“Not really. I’m a pretty boring girl,” I joked to a small round of chuckles from the group.
Simi smiled and stood up.
“Well thanks everyone. It’s great to finally get to know you!”
She peeked at her watch again as a small frown encompassed her face. “Liam appears to be running later than I thought. Seeing how late it is getting, we should probably start the campus tour now so you can all get back to settling in, or for some of you,” she said, turning towards me with a small wink, “studying”. I smiled back at her as she started to gather everyone around her.
The rest of the group didn’t really seem to mind much that Liam wasn’t there yet, as they all nodded and smiled. But studying Simi’s frustrated look, I started to feel somewhat angry as well that this guy couldn’t make it to the first day of his own Orientation group. On top of that, Annie’s once excited demeanor had deteriorated to a look of boredom and disappointment.
As we all got up and started walking away, a guy came walking out of the UC clapping loudly, wearing a pair of slim silver sunglasses and an extremely smug smile. Immediately, my gaze shot towards both Annie and Simi who were sporting two completely opposite looks. Annie’s face was lit up in excitement while Simi’s gaze could have burned through metal. When he approached the steps, he took a seat and popped a loud bubble from his gum. Everyone looked tentatively towards one another then at Simi, who didn’t take her eyes off the late arrival.
“You’re late,” she said with arms crossed over her chest.
“Uh, I’m sorry?” he said, smiling wider. There wasn’t a trace of wrinkles or lines anywhere on his narrow face, and his dazzling white teeth seemed to sparkle in the sunlight.
At that moment comprehension dawned on me. That voice. It was very familiar…
“Please don’t tell me,” I pleaded to Annie, who just gave a confused look back.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“That’s not the same guy, is it?” I asked, hoping against hope there were two different Liams in Las Vegas that Annie randomly met two days in a row, despite the obvious answer.
“Yeah, that’s him!” she whispered, barely able to contain herself. I frowned and glared at him, which Annie unfortunately saw. “Why?”
“That’s the guy who drenched me yesterday,” I whispered low enough for only her to hear. Annie’s overexcitement had gotten people’s attention. Sweat starting to form on my brow as my nerves grew.
“No… no way, it couldn’t be. He would never do that,” she muttered, shaking her head but not sounding too confident. “Besides, you didn’t even see his face.”
But I knew it was him. That voice and laugh were distinctive enough.
“Gather ‘round, gather ‘round,” he finally said. “My name is Liam and it’s good to see you here today. If you guys would take a seat for a minute, I’m going to tell you a bit about myself before we get started.”
Not even taking into account the water park incident, the fact he showed up what ended up being about an hour late without an apology or explanation to his own group was very selfish. Add on the fact that he basically started our meeting over, not even acknowledging Simi made it even worse. As he continued to speak, I started to hate him. It scared me a little as I had never really had such negative feelings towards anyone before.
Liam talked about his high school glory days as the star quarterback, his high-ranking in the Beta Alpha Delta Fraternity and his numerous clubs and activities around campus. That would explain the B-A-D sprawled out on his coal black t-shirt. It seemed to be high school all over again, with Annie going after the big man on campus.
Trying to be fair to Annie, I tuned out his monologue and attempted to find something, anything that would make the guy remotely appealing. From his appearance alone, I couldn’t see it. He did have a broad chest and shoulders, and his perfectly toned arms were about to burst through his shirt that was about two sizes too small. There was a rebellious look to him with his curly unkempt hair. But, his most notable, and frightening, feature was his pitch-black eyes. He had a rather large and round nose, which drew some attention away from his intense glare, but it was still pretty spooky. I added that to his boastfulness and egotism and decided there was just nothing there. Annie’s crush was the rudest guy I’d ever met and of course, he was my orientation leader, which meant I’d be seeing a lot of him.
When he finally finished, they took us around campus and showed us everything from department buildings to fraternity and sorority row. Liam was quick to tell us how vital it is to be part of the Greek system, that it “opened doors” to many areas and connections on campus. Both he and Simi were Greek, but Simi just gave us a quick history of the Greek system on campus and led us to the Campus security offices where we’d get our ID cards.
Once everything was done and our leaders let us go, an hour later than planned thanks to Liam, Annie tugged hard at my elbow and pulled us toward him.
“Will you let go?” I mumbled under my breath as we approached him. “You’re hurting me!”
“Shut up, just wait a sec,” she whispered, as we got closer.
“Wait a minute, what are you doing?” I demanded as she continued to pull.
“Just chill Zoe!”
I relinquished my futile fight as we finally reached her target, who had his back towards us.
“Um, Liam?” Annie asked sounding more like me than her normal, forward self.
He turned slowly and stared at Annie for a moment with a look of confusion on his face.
“Have we met?” he asked.
My jaw dropped as the three of us stood there silently for a split second. How could he not remember Annie? They practically spent the entire previous day together, the day that was supposed to be our day. It hurt me that Annie was so excited to see this guy, and he didn’t have the decency to try and remember her.
“Yeah, yeah, um, remember yesterday at the park?” Annie fidgeted uncomfortably.
“Oh yeah, um…Abby right?” he nodded.
“Actually, it’s Annie, but you’re close!” she giggled.
“Oh that’s right! Annie, how are you? How’s your first day going?” he asked in an overly friendly way.
“It’s great, I absolutely love the campus. It’s so beautiful! And that Perspectives class sure is interesting!”
