“You’re Cash, right?” I asked the guy sitting against the wall as I slowed down on my way through the hall of our dorm. I had lived here now for two weeks, and I still felt like a dripping-in-diamonds heiress popping champagne off the back of a yacht. There were no roaches lurking by the bathroom sink here like at my South Central apartment, no bars on the windows, and high-pressure hot water for every shower. I couldn’t think of anything better, because there wasn’t anything better. The first shower I took here, I must have stood in the stall for forty-five minutes until my skin was bright red and pruny. Turned out, Los Angeles wasn’t all homeless addicts, sweaty air, and midnight gunshots. This must be how the other half live.
“Yeah.” My neighbor cocked his head as he searched my face. “I’m so sorry, but—”
“Sawyer.” I winked. “It’s okay. We’re all meeting a ton of new people.” To be fair, the first time we met, I was in a towel, wet hair clinging to my bare skin after one of those decadent showers. He was in his jammies, his short, dark curls messy, doing a half-conscious shuffle to the bathroom for a three AM tinkle. And, as it was three AM, unarguably the worst hour of the twenty-four, he was quick to forget it.
This time, though, his lips curved sweetly, a boyish quirk on an otherwise masculine face, and stood to shake my hand. I hadn’t noticed the first time we met how tall he was. “Nice to meet you, Sawyer.” My name coated his lips like sticky brown sugar. Southerner for sure.
I smiled and shifted my book bag to my other shoulder. “Do you want to borrow my desk? You know, until you have access to yours?” I was feeling generous, after all, spoiled with dorm life. I had my own bed and desk now. There was plenty to go around.
“You don’t mind?”
“Not at all.” I waved my hand down, and then headed toward the door to unlock it. Tilting my head, I studied the loose leaf and textbook he was gathering. “Physics?”
“Yeah.”
“Engineering or do you hope to be the next Stephen Hawking? I mean, without the crippling, degenerative disease.”
He laughed. “Engineering. Aerospace, ideally.”
“Sounds amazing.”
“What about you?” He slung his backpack over his shoulder as we passed through my door.
“Haven’t decided yet,” I lied.
“First quarter?”
“Yep.” I dropped my bag on my bare but made bed and hopped onto it.
“You’ve got time. Is this your desk?” He pointed to the one bordering my bed, the one that wasn’t covered in books, fast food wrappers, and half-empty coffee cups. Nicole, my roommate, was either a slob or conducting some sort of biological experiment with the dairy remaining in those paper cups. Or, possibly, a psychological one to see how long someone as uptight as me could survive in her natural habitat.
Within the first three minutes of our study session, it was obvious I would not be able to concentrate with Cash around. He started drumming on the desk with his mechanical pencil, the lead inside making a shick-click sound as it rattled against the plastic. It drove me nuts. Over and over—thump-shick-click, thump-thump-shick-click, as he tapped the eraser on the page with one hand and held his forehead in the other. It must have been what he did when he was stuck on a problem because his paper was covered in harsh indents and eraser shavings. I sent a sideways glance to his textbook from my bed, a different one than he had in the hall. Linear Algebra. Easiest class in the world. At least, easiest of all the algebras. “Cash?”
“Yeah?”
I took a breath to revel in the silence that followed. Ah. Two full seconds of no thump-shick-click.” What problem are you stuck on?”
He narrowed his eyes on me. “You know how to do Linear Algebra?”
Doesn’t everyone?
“Number fourteen?”
He nodded.
“Have you tried a ‘suppose not’ proof?”
“‘S’pose not?’” In the south, it must be too much effort to pronounce all the syllables in a word. Was his sweet tea not strong enough today?
“Proof by contradiction.” I reached out for his pencil and notebook. He surrendered both.
I wrote… S’pose not, and then the opposite of the statement he was trying to prove with the two-by-two matrices given in the text. “That’ll get you the most elegant proof. Never do brute force when you can use ‘s’pose not.’” I winked and handed his notebook back, then took a hesitant breath before returning the pencil.
“Thanks?”
“I turned in that homework today, so let me know if you need more help.”
He stared at me a moment with knitted eyebrows. “Thanks,” he repeated. I was starting to get offended by his shocked expressions at my apparent intelligence. What about me looked stupid?
We both heard Cash’s door open and someone leave. I whispered, “So, is it the same girl every time or—”
“So far this year. We’ll see.”
“You ever lock him out?”
“No, I don’t hook up.” Well, that was disappointing to hear. It had been months since I had sex with a decent guy. Cash was striking with perfect hair, and I could listen to him talk all day. He seemed like he would actually be nice to me, care if I liked his hands and lips on my skin, and not just see how fast he could get off.
“No, I mean, just for the hell of it. Even the scales, you know?”
He gathered up his books. “That’s kind of a good idea. Thanks again, Sawyer.”
“Anytime.” I smiled.
By the way he smiled back, I could tell I was right about him.