys we’ve met so far, doesn’t mean you couldn’t have any one of them if you so much as crooked a finger. ”
“That’s not true,” I said, but they both ignored me.
“So, that leaves ‘ready to slum it with a hoodlum.’ What do you say, Lil? Is it a check?” There was teasing in Syd’s voice. I looked at her, ready to throw back some trash, but couldn’t. I looked at Jane, who was also smiling, but her grin faded when she saw my face.
“Oh, shit,” Syd said, her teasing voice now gone. “It is a check. Isn’t it? You’re ready to hop in bed…with a townie?” The distaste in her voice was obvious.
That was the thing about Sydney—she was a poor scholarship student, but in many ways was a bigger snob than Jane or I ever were.
“I…I just met him,” I said. I’d hoped to have more conviction in my voice, but it came out on kind of a whisper.
“Oh dear God,” Jane said in her overblown, put-upon way.
Jane and Syd weren’t wrong. I was what is considered classically beautiful—not that I did anything to look this way, other than have good genes, apparently.
And at the parties we’d gone to since arriving, and dorm functions, the boys did gravitate my way early on.
But there was…something…about Jane that made people want to spin in her orbit. It must have been what attracted her father to her mother. Jane had it.
And Sydney, well, I don’t know what Sydney did for guys before Bribury, but her vaguely interracial look (which, let’s face it, stuck out on this mostly white campus and seemed at odds with her O’Brien surname) and her tough-as-nails street attitude seemed exotic to the prep-schooled, silver-spooned male population.
And, like me, neither of them had found a guy here yet who sparked any interest for them.
Lucas Kade.
Even thinking about him sent a shudder through me. One that my roommates easily deciphered.
“Jesus, Lily,” Sydney said as she rose from the chair and made her way to the doorway and back to her room. “With all these rich pretty boys here?” She was past the door now, but I could still hear her as she said, “Sounds like someone’s working out a little rebellion issue.”
I looked over at Jane, who quirked a questioning brow at me.
“That’s not it,” I said, though I wasn’t sure I believed myself.
“That’s too bad,” Jane said, and hoisted herself from the bed and made her way to the bathroom. “Because that would be over and done with fairly quickly, with no broken hearts.”
She closed the door behind her and I was left with my thoughts. Startled to think that maybe Sydney was right.
And scared to death that Jane was more right than Syd.
* * *
At the next swim lesson, there was no Lucas. And no Andy’s mother, either. Somebody had dropped him off, but I hadn’t seen them.
The lesson went well. Andy seemed much better at putting his head in the water. And somebody had obviously been working with Jessica, because she was turning into a little fish.
I hoped that these kids had the opportunity to get to a pool after the lessons ended. It would be a shame for them to just start to become acclimated to the water, then not get in a pool again for years.
It was already too cool for outdoor swimming, and there were no lakes or public beaches in the town that I knew of. Maybe there was a Y or something.
I kept myself from asking Andy who had dropped him off, but I noticed he did look up into the observation area a few time with expectation in his eyes, only to be disappointed.
And yeah…so did I.
And I hate to admit it, but while the girls ran through the shower, I took a little extra time and ran a brush through my wet hair and took it out of its ponytail, even though I’d be heading right back to the pool to swim laps.
Unless I had a better offer.
But no. No Lucas to pick up Andy. Instead, Andy slowly walked forward when a guy, who definitely wasn’t Lucas, sauntered down the hallway.
He was Lucas’s age and almost as tall as him, but this guy didn’t have the strength and width across the shoulders that Lucas did.
Same longer hair, but this guy’s was wavy and deep brown instead of Lucas’s straight, jet-black hair.
And this guy seemed like maybe he hadn’t owned a comb for a couple of years, though he looked clean enough.
He had on a jean jacket and jeans, with shockingly white Nikes.
Like, maybe he’d come straight here from the shoe store, they were so white and unsullied.
“Scruffy” was the word that came to mind looking at him. Cute in an edgy way, but not with any of the sheer beauty of Lucas Kade.
“Ready, champ?” the guy asked Andy. Andy nodded and left my side.
Nobody had gone over any kind of protocol on pickup with me, and I had this momentary flash of Andy being abducted by some unknown thug.
But Andy seemed to be expecting said thug. Still…I put my hand on his little shoulder. “Do you know this guy?” I asked Andy.
Andy looked up at me with confusion. “Yeah. That’s Stick.” Like, I should totally know Stick.
Stick was looking me up and down, and I wished I hadn’t taken any extra time with my appearance. The knowing grin that spread across his face said he knew whom I was expecting to show up for Andy.
“Lucas is tied up right now,” he said. “I’m getting Andy for him. Right, kid?”
Andy nodded and moved away from me, to Stick’s (Stick? Seriously?) side.
I probably should have asked more questions, taken Stick’s license number down or something, but I didn’t. I just let Andy go with Stick.
There were no questions from Stick to Andy about how it went, or what to work on. Stick was pulling his phone out and doing something on it as they walked away from me.
Andy had been the last kid to be picked up, so all the other parents and instructors were gone, or back in the locker room.
This wave of…panic…came over me, and I raced down the hall. “Just one second,” I yelled, and Stick and Andy stopped and turned to me. “I…I forgot to give Andy his assignment for next week,” I said, though I had already talked about it with Andy while we’d been waiting.
Stick made an impatient wave with his hand, then kept texting, while I pulled Andy to the side, away from Stick.
I knelt down to Andy’s six-year-old size and said very quietly, “Andy, were you expecting Stick to pick you up? Did your mother tell you you’d be going home with him? Or was it a surprise?”
“No. My mom didn’t tell me Stick would be here,” he said, and I felt another wave of panic. Crap, what the hell was I supposed to do now? Call the cops? Demand we all wait until Andy’s mom could be notified?
A tiny bit of irritation crept in that I was being put in this position. I was a college freshman, alone for the first time. I was supposed to be the irresponsible one, out whooping it up.
And here I was wondering if I was caught up in a child abduction case.
“Lucas told me Stick would pick me up,” Andy said. “Not my mom. My mom is…she’s…gone away.”
I didn’t know what that meant in this kid’s vernacular. Heaven? Prison? With the kind of life these kids lived, it could be either.
“But she’s coming back,” he added with vehemence. “She’s coming back,” he said more quietly, as if convincing himself.
“I’m sure she is,” I said, though I wasn’t sure at all. “So, Lucas told you Stick would be picking you up? You’re sure?” He nodded, his wet hair sticking up in the back. I used my hand to tame the wild spot at the back of his head. “Okay, then, let’s get you back to Stick.”
Andy didn’t seem to remember that I had said I wanted to give him instructions, and Stick was still texting away. “All set,” I said to Stick as Andy started leading the way. Stick started following Andy, then turned back and looked over his shoulder at me.
“Thanks, Lily,” Stick said, then continued to follow Andy down the hall.
“No problem,” I said, though they were now beyond hearing range.
I turned back toward the locker room. As I was walking I realized that neither I nor Andy had mentioned my name to Stick, and yet he knew it.
That thought sent a small, sick thrill through me.