by Kelly Oram
“No, really. You shouldn’t tempt me. I know Sophie wouldn’t be okay with it even if she agreed to it. I can’t do that to her.”
Jordan studied me for a moment, and after seeing that I was serious, she sighed. Though she was obviously disappointed, she was also impressed. “You’re renewing my faith in men, Nate. Sophie better appreciate what a good guy she has.”
Considering she’d been planning our entire future together not more than half an hour ago, even after we fought? I laughed. “I think she does. She loves me anyway, and that’s got to count for something, right?”
Jordan smiled again. “Maybe a little. Say. You wouldn’t happen to have any single brothers, would you?”
I burst into laughter so hard my gut hurt. “Two, actually. I’m a triplet. But trust me, if you want to keep any faith in men, stay far, far away from them both.”
Jordan quirked a brow. “Color me intrigued.”
I grinned. “Most women are. And then they learn the hard way.”
Jordan flashed me a bright smile, nodding. “Right. Well then, I suppose I’ll just take your word for it. Shame.”
“Yeah.” When it got quiet again, I forced myself into motion. “I should get going. I’ve got a lot to do tonight.” Heading for the door, I took one last wistful look around the apartment. “It really is a great place. Good luck with the roommate search. Sorry to have wasted your time. It was cool meeting you.”
Jordan shook her head. “Definitely not a waste of time. It was a nice distraction. In fact, if I didn’t already know you’d say no, I’d make you stay and watch a movie or something. I hate being here alone, and after a week on my own I could really use the company.”
I laughed because she’d said it lightly, but I also felt bad for her. And I was surprisingly tempted again to take her up on the offer. She wasn’t hitting on me, and she wasn’t vying for attention. She was just…I don’t know…real, I guess. She was down-to-earth, and friendly. Casual and low-key. The thought of relaxing and just hanging out together with no expectations had a certain appeal. If Sophie were here, we’d probably agree to stay. As it was, though, I needed to get my computer fixed. Which reminded me…
“Hey, actually, if you don’t mind, could you look something up for me really fast? My brothers fried my laptop tonight, and I’ve got this huge project due tomorrow morning. I’ve got to see if I can recover my files from my hard drive, but I’ve also managed to destroy my phone, so I’ve got no Internet.”
Jordan’s eyes widened. “You lost your computer and your phone all in one night?”
I held up my damp, stained jacket with a self-deprecating smile. “This too. It’s been one of those days.”
Jordan considered me for a moment, and grinned. “Your luck is about to change. I know someone who can help you with your computer, and he can never say no to me.”
Before I could reply, she threw on a large hoodie that practically swallowed her whole and swapped her fuzzy slippers for flip-flops. She stepped out into the hall without even bothering to change out of her pajama pants. When she turned and found me still standing inside, she rolled her eyes and jerked her head toward the exit. “Come on, Mr. Faithful. It’s not a date or anything. We’re just going to get your computer fixed. I swear I won’t try to seduce you. I’ve actually sworn off guys forever, so you’re totally safe with me. Promise.”
“Well.” I laughed. “As long as you promise.”
When we stepped outside, Jordan hugged herself tightly and blew breath into her hands. “Ugh. I miss September already.”
“It’s only the first week of October.”
“And it already feels like winter.”
Glancing around at all the brightly colored leaves of the changing trees, I took notice of the weather. With the sun mostly gone now, the temperature had dropped a little. The air was crisp with a slight chill in it, but it was hardly winter. “A California winter,” Jordan clarified when I started to argue. “A New York October is an LA February.”
As we headed down the sidewalk, Jordan set the pace at a casual stroll, moving slower than the other pedestrians hustling in and out of shops and jumping in and out of taxis, as if she had all the time in the world. I liked it. It was relaxing after the stressful day I’d had. “Is that where you’re from, then? Los Angeles?”
She nodded. “The City of Angels, all my life.”
“That explains the movie references.” I glanced at her feet. “And the flip-flops. You know, the cold might not bother you so much if you put shoes on.”
