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she added, trying to claw back whatever coolness she could salvage.

“I’m Sloane,” she said, her modest smile unwavering.

“Ari,” she replied, her heart settling into a trot.

They chatted as they made their way through the line.

Talking about what colleges they’d gone to for undergrad and what they’d studied.

When they’d finished registering at separate ends of the long wooden table, Ari expected Sloane to meander away.

Instead, she waited for Ari to finish and together they walked

out of the building, through a sun-soaked courtyard toward the auditorium.

In the bright summer morning, Sloane was even more stunning than she’d been in artificial lighting. She had the inhuman freshness of a photoshopped girl on the cover of Seventeen magazine. Except she was real and strolling down a path flanked by expansive green lawns and distant palm trees with Ari.

“What do they think we’re going to do with all this crap?”

Sloane asked, rifling through the drawstring pouch with the school’s mascot printed on the side. “Like, who the hell wants a polyester t-shirt three sizes too big?”

Ari pulled out her matching orange and green t-shirt. “I don’t know, but it’s better than the glorified onesie they gave me.”

Sloane chuckled. The low, raspy sound made Ari’s chest ache with a foreign heaviness. All she wanted to do was hear that sound over and over. An infinite playlist set on a loop.

“Maybe we can find the very poorly matched couple these belong to,” Sloane replied, grazing her hand against Ari’s bare arm as she tossed the bag over her shoulder. “At least I’ve got another water bottle.”

“Who can’t do with a few more of those,” Ari agreed, matching her sarcasm. “If we’re lucky, they’ll be a branded plastic comb in there too. Just in time for picture day.”

Sloane chuckled again as they traded the sweltering heat for a blast of air conditioning. “Maybe we’ll hit the jackpot with a keychain or a flash drive.”

“Or . . . a flash drive on a keychain. Preferably pre-filled with materials no one will ever use but can’t be deleted,” Ari

countered with a dramatic pause.

After crossing the small lobby, Sloane held the door to the auditorium open for her. “Ah,” she said, taking a deep breath and staring up at the arched ceiling. “Swag nirvana.”

Biting back a grin, Ari slipped inside the huge room with stadium-style seating and a stage at the bottom of the steps.

Following a volunteer law student acting as an usher, they moved to the end of a curved row.

Instead of leaving an empty seat between them like Ari expected, Sloane nestled in right next to her. When the lights dimmed, just before the Dean of Students appeared on the wooden platform, all Ari could sense was Sloane’s perfume.

Clean and fragile, it mixed with the scent of her lightly perspiring skin and created an intoxicating fragrance. Ari was lost in it with hopes never to be found.

When Sloane leaned over to whisper something, the combination of her bare knee pressed against hers and the warmth of her breath against Ari’s neck was nearly lethal.

“He kind of looks like Bob Ross, right?” Sloane whispered.

The image was unexpected enough to snap Ari out of her trance. “The happy little trees guy on public access TV?”

Ari felt Sloane’s smile like a flame burning her fingertips on a dare. “But like in a garish tweed suit.”

For the first time in Ari’s entire semi-adult life, she giggled. She would’ve been embarrassed, but Sloane had started it. Being shushed only made their amusement more terrible and uncontrollable.

After a while, they’d stopped making fun of the dean and started paying attention. Well, Ari was mostly paying

attention. There was only so much of Sloane she could block from her mind when her legs were crossed in her direction.