I lean forward as if doing so will let me see more of her.
She’s wearing some kind of tight, dark sweater that makes me want to check the rest of her out.
Every part of my body tingles, the frustration transmuting smoothly into attraction.
I haven’t felt this way since I saw a ghost nearly four months ago.
Hallucinations—another reason I need to get the hell out of here.
“Apparently, my roommate, Tyler, has taken up crack over the summer.”
I blink at Beck’s phone in my face, and I realize the assembly’s done and everyone’s getting up to head for class or their dorms or apartments.
As we file out of our row, I scan the bodies ahead of us for the girl I was watching.
I can’t find her. The disappointment is stupid because I’ve never even met her, but there was something magnetic about her.
Classmates stop us to say hi or ask about our summers. Neither Beck nor I have class for half an hour, so we catch up.
I think I’ve lost track of my roomie when Beck grabs my arm, his face lighting up. “Hey, Ty! I got someone you gotta meet.”
He tugs on me. “I told you I was a mentor,” he says, pulling to a stop near the doors. “Here’s my mentee.”
I stop next to him, and my entire body stiffens.
The girl I was checking out is wearing black boots and painted-on jeans that make my abs clench. The sweatshirt’s short enough to show a tantalizing sliver of her waist.
Her hair is longer than I thought, and I’m suddenly deciding how many times I could wrap it around my hand.
But when I see her face, every muscle in me tightens.
Full lips, small nose, bright-amber eyes fringed with dark lashes. She’s brand new and so familiar I ache.
If there’s one small mercy?
It’s that Annie Jamieson, the girl I was mentally jerking off to all assembly, looks as stunned as I feel.
2
“How many of the guys here eat pussy?” Elle, the blonde girl in the room next to mine who introduced herself when I moved in last night, asks from the seat next to me when the assembly concludes.
“Half,” I decide.
“Then of the three hotties I spotted while the dean was waxing poetic about tradition, one-point-five might go down on me.”
I laugh as the house lights go up.
“I’ll even share with you,” she says generously as we rise from our seats.
“Do I get the point-five or the whole one every other weekend?”
“Depends how interesting you wind up being.”
The theater is huge and full, and I try not to be intimidated as I follow her out of our row. “So, no boyfriend you left behind in Nebraska,” I say, remembering our conversation from last night.
“Nope. I do comedy, so everything in my life gets put on display. Guys say they’re cool with it, but the first time you tell a room of people about how you found him jerking off to Meryl Streep, it gets strained fast. You want to be a musician, right?” she goes on without pausing for breath.
“Yeah.”
“Tell me you’re not waiting to get ‘discovered.’” She uses air quotes. “Because unless you have contacts or crazy-rich parents, that shit does not work.”
My stomach flips over, the excitement I’ve been feeling tinged with dread.
“My parents don’t know I’m at Vanier,” I admit. Without meaning to, I feel for the phone wedged into the front pocket of my skinny jeans tucked into black suede ankle boots.
Elle holds a hand in front of her mouth, mock aghast. “Well, now you’re getting interesting.”
I shake my head as she links arms with me, and we flow toward the door.
When I got admitted to Vanier, I decided not to tell anyone here that I’m Jax Jamieson’s daughter.
I’m in a new city with a fresh start I desperately need. I’ve built my skills and my confidence. This is my chance to prove it to myself and the world.
But this morning’s assembly in the huge auditorium is a reminder that there are a thousand other students who want exactly the same thing, and we’re competing for mentorship and attention and funding.
On top of which… I lied to my dad and Haley about where I was going to school. The fact that he’d transferred the money for tuition directly to me, like I’d asked, made it easier.
It also made me feel guiltier.
A familiar face near the doors is a lifeline.
“Hey, Beck!” I call, and the dark-haired guy I met at orientation yesterday turns toward my voice.
He has a few inches on me, a broad and infectious grin, and sparkling eyes. He knows he’s good looking, and he wants the world to enjoy it as much as he does.
“Hey, Annie. You survived assembly. That’s the first hurdle. The next is to keep your mouth shut while these people brag about how epic they are.”
I laugh. “Be deferent. Got it.”
“Hold on a sec. Don’t move.”
He disappears, and Elle makes a noise at my side. “Who’s that?”
“My mentor. You didn’t sign up for one?”
“No. Clearly I should’ve.”
Beck returns to us through the crowd. “Annie, this is my roommate, Tyler.”
It takes a moment to notice the guy at Beck’s side. Once I do, my feet root to the floor.
Beck’s tall; he’s taller. Beck’s dark; he’s darker. Handsome. Built for sleepless nights and unhealthy obsessions.
There’s no blue in Tyler’s hair anymore. It’s raven black and spiked at the front.
He’s wearing fitted jeans, a faded black Henley rolled up at the sleeves. Same tan skin, stubborn chin, but a chest made broader by the years. Ink peeks out from under his shirt sleeve.
This spring, I walked in for auditions and spotted Tyler in a rehearsal room.
The second we locked gazes, my number was called and I took off. Somehow, I got through my audition and even made it in.
I reminded myself Vanier was a big school. We’d probably never even cross paths.
So much for that.
Tyler at twenty is different from Tyler at eighteen. If he was handsome before, he’s devastating now. It’s as if the boy I knew walked off the earth, fought countless battles, and returned a man, vowing never to tell a soul except for the shadows flitting behind his eyes.
He ripped out my heart more than a year ago, but it healed. Maybe it’s not the same shape it was, or the same size, but I patched it up with ambition and resolve. There are no cracks in it anymore.
Now…
My chest twinges hard.
Apparently, I missed stitching a spot.
“Hi, Tyler,” I say at last.
With a moment’s hesitation, he holds out a hand. “Annie.”
His voice. I haven’t heard his voice in over a year, and it rumbles through me like thunder at a distance, a soft promise of inevitable destruction that will leave no part of me untouched.
I force myself to take his hand.
Beck and Elle have no idea we’ve met before, and nothing in our greeting would make them suspect.
The heat of him is familiar, but the electricity traveling from my hand up my arm to my breasts, between my thighs, has me exhaling hard.
His gaze darkens as if he feels it too.
“What are you doing here?” he asks roughly.