Jordan looked down at her neatly painted toes and frowned. “No way. The flip-flops are the best reminder of home I have. If I start wearing shoes, I might forget my roots and end up stuck in this city forever.”
“Not a fan, then?”
Jordan shrugged. “It’s not the worst. I came here looking for a change, and it’s been okay, but I’ll be happy to go back to my sunshine and sand after graduation. My heart definitely belongs in Tinseltown.” With a curious glance, she nudged me in the arm. “How about you? You’ve got East Coast written all over you. Are you a New York lifer?”
Looking up at the buildings lining both sides of the street, I shook my head. “The verdict is still out on that. I’m from upstate—Syracuse. I grew up visiting the city, but I’m not sure about living here for the rest of my life. It’s a little too big, too fast, and too crowded for my taste. I usually like things to be chill.”
We waited to cross the street and watched a man in a suit with a phone glued to his ear cross before the light changed. A passing car had to slam on its breaks. When the driver laid on his horn, the businessman pounded the car’s hood and shouted. Jordan and I shared a look and laughed. “This city is anything but chill,” she said.
“I know. But I’m going into music, so I’ll most likely end up here anyway. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
Jordan perked up as we crossed the street. “Music?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I’m a music composition major at Steinhardt.” With a sheepish smile, I added, “I came to New York with my mom’s old guitar strapped to my back and aspirations of being a Grammy Award winning singer/songwriter someday.”
“Nice. That’s as bad as me growing up in LA and wanting to be—”
“The next Steven Spielberg?” I guessed, remembering her e-mail address.
She gave me a crooked smile. “Exactly. Looks like we’re both a couple of walking clichés. So, how badly did your parents flip when you told them? Because mine freaked when I declared myself a film major. Dad’s a real estate developer and Mom’s a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I get the ‘there’s no future in film’ lecture every time they call.”
I snorted. “Sounds familiar. It’s only Dad at home. He’s a humble contractor, so he was just glad he didn’t have to pay for school—I’m here on scholarship—but Sophie’s decided to go into accounting because, and I quote, It’s a stable career path, and one of us has to be realistic about life.”
“Ugh.” Jordan shuddered. “Could you imagine spending your days crunching numbers and doing taxes?”
I laughed. “Definitely not. But I appreciate that she’s okay with it. And at least she’s never tried to stop me from pursuing music. She doesn’t understand my choice, but she’s glad I’m happy and she’s willing to be with me anyway, even though she thinks she’ll have to pick up my slack.”
“I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. I still think I’d rather be with someone who gets it, you know? Someone who gets me. That’s what I love most about school. Everyone in all my classes is right there with me. We’re all striving for the impossible dream together. And the teachers are encouraging and supportive. It’s nice.”
“I know what you mean.”
It was the same for me. I was thriving in my classes this year. While my brothers would come home and complain about their work or their professors, I loved my schedule. I soaked up everything my teachers told me and felt an instant bond with the other students I�
��d met in my classes. Even just having this conversation with Jordan made me feel connected to her, because she knew what it was like. She had a dream, a passion, and she was taking the risk against the odds. We may have had different majors, but we were in the trenches together.
The light feeling in my chest grew heavy when we reached my dorm. It took physical effort to step through the door. By the time we reached my floor, I was in as bad a mood as I’d been when I walked out on my brothers.
“Hey.” Jordan snapped me from a daze I hadn’t realized I’d slipped into. “You okay? Ever since we came into sight of this building, it’s been like watching the opening credits of Joe Versus the Volcano.”
“Joe Versus the Volcano?”
“It’s a 1990 Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan rom-com classic. Guy finds out he’s only got a couple months to live, so he takes this crazy offer to go out with style by jumping into a volcano.”
“What?” She’d successfully derailed my attention, and I stopped walking to frown at her. “He’s going to go jump into a volcano?”
Laughing at my reaction, Jordan smirked. “Yeah. Because it seems like a better option than living out the last three months of his miserable existence. The awesome part is that we actually root for Joe to go on this insane life-ending journey because the filmmakers have done such a brilliant job making us feel how miserable he is. The first five minutes of the movie is literally just Tom Hanks walking into work, and by the time the opening credits are finished we want to jump into the volcano with him.”
She nodded her head down the hall in front of us with a grin. “You’re totally Joe right now. You look like you’re heading to a place so depressing it makes jumping into a volcano sound like a better option.”
She was right. I’d forgotten all about my evening for the last hour, and just being here made all of my stress come back. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hated living here until right that moment. “I’m fine. I just remembered that I’m seriously mad at my brothers. They’re my roommates, and the reason I’m desperate to move out.”
“Ah. Say no more. I have an older brother. I’d rather jump into a volcano than live with him, too.”
Some of the tightness in my chest left again. It seemed Jordan had a magical ability to cheer me up. “Chris and Ty aren’t make-me-want-to-jump-into-a-volcano bad, I guess.”
Jordan sighed. “Neither is Noah. Not really. I love the guy. He’s cool and nice, and spoils me rotten. Actually, he’s perfect. But that’s the problem. He’s seven years older than me, graduated top of his class in Harvard Law, got accepted as a junior partner in one of the biggest firms in San Diego, and to top it off he’s engaged to this picture perfect ER surgeon. He’s my parents’ pride and joy. I am inferior and a disappointment in every way, and Mom and Dad love nothing more than to point it out.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah,” Jordan agreed. “So I moved to New York to escape my family and follow my dream. I have to admit, as much as I miss LA, getting out was the best thing I ever did.”
Unsure whether I felt bad for Jordan or envied her, I started slowly walking down the hall again, only now I couldn’t get the image that my room was a volcano and I was walking to my impending doom out of my head.
“At least they won’t be there. They were going to go out on some date. So I can just grab my computer and get out. I could use a few more hours to cool off before I have to deal with them.”
I stopped walking as I neared my room. My brothers weren’t gone like I’d expected. It was quite the opposite, in fact. There was so much noise coming from our room; it sounded like they were having a party. Music and laughter spilled out the open door. “Or not.”
“Is that your room, then?” Jordan asked.
“Unfortunately.”
I swallowed a curse or two. It was so typical of them. Ruin my night, and then throw a party.
Jordan grinned. “I know you’re not thrilled, but I have to confess that I’m kind of excited they’re home and I’ll get to meet the charming brothers I’m not supposed to go near if I want to keep my faith in men.”
A laugh escaped me. “Just don’t look directly into their eyes and you should be safe,” I joked, as Tyler’s voice rang out, yelling, “Dude, be careful with that! You wreck it any more, and Runt will kill you.”
“Runt?” Jordan asked.
I pointed a finger at myself with a chagrined smile, and Jordan chuckled.
“It’s fine,” Chris said. “I’m just checking it.”
“He can’t wreck it any more than it already is,” an unfamiliar voice chimed in, giggling. Judging from the accent, she must have been one of the Russians Chris and Tyler had mentioned.
“Besides, that scrawny shrimp could never take me.”
Jordan raised a questioning brow at me, to which I could only roll my eyes and shake my head.
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Ty argued, “but Pyscho Sophie totally could.”
“Who’s Psycho Sophie?” another girl asked. This one didn’t have an accent, and I wondered exactly how many girls they had in there at the moment.
“That would be Runt’s psycho girlfriend.”
I sighed.
“Is that the chick who was in here screaming at you guys a little while ago about Nate’s computer?” asked a guy whose voice sounded vaguely familiar. I could picture his face—he lived down the hall—but I didn’t know his name.
“Yeah,” Tyler said.
“She’s hot.”
“She’s horrible,” Chris said. “It’s our mission this year—our duty as his brothers— to save Runt from Sophie’s evil snare.”
“Except he’s so whipped he keeps fighting us.”
“We’ll help you save him,” someone very drunk declared. “Vanessa would be happy to seduce him and break up the relationship. Wouldn’t you, Nessa?”
