Arli

Freshmen orientation. I haven't been this excited since my acceptance letter came last spring. I was up at five this morning to make the drive halfway across the state. And now here I was.... A fresh start. A new beginning.

The same me.

I faced the sea of humanity that made up the rest of the freshmen engineers and physical sciences majors and sighed. The 500 seat lecture hall was almost full; there were a few scattered empty seats here and there to pick from. Or I could sit in the front row which was half empty; the other half was filled with what appeared to be faculty members. I don't make friends easily. I'm not shy, exactly, it's just that.... Well, it takes me a while to warm up to most people. I settled into a seat, leaving a space between me and the teacher in the next seat.

I hate sitting in the front, usually; some teachers take the easy way out and call exclusively on the kids in the front. I don't mind answering questions in class, but I really prefer to decide for myself which ones I want to answer and which ones I want to let someone else make a fool out of themselves over. And on top of that, you can't space out in the front row. And when classes get boring, I do like to space out.

I mean, come on.... Isn't it enough to know the causes and after effects of the wars? Do I really have to know which general led which battle to victory or defeat and the exact dates of each battle? Boring. Capitalized, quotated, underlined and italicized: boring.

So I spaced out in history class. Big deal. I still got my A (but that's because I've got a really good short term memory).

Anyways....

Freshmen orientation. Front row. It was highly unlikely that I would be called on during the speeches.

I was staring in the general direction of my shoes avoiding the eyes of the occasional passerby and the faculty sitting to my left when a girl behind me practically screamed in my ear, "Oh my God! He's so hot!" This I had to see; I do appreciate seeing hot men....

Two Adonises stood just inside the doorway, one as light as the other was dark. The way they stood, they could have been kings overlooking their subjects, completely ignoring the gasps and sighs of half the hall. (And yes, since the physical sciences and engineering departments were about 65% male, half the hall included males.) Their faces and bodies could have graced a fashion magazine; the other models would have to bow their heads in shame. Their T-shirts were stretched over taut abs and pecs a la Evans in Captain America. I quite enjoyed visually tracing each and every dip and bulge. And their jeans molded quite nicely over shapely thigh muscles. Wow, just... wow. Being in the front row, I had a prime viewing spot to see all that male scrumptiousness from their sneakers to the tops of their hair. Well, prime viewing until someone walked in front of them, breaking me from my near trance.

Trance-breaker then proceeded to walk the thirty or so feet from the door to plop into the seat next to me. And apparently he had no sense of personal space or boundaries. At all. 'Cause the first thing he did was spread his legs wide, knocking his bony left knee into my not-so-bony right knee (ow) so he could drop his backpack in between his feet. And the second thing he did was lean his forearm on the armrest between us, his elbow poking into my upper arm. I closed my eyes trying to think of the polite way to ask him to move out of my way and cursing myself for not being more forceful and demanding that he stop touching me.

"Hey, asshole," a smooth, bass voice called out. "Give the girl some breathing room, eh?" I looked up to see the dark-skinned Adonis peering around the trance-breaker's front. "I'm Jace, by the way," he continued. "J-A-C-E. Not short for Jason. Engineering. The asshole here is Josh. Also engineering. He's a toucher; he doesn't mean anything by it, but if you don't like it, just tell him to shove off. He's used to it."