Just Visiting

by Dahlia Adler

  “Did you say Tia Maria when the waiter dropped those drinks on you?”

  “Got a problem with that?”

  The corner of his mouth turns up. “Nope.”

  “I try not to swear.” Not that I owe him an explanation.

  “I gathered,” he says with a smile. “Good Catholic girl?”

  “Not-so-good Jewish boy?”

  The smile turns smug. “Something like that.” He pushes open the door then, letting me and Max walk through into the cool night air. We spot Dev and Reagan immediately, sipping drinks and laughing on a bench a few feet away. They’re so cute I don’t want to disturb them, but Jamie has no such reservations, and he storms right over, leaving Max and me no choice but to follow.

  “You shouldn’t leave her alone,” Jamie says to Reagan, jerking a thumb at me. “Girl’s good at getting herself into trouble.”

  “‘Girl’ can handle herself,” Reagan replies before I can say a word. Then she takes a closer look at me and frowns. “Oh no!” She hands Dev her drink and jumps up to examine the stain on my top with chipped black-painted fingertips. “What happened?”

  “Collision with a waiter. No biggie. What’d I miss out here?”

  “Just Reagan losing an argument about who’s cooler, Hermione or Lyra,” says Dev.

  She rolls her eyes. “He means that he thinks picking the obvious choice is a safe bet, and he’s sorely mistaken.”

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, but they slip right back into their debate and just like that, it’s as if they’re alone again.

  Jamie rolls his eyes at me. “So this is what they’re like?”

  “Far as I can tell.”

  “Are you sure you don’t wanna dance?”

  Not nearly as sure as I was five minutes ago. “What about Max?”

  Jamie nods at where Max has made himself comfortable on the bench and is frantically typing away on his phone. “Looks like his Internet girlfriend is back online. Trust me when I say he won’t notice where any of us are for hours.”

  The same definitely seems true for Dev and Rae. Even my obnoxiously loud sigh doesn’t make any of the three of them look up.

  “Yeah, okay, fine,” I say to Jamie. “But first, think we could find me a sink?”

  The bright side of mocktails, I realize the next morning as I wake up squinting against the sun streaming the window of our motel room, is that despite the fact that I somehow stayed up with Reagan and the guys until almost 3:00 a.m., I’m blissfully hangover-free.

  Of course, that doesn’t stop me from wanting to throw my phone—with its blaring alarm—against the wall.

  “What time is it?” I groan, reaching out to shut it up.

  “Time for breakfast,” Rae grumbles back, just barely lifting her head off the pillow. She swings her legs around the side of the bed. “You probably need your energy after flirting your ass off with Jamie until dawn.”

  “We are not even out of bed and you’re making fun of me,” I manage around a yawn. “I think that’s a new record.” The blanket is scratchy as I claw my way out of bed and stretch out every limb. “Plus, I wasn’t flirting with Jamie. And who are you to talk? You were practically in Dev’s lap all night.”

  She sticks out her tongue as she sails past into the bathroom, shutting the door loudly behind her. From the nightstand, my cell phone chimes with a text. I check it—another text from my mom. Good morning, sweetie. Forgot to mention last night that you got a letter from Javi. I got one too. He sounds busy! Have fun today!

  The ache in my chest is swift and sudden. I don’t want to eat scrambled eggs with a bunch of other prospectives; I want to open a letter from my brother and see what he’s up to, see if this letter is the one that finally mentions coming home.

  Of course, I also want classic black patent Louboutins, but what I want is irrelevant.

  I dig into my bag and find my favorite dress—made by yours truly out of a gray turtleneck and a bunch of vintage T-shirts—and prep the rest of my outfit while I wait for Reagan to come barreling out of the bathroom. As soon as she does, I hop into the shower and take my sweet time thinking about spending the day meeting people who aren’t obnoxious flask-toting nerds.

  “How are you taking so long?” Rae whines through the door. “You just showered like four hours ago!”

  “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful!” I call back, but I turn off the water and reluctantly step out to get dressed.

  “I don’t know how you’re ever gonna roll out of bed and get to class when we’re actually in college,” says Reagan as we hustle to the building in which the breakfast is being held.

  “I do it every morning now,” I point out, struggling to keep up with her in my cowboy boots. Reagan can walk seriously fast when she’s in a rush, which makes up for the fact that her legs are half the length of mine.

  “Yeah, because either your mom or I practically drag you out.”

  “Well, you’re still going to be there when we’re in college. Isn’t that the point of rooming together? So you can be my alarm clock forever and ever?” I hook an arm around her neck and drag her close, and she laughs and ducks out from underneath, facing me as she continues to walk backward in her ripped-up tennis shoes.

  “I thought we were going to college so life would be different,” she teases, darting backward. “Isn’t that the point, Tori?”

  “Well so far, we’ve had drinks with no alcohol and hung out with obnoxious boys, so it seems just like high school to me.” I stick out my tongue and cross my eyes. “Here’s hoping there’s a little more action at the frat party tonight.”

  “First things first!” she sings out. “You are going to go to an actual class today! Maybe that’ll feel a little more like college.”

  I groan as overdramatically as humanly possible. “What is the point of coming to visit colleges if we’re just going to spend the whole time in class?” Unless it’s Fashion Design with Miss Lucy, I add silently, practically feeling that cobalt gown under my fingertips.

  “It’s not the whole time,” she retorts, spinning around to face forward just in time to turn the corner onto the path with the entrance to the building housing breakfast. “It’s one class. And who knows? Maybe there’ll even be a hot professor.”

  “You always know just what to say.”

  She grins and yanks open the door to the hall. “You’re easy. Now come on—let’s get this party started!”

  I follow her inside and we accept our brand-new name badges, but as we look around for seats and familiar faces, I can’t help feeling that so far, this has felt a lot like high school—classes I don’t want to take, a guy who’s no good for me, and reliance on Rae to get my butt moving.

  Why do I need to leave Charytan for this exactly?

  CHAPTER TEN

  REAGAN

  “I can’t believe we’re at another one of these,” I muse to Dev as we walk up the front lawn to the Alpha Delta Chi house, where a party is already in full swing. Max keeps bumping into me from behind because he’s surgically attached to his phone, and I lost sight of Vic and Jamie I don’t even know how long ago. Last I saw, Vic was chatting with some chick who was gushing over her dress while Jamie’s eyes rolled out of his skull.

  “Amazing, isn’t it? Maybe one of these days I’ll even learn how to dance.” He strikes a ’70s move right there on the lawn and I promptly turn my back on him as if I’ve never seen him before in my life.

  “Man, you remain my toughest critic,” he says as he takes my forearm and spins me back around. It’s the millionth light touch of the past couple of days, and I keep waiting for that stupid little tingle to disappear, but it never does. I hate that tingle. Where does it get off feeling both so new and so familiar? And why doesn’t it understand it’s not welcome here? “What does it take to please you, Reagan Forrester?”

  As if I would touch that one with a ten-foot pole. “Clearly you still need some practice,” I say coolly instead. “Maybe you should be stu
dying dance instead of science.”

  He grins proudly. “Liked that, huh? Impressed by my sexy collegiate brain?”

  Not even a twenty-foot pole. “Please, you’re planning to go pre-med. That question was a total gimme.”

  “Oh, really. So if the professor of the class we just sat in on had called on you instead of me, you would’ve known that was an example of co-dominance?”

  “I’m not going pre-med.”

  “Ah, yes, I forgot—you are the great ‘undecided.’”

  “Don’t mock me.”

  “I’m not mocking,” he insists as we walk around the house, heading straight for the backyard without so much as a discussion. “I just think it’s surprising that someone who has so many opinions about things doesn’t know what she wants to study.”

  “I’m probably going to major in English, I’m just not sure. It’s not like I want to be an English teacher or anything.”

  “And what do you want to be when you grow up?” he asks with a tilt of his head.

  “A grown-up.”