“It would be my pleasure. No offense, boys, but Nate is definitely the sexiest Anderson brother.”
“Mmm,” another random girl agreed. “Yeah, he is so yummy.”
Jordan keeled over, shaking with silent laughter, and even though I’d just met her, I had no problem elbowing her on my way into my room.
There were almost a dozen people packed into the small room, devouring pizza and alcohol. I cleared my throat to announce my presence, and when they recognized me, they held their drinks up and applauded as if I’d just offered to buy the next round. “It’s Runt!” Tyler cheered. “Back from his hissy fit, and just in time to have the last beer!”
He tossed me an unopened can. When I caught it, the guy from down the hall called out “Save Runt!” and sent the entire group into more cheers.
I wasn’t in the mood. Wanting to get in and out as quickly as possible, I tossed the unopened beer back to Tyler and turned to my desk. My computer wasn’t there. “Where’s my laptop?”
Chris pointed to my bed.
All intents of not losing my temper flew out the window when I noticed my computer was torn apart and strewn across the quilt, buried in some kind of dried grains. “What did you guys do? It’s in pieces! Is that rice?” I frantically shook the granules from my laptop’s exposed motherboard.
Chris hopped down from his place between two girls on the top bunk and punched me in the arm. “Yeah. I saw it on an episode of a detective show or something once when some dude’s phone got wet and they needed the call history to catch the killer. It’s supposed to absorb moisture faster. Trust me. We’ve got this under control.”
He saw it on TV? “My laptop is destroyed.”
Chris rolled his eyes at me as if I were the moron here. “We had to take it apart to dry out all the parts. That’s what you’re supposed to do.”
“Says who?”
“Google!” A giggly brunette sprawled out on the floor near my closet held up her phone.
“Google knows all,” my drunken neighbor whose name I didn’t know added.
“We’re not idiots,” Chris said. “We looked up what to do when you spill liquid o
n your computer, and it said to dry it off as quickly as possible. We followed the directions. Don’t worry, dude. We were careful.”
“It said to take it apart?”
Chris shrugged. “It said if you spilled anything but water, you had to take it apart and wipe it off with alcohol to get all the sticky stuff off it.”
My heart skipped a beat as I eyed all the empty beer cans around the room. I’d had a chance of recovering the files on my hard drive before, but not if they’d taken it out of the computer and bathed it in alcohol. “Please tell me you didn’t dump beer all over my hard drive.”
Tyler scoffed. “Do we look stupid to you?”
“Yes.”
“Bite me. We didn’t use beer.” Tyler grabbed a large, clear bottle off his desk and grinned proudly. “We used straight 160 proof vodka.”
“Vodka? You idiot! I’m sure they meant rubbing alcohol.”
“Close enough. You ever had a shot of 160 proof vodka?” He uncapped the bottle in his hand and took a swig. After riding out the sting, he pushed the bottle at me. “This stuff will burn the hair right off your chest. It cleaned the coffee residue off your computer, and then some.”
My jaw dropped. He wasn’t kidding. He was drunk, but he was one hundred percent serious. They’d really doused my laptop with vodka and then buried it in rice because they’d seen someone do it on TV. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting the urge to strangle my brothers. “I am so screwed.”
An arm came around my shoulders. “Seriously, Runt, relax.” Tyler pushed me down into the desk chair. “Your laptop’s going to be fine. Give it a few days to dry out completely, and it’ll be good as new. Just explain what happened to your professor. I’m sure he’ll give you an extension until your computer is fixed. No harm, no foul. And until then you can stop freaking out, have a drink, and enjoy the company. There’s someone here who wants to meet you.”
He crooked a finger at the brunette with the phone. I knew where this was going and tried to make an escape, but when I stood, Tyler pushed me back down into the chair. He and Chris held me there by my shoulders while the brunette plopped herself into my lap. “Nessa, this is Nate. Runt, this is Vanessa. She saw us play last night and asked for an introduction.”