Page 28 of Give In

“Never.” He put his arm around me as he walked me into my building.

“I’d invite you up, but I didn’t check with my roommate,” I explained as we stopped in the lobby.

“That’s okay, I’ve gotta get back and see what’s going on with Nixon and Holden.”

“Thanks for inviting me tonight. It was more fun than I’ve had in… forever, I think.” I went up on my toes and kissed him quickly. “Get home safe.”

“I’ll see ya soon?”

“Definitely,” I answered over my shoulder as I walked toward the elevator.

Floating on beer bubbles and happiness, I didn’t think my feet touched the ground as I made my way up to my room and flopped into bed.

Maybe life can always be this fun and easy.

Even as I thought it, the ache in my stomach told me I was wrong.

So very wrong.

Chapter Seven

A Dictator is Neither Dick nor Tater

Eden

God, he’s a real dictator—emphasis on thedick.

Class was wrapping up, and I was furious.

The previous week, Professor Caine had assigned a paper that’d count for a large chunk of our grade. We’d been tasked with leading a fictitious nation. In the paper, we were to describe the nation before picking a leadership style. Would we rule by democracy, one built on socialist beliefs, a dictatorship, or something else entirely? Possibly some combination of them? Once we’d decided, we needed to explain the advantages and disadvantages of our choice. At the end, because there’s no such thing as a perfect government, we had to detail the causes of our inevitable downfall.

For all that was said about the slacker antics of students, we were really creatures of habit and needed structure. The open-ended paper—with no real right or wrong answers—was the source of a lot of freak-outs.

Due to the high volume of frantic emails and panicked office visits he’d been receiving, Professor Caine had pushed his planned lectures to the following week. In their place, he’d given everyone a set time to meet with him to discuss their outlines.

Well, almost everyone.

Because, shocker of the century, one student didn’t get an email with a meeting time.

Me.

And that sucked more than the usual amount of Professor Caine suckage, because the paper may have given me a nerdtastic amount of excitement, but I was still overwhelmed.

I needed that meeting.

And I was going to get it.

Somehow.

Just as soon as I figured out what that somehow was.

Maybe it’s an honest mistake. Emails get lost all the time.

I snorted.

Riiiiiight.

And maybe he shows up at Sinners because he gets lost and is only looking for directions home.