I nodded. I wasn’t sure what to think of that.

“Oh, hey.”

I turned back on the stairs.

He winked at me. “Jesse will like knowing that your room is right next to the stairs.”

“Cord!” I hissed, horrified, excited, and embarrassed at the same time. I didn’t want to dwell on any of those emotions, they were too threatening, so I ignored all of them and went the rest of the way to my room. When I stepped onto the sixth floor, I realized he was right. 613 was right next to it. It was in its own hallway since the exit sectioned off from the main hallway and my room was the last, tucked away in a corner.

My room wasn’t anything special. There were two beds, two desks, two closets, and two dressers. I had paid for a single after I received the screw-off letter from my parents. I hadn’t known my grandfather was wealthy, but I capitalized on it. I had the money so I was going to use it. I’d heard enough horror stories about freshman roommates.

I was stepping out from the room and heading back downstairs for another load when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hi, there!” A girl waved at me with a friendly smile. She had bright blue eyes and platinum blonde hair. Dressed in white khaki shorts and a white polo, she could’ve stepped out of a golfing magazine for the rich and preppy. Then I noticed the GW logo on the top right corner of her shirt in purple lettering.

This girl was my resident advisor.

“Hi.”

She held her hand out, tanned like the rest of her with a diamond-encrusted watch wrapped around her wrist. “I’m Kara.”

I shook her hand and tried not to grimace at how my hand contrasted next to hers. She was golden and beautiful. I was pale and grotesque, but I drew in a breath. This girl was stunningly beautiful. I would always pale in comparison to her. I wasn’t a slouch. I knew I was slender and my dark hair had grown longer over the summer from the shoulder length, but I wasn’t in her league. Or at least, that’s how I felt.

“Alex.”

“Yeah.” Her smile doubled. “Alexandra Connors, right?” She lifted a clipboard and wrote something on it. A strand of her hair slipped forward to the board, but she didn’t notice. She compressed her lips together before she was done and looked back at me. The smile slipped a second and her eyes widened as they shot past me. “Cord?”

“Oh, hey, Kara.” He breezed into my room with two boxes. Setting them down, he came back out and leaned a hand against the doorframe behind me. He was sheltering me. I didn’t know if he did it on purpose, but for some reason I was grateful. His hand came down to my shoulder in the next moment. “You’ve met Alex, huh?”

“Uh…”

He squeezed my shoulder. “Treat her right. She’s like family.”

I was? I sent him a furtive look over my shoulder. His smirk deepened and he jogged back down the stairs.

“You…” She blinked rapidly. “You know Cord?”

“You know Cord?”

“Yeah, he’s roommates with my boyfriend.”

The slight enjoyment I was having hurdled down my stomach. I felt it grinding into the ground now as I swallowed over a sudden knot in my throat. Roommates? Cord lived with Jesse. Chewing on the inside of my cheek, I had to ask. “Oh. Uh. Who is that?”

“Derek Williams.”

My knees buckled underneath me. The relief was overwhelming. I grabbed onto the doorframe Cord had rested against and struggled to keep myself upright. For a moment, I thought a nightmare had occurred in front of me. This girl wasn’t dating Jesse. Thank god.

Then it clicked with me. My RA’s boyfriend was roommates with Jesse. No wonder she seemed surprised that I knew Cord.

“How do you know Cord so well?”

When my gaze shot to hers, I was startled from the sudden fierceness in them. And then I had a conundrum. Did I tell her the truth? That Cord was just playing with her because I wasn’t really like family to him? Or did I tell the other truth, that he was only looking out for me because of my connection to Jesse. My gut was telling me that she’d have an even bigger reaction if she knew that last part.

So I lied.

“I don’t. We went to the same high school and I looked him up. I had a friend who wanted me to keep tabs on him.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders loosened and she looked back down to her clipboard. She lifted her head again. “So he was just teasing me? Because I know Cord does that sort of thing. He’s roommates with Derek, after all. I’m good friends with him.”

My head lifted up and down in a long, drawn-out motion. I was getting what she was giving. She wanted me to know how well she knew Cord, and I was struck again by how small I felt next to this girl. She was important. I was not. I got her message.

Then she frowned and shook her head. “I’m sorry. That was a really bitchy thing for me to say.”

“Um.” No idea what to say, but I knew I wasn’t going to say anything about Jesse.

“Kara?” An annoyed tone came around the corner and then I heard, “Oh, f**k me. Really?!”

I turned and gulped.

It was the girl who’d been straddling Cord an hour ago.

The corners of my mouth lifted, and I said the first thing that came to mind. “At least you’re wearing clothes this time.”

CHAPTER TWO

Kara’s eyes widened and she sucked in her breath, but she pivoted to her friend. “Chandra, this is Alex.” Her eyes held a special meaning as she stressed to her, “She knows Cord.”