  He stops walking, leans back against a tree, and slides down the trunk. “That’s it? A grown-up?”

  “Trust me,” I say flatly, looking down at him. “It’s harder than you think.”

  He unzips his hoodie and lays it on the ground next to him. “I can’t decide if I’m dying to meet the people who raised you or if I would just regret it instantly.”

  “What makes you think they’re even remotely interesting?”

  His chest heaves in a sigh under his Ms. Marvel tee. “You really like pushing the whole mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma thing, don’t you? Well, if I don’t get to pry, you don’t get to get pissed at me like you did last time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that you keep everything to yourself but assume other people can just read your mind. It’s not fair.”

  “Fair to who?” It’s weird having this conversation, period, made extra bizarre by the distance between us. Obviously he put out the sweatshirt for me to sit on, but I just can’t bring myself to squash it into the dirt with my butt.

  “You’ve been spoiled by Tori,” he says, ignoring the question. “It’s like…too neat, or something. The two of you.” He nods at the hoodie. “Are you gonna sit or what?”

  “I don’t want to get your sweatshirt dirty.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the sweatshirt.”

  “Fine, I’ll sit on the damn sweatshirt.” I drop onto it gracelessly, glad I opted for jeans this time around or I would’ve just flashed half the party. “Don’t be pissed at me.”

  “I’m not—” He breaks off and sighs. “You’re a weird, confusing girl.”

  “Am not.” I think about it for a second. “Okay, I’ll take weird, but not confusing. What the hell is simpler than a poor white trash girl who just wants to get the hell out of her life? I’m a walking cliché.”

  “You really think that’s all you are?”

  It feels like a trick question. One I’m totally not answering. Instead, I test the waters elsewhere, seeing how the words feel on the tip of my tongue for the first time in a long time. “I want to be a lawyer. I don’t know what I want to study because it doesn’t really matter what I major in, as long as I get into law school. There. Now you know what I want to be when I grow up.”

  I brace myself for laughter, but it doesn’t come. “I think that’s probably the perfect choice for you,” he says after a moment. “Arguing for a living? Damn, I should’ve guessed that immediately.”

  “That’s all you have to say about it?” A chill passes through the yard and I hug my knees to my chest, wishing I weren’t sitting on the sweatshirt so he could drape it around my shoulders or something.

  “What else should I say?”

  “I don’t know, something about how ridiculous it is? How no one would ever take me seriously in a courtroom? How I should appreciate that I can just sit at home while a man brings in the money?”

  He furrows his thick, dark eyebrows. “Why would I ever say anything like that? Even if I thought it? Which, by the way, I don’t. I think you’d make a great lawyer. I hope you’re on my team if I ever get sued for malpractice.”

  I tug on my white curl and watch a guy’s massive, barrel-like belly jiggle as he does a keg stand. Why would I ever say anything like that? As if it’s inconceivable anyone would. As if I haven’t heard it a thousand fucking times in every tone from playful teasing to downright rage.

  I don’t know if it’s my silence or my tightened jaw that gives me away, but next to me, Dev makes a disgusted sound, somewhere between a snort and gagging.

  “Jesus Christ. Is anyone in your life not a completely unsupportive piece of shit?”

  “He’s not in my life anymore,” I say, far too quickly—and unnecessarily. The truth is, they’re my mother’s words as much as Fitz’s, but his deep, mocking voice is the one that echoes in my brain. Hers flits around, an ineffectual gnat of redneck vocabulary wrapped in faux accent. But his…always his…

  Dev jerks back slightly, wincing if I’m not mistaken, though I’m looking everywhere but at him, so who knows. Maybe I want to think the idea of another guy throws him.

  Another chill sweeps through, and I close my eyes, imagining the warmth of a decidedly masculine arm around my shoulders. Dev’s not budging, but now that Fitz is in my head, it’s easy to reinsert him everywhere he used to fit so seamlessly. I can feel his rough callouses brushing the skin just below my collarbone, his steel watch pressing into my shoulder. I know exactly where every hair and bone of his arm would be if he were sitting with me right now.