“I don’t know, I wasn’t the biggest fan of it myself, who’s your Prof?” he asked halfheartedly, folding his muscular arms.
“Oh, Professor what’s-his-name, um…” she stumbled on.
“Professor Franklin,” I interjected out of the blue. Immediately my cheeks grew warm and my pulse quickened. Both Liam and Annie turned to me but with very different looks. Annie’s was one of complete surprise and Liam looked extremely interested and pleased.
“You look familiar,” he said curiously, “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”
“I uh, I don’t think so,” I stuttered, not even able to make eye contact I was so embarrassed.
“No, I really think so. Where do I know you from?”
“Well actually,” Annie finally interrupted. “She has this crazy idea that you two bumped into each other yesterday. Apparently you spilled your water all over her or something,” she finished with an uncomfortable chuckle.
Recognition dawned across his face as his eyes shot open in understanding. “Oh yeah! Ha-ha, yeah now I remember you.”
“So it did happen?” Annie asked, looking somewhat surprised. I shot her an unfriendly glance as my anger started to build.
“Yeah, see my buddy and I were walking towards the wave pool after we left you and he gave me this little push as I was taking a drink. I tripped over someone’s bag and unfortunately, your friend here got most of it all over her. But, water is water, no harm no foul right?” Liam said between laughs.
“Of course,” Annie said happily. “I knew it was just some kind of misunderstanding. Zoe usually is in the wrong place at the wrong time anyway.”
/> The two of them shared a jolly laugh at my expense as I stood there, stunned at Annie’s oblivious attitude.
“Ah, well Zoe, it’s still a pleasure to meet you,” he said, extending a hand out. He took my reluctant hand and held it for an extra moment. Our eyes interlocked and then an odd feeling quickly swept over me. I remembered being angry about their joke, but yet any trace of anger that had been boiling diminished the moment our eyes met. The same eyes that had looked so frightening were suddenly much more mysterious. There was something going on behind his midnight-black eyes, but I couldn’t tell what it was. I was stuck in a trance, unable to think of anything but what was in front of me.
“Yeah, pleasure,” I said in a daze. Slowly, we released our grip and the trance vanished.
“So, um, Annie,” he said, slowly turning towards her as our gaze lingered for an extra second, “I lost your email address. Do you have a number where I can call you? My fraternity has a lot of parties in the beginning of the year and we’d love to have you and Zoe stop by anytime.”
“Oh! Yeah! We’d love to!” she said. She excitedly opened her bag, looking for anything to write on.
“You can just tell me, I have a pretty solid memory,” Liam said, glaring back at me with an uncomfortable smile.
Annie told Liam her number, twice for good measure.
“We’ll be in touch, and I promise to keep all drinks inside their cups this time,” he laughed as he waved goodbye to us.
“I told you,” Annie said dreamily as she stared at him leaving.
“Told me what?”
“Hot.”
“Oh, yeah, a real class act,” I replied nastily.
“Wow, chill out. He said it was all a big misunderstanding. Just let it go.”
“But he didn’t even apologize!” I demanded.
“He already did yesterday! What, you want two apologies now?” she replied.
“I don’t know Ann, there’s just something odd going on there. I’m not sure I trust him.”
“Oh come on Zoe!” Annie moaned. “There is nothing wrong with him. He’s a hot, frat guy who just gave us an open invitation to their parties. What else do you want?”
I stood silent for a moment as she waited for a response. I still was reeling from the intense moment we had. His gaze had punctured straight through the anger I had built up from his and Annie’s joke. He seemed to be bring something out in me that wasn’t normally there.
“You’re right,” I exhaled slowly. “I’ll give him a chance but I still don’t trust him.”
“Fair enough,” she said uneasily. “Let’s get home, it’s been a long day and you look exhausted.”
**************************************
The rest of the week went by with few very problems as we finally reached the last day of orientation. Our week had been spent mostly meeting with professors and discussing what to expect from the class. Most of my meetings had gone pretty well, but none of the professors really sparked my interest for finding a potential major. Yoga seemed to be the class that would give me the most benefit for the semester because it was supposed to help me focus on relaxation and possibly help me sleep better. Everything else sounded too bland or not challenging enough. The only meeting I hadn’t had yet was with my Religious Studies professor.
Our meeting was scheduled for later in the morning after Perspectives class, which meant that Annie and I would have to get up early. We had spent the week developing a new schedule that would have her up early in the morning and split her free time in half between studying and partying. That Friday was the first test run for her new schedule. Getting her up and out of bed so early appeared to be the biggest challenge I would face that day.
“Let’s go!” I yelled, pulling Annie’s sheets off of her. “The Pit closes for breakfast in thirty minutes!”
“Get… out…” she mumbled, tugging the pillow over her head.
“I’ll give you one last chance,” I said coolly, not really sure what to do. When no response came from under the pillow, I decided to take drastic measures.
“Fine.”
A minute later, I came back into the room and gave her one final chance. “Get up, now,” I said warningly. “This is your last chance.”
I never thought I’d see Annie jump up so fast or hear her scream so loud. Since I had pulled her sheets off, the ice cold water in my glass had shocked her up and out of bed. It wasn’t nice, or pretty, but mission accomplished.
“What…the…hell…” Annie stammered slowly, from somewhere beneath the damp hair that covered her face.
“I just thought that since it was okay for Liam to get away with the same thing without apology, you’d be okay with me doing it too,” I said honestