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“I want to. I have to bring paperwork back anyway. I’ll pick you up. Let me know where. Heck, I might just stay on campus and get to know it.”

She sees the eagerness in me. How badly I want to be in this place and take that first step into my dream. She walks backward toward the building. A girl with black hair comes up to River and stops her a few steps away from me.

“Hey,” she calls to River before glancing at me with curiosity.

River notices her. “Becca!”

“Who’s your friend?” she asks with interest.

“Claws off, Becca, this one is mine. Go find a freshman to play with.”

The girl named Becca pouts, and she’s kind of cute in a crazy scary way. This is the girl who let River down and I want to give her a piece of my mind, but River reads my intent and glares at me.

Becca looks back at River. “Do you need a ride home?”

“No,” we both say at the same time.

“Oh, he’s the one!” Some kind of understanding in her face.

“It’s about damned time!” Becca says, tugging on River’s arm and heading up the path to the building behind them.

River calls back. “Liam? Whatever you do, if you go to the cafeteria, don’t eat the burrito special.”

* * *

I call Logan.

“Hey, little bro.”

I hate when he calls me little brother, but I’m too excited to be bothered by it.

“Hey, big bro,” I mimic his salute.

“What’s up?”

“I did it.”

“You did what?” I can hear the concern in his voice. He probably thinks I killed Jon. I should let him sweat for a little while.

“It’s done.”

“Liam . . .” His voice is serious now. All the lightness from before, gone.

“It needed doing. River helped me.”

“Fuck!”

“It was her idea, actually.”

“Don’t say anything else over the phone.”

“It wasn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it would be.”

“Liam, I can’t know this.”

“We pretty much just walked in, talked for about an hour, signed a bunch of papers, and it’s mostly done.”

“Wait? What?”