Schooled

Chapter 10

That Wednesday Dylan picked me and Ava up to grab dinner after class with some of his roommates. Jane was going to meet us there. Mostly I was curious to see what sort of guys Dylan lived with.

Kent and the infamous Rick were both juniors. Rick was a geography major, which apparently left him sufficient time to pursue his athletic and social interests, while Kent was in engineering like Dylan. Both Ava and I had heard far too many intimate details of Rick's life to be interested in sharing so much as a straw with him, but Ava seemed to have a very different opinion of Kent.

I couldn't blame her. Kent was quintessential California. Blond hair and a rugged jaw topped off a surfer body. He looked like he lived on salt water and sunshine and was born to run beaches shirtless. Apparently he did all that and managed to keep up in engineering courses. At least enough so that he made passing grades, though from what Dylan had said Kent definitely wasn't top of his class.

Over burgers and fries Kent regaled us with stories of a surfing trip to Costa Rica he'd taken with his family the year before. Ava was practically drooling in his cola as he described their activities. I thought at one point she was going to ask him to strip and act it out.

At Ava's insistence, our "no dating until launch" policy didn't extend to cover one-time, no-strings hookups. If her current actions were any indication, she was ready to fully exploit the fine print.

"I've heard the girls there are hot. Are they hotter than American girls?" Ava's eyes were big and her hand reached out to graze his arm. She was about as subtle as a flashing neon sign spelling out DO ME in lime green halogen.

Kent, sitting across from me, seemed oblivious and was probably used to the attention. And, being hit on by Ava wasn't a hardship. "Yeah, the girls in Costa Rica are pretty great, but compared to Cali girls?" He turned to look at me, flashed a toothpaste commercial smile. "It's no contest." Whoa, boy.

It was flattering, but I tripped on the irony. Ava and I looked nothing like your typical beach babes. Her dark coloring and my red hair and gray eyes would get us kicked off a music video set faster than you could say "peroxide." Still, Ava was all kinds of beautiful, and she clearly liked him. I was confident she'd have him wrapped around her finger by the time the bill arrived.

Jane arrived late and squeezed in next to me, across from Rick. I shifted closer to Dylan to give her more room. My leg brushed his and I didn't feel the urge to jump back. He didn't seem to have noticed.

Despite a few tense moments Monday by my car, I was getting better at relaxing around him. It was a good thing because I'd have to if we were going to be friends.

Rick was trying to impress Jane with dismal results. He seemed to be running out of things to ask her after having established she wasn't into football, rock concerts, or parties. Though he didn't seem to be doing anything too outrageous, his reputation was enough to send my conservative friend into lockdown mode. After she shot me a couple of "help me!" looks, I headed to the restroom, nodding for her to come with me, so we had a reason to switch places when we got back to the table.

By the time we returned the conversation had moved to partying. "So this girl Kelsey, ass like a stripper, and—"

"Lex, I want to hear about New York." Dylan cut Rick off in the midst of what would have been an embarrassing disclosure for Kelsey, whoever she was. His eyes were pleading with me to fix the cringe-inducing direction the conversation had taken.

"Sadly, there were no strippers. But I did manage to find the one apartment in the city with affordable rent and a roommate who wasn't a rat or an alcoholic." I'd landed half an enormous-by-NYC-standards two bedroom sublet shared with a Ukrainian student whose parents had sent her to the U.S. to model. She'd paid for more than half the rent in exchange for me helping her write letters to prospective agents.