  “So what’s the next stop on your epic college tour?”

  I open my eyes slowly. A girl is doing a keg stand now, two of her friends cracking up as they hold her by the legs of her bright-red jeans. The foully sweet smell of pot floats in our direction, and I wrinkle my nose. I’ve always hated that smell. Fitz used to laugh at me about it when I would make disgusted faces as he and his friends lit up in the backyard, Ma Fitzpatrick feigning total ignorance. Said it was a “good-girl gene” that made me hate it.

  “I don’t know. Vic’s the social planner.” Red Jeans is a lightweight. She’s twice my height and even I could’ve lasted longer than that.

  “Well, what else is on your application list?”

  I shrug. “Still working on it. Southeastern turned out not to be a great fit for Vic’s academic plans, and Halsing was kind of…underwhelming. I think we’re both liking Barnaby though, and at some point, we’re gonna check out Chapman State. Maybe Mills. Gas is pretty steep, and I only get so many application fee waivers, so.”

  “That’s it?”

  The sharp tone makes me turn and face him for the first time since I sat down. “You have a problem with my list? Why? Where are you applying?”

  “A few places, but I’m planning on going to KU. You’re not even applying?”

  “Nope. It’s not for me.”

  “It’s not for you,” he repeats flatly. “A great school with programs in everything you could possibly want to study, affordable in-state tuition, and a law school isn’t for you. What, are you scared you won’t get in?”

  “I’m perfectly confident in my admission abilities, thanks. I’m just not interested.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe whatever you wanna believe.”

  “Fine. I will. I believe that you’re scared.” His eyes aren’t sparkling the way they usually are; now they glitter with hard determination, and maybe a little bit of smugness. He sits up and crosses his legs, leaning toward me so I can smell the lone cup of beer on his breath. “I believe that you really do think you’ll never get out of your town, maybe even your trailer park. I believe you don’t think you deserve anything. I believe you have been dealt a really crappy hand and you are so much better than all of it.”

  There might be another chill in the air. I’d like to think that’s why I’m shaking. Wh
y my body is prickling with heat, my arms squeezing my knees so tightly to my chest I can barely breathe. Dev’s face is so close to mine I can feel the warmth crackling between his skin and mine, the gentle puffs of air ghosting over my lips from in between his.

  He really thinks he knows me. Maybe he does. “Your name’s not Dave.” I refuse to be the only one on the defensive tonight.

  His light laughter surprises me, feels unfair. “No, but it’s easier to pronounce, isn’t it?”

  “Was that you being ‘a different person’?” Yes, the finger quotes are obnoxious. No, I don’t care.

  “That was me having met a whole lot of Kansans who seem to have a lot of trouble wrapping their heads around a name that isn’t Chris or Brian,” he returns. “I thought it’d be nice to go by something people can pronounce.”

  “Dev isn’t exactly challenging. Dev. Dev. Dev.” No chance I could pronounce the full version, but he doesn’t know that. “Do I get an A?”

  His lips curve into a slow smile, and my traitorous heart thuds so hard in response it’s almost painful. “A-plus.”

  My arms slide down my legs until my fingers are clawing at the dirt to keep myself steady. He’s going to kiss me. And I’m going to let him. No one’s lips have touched mine since Fitz’s, so long ago now I can only piece together memories of what it felt like. My throat is dry, and I dart my tongue out to moisten my lips, realizing only afterward that there was probably a sexier way to do that. And then…

  “We should probably find the guys.” He places his palms flat on the ground for leverage to wrench himself upward, then reaches down a hand to help me up. “Have you heard from Vic? Tori? Whatever?” He grins as if we have some inside joke. If I ever found that funny, it must’ve been a long time ago. I ignore his hand and rise up on newborn pony legs, then reach down for his sweatshirt and shake out the dirt before handing it back.

  He starts to reach for it, then hesitates and stuffs his hand into his jeans’ pocket instead. “Hold on to it. It’s still chilly out.”