"It's been some time since we last spoke
and this is gonna sound like a bad joke"
- Gym Class Heroes, 'Cupid's Chokehold'
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Eleanor didn’t speak to me after that. And I know that probably sounds really intense, but because Eleanor and I had different majors and lived in separate buildings, it wasn’t like I had that many reasons to speak to her anyway. We could literally go weeks without running into each other if we didn’t plan times to hang out.
But the bad side was that the majority of the campus had heard about what had happened. Or, technically, what hadn’t happened. Of course, it wasn’t like anyone paid that much attention to me to begin with so I only gained a few accusing glances and only generated a small buzz, but that wasn’t making me feel any better. I hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to Keller yet and all that I really wanted to do was disappear.
Ironically, I found myself working again the afternoon shift the next day. That’s another thing about being in college: you have weird schedules. Sometimes I’d work for half an hour and other times I’d work for half of a day. Niall was there again, too, but he was actually trying to do work for one of his classes. Which wasn’t a big deal because we generally only have a crowd in there when it’s parents’ weekend or one of the first weeks of school when the freshman show up. And I'm a proud supporter of students doing homework.
Anyways, Niall was doing his homework while I was picking packaging peanuts up from off of the floor. I had somehow managed to knock a box of them over and the only way to accurately remove them is by hand. Not even vacuuming works.
“Hunter, do you think that we’re going to get in trouble for trading shot glasses for pizza last night?” he asked me.
That really had worked, by the way. They even gave us the free breadsticks.
“Who would discipline us?” I replied with another question.
“I don’t know. Our manager?”
“Niall, I haven’t seen our manager in three months.” That was true. I was currently in the final months of my sophomore year at Oxford and had been working at the bookstore since the beginning of freshman year and I can honestly say that I’ve only seen my boss four times. Well, five if you count the time that I saw him walking around the campus. He’d always just email us our schedules and never came in the store. Because, kids, in college, no one really cares.
“That is true,” Niall said, tapping his pencil against his chin. “What do you think that he does in his free time?”
“I can honestly say that I don’t want to know.”
I wasn’t even kidding about that one.
Suddenly the door to the bookstore swung open and none other than Harry strolled in, looking as curly haired and twelve as ever.
“Hi, Harry!” Niall greeted him from behind his stack of books.
Wait, what? “You two know each other?” I asked, confused. Damn, I really needed some more friends. Apparently the ones that I had didn’t know anyone.
“Yep,” Niall nodded happily.
“How?” And how could I suddenly expand my social outreach as well?
“Liam,” Niall and Harry chorused as Harry walked farther inside of the store, leaving his black Ray Bans on. He could have taken them off; it wasn’t like anyone on campus was going to be swooning over a twelve-year-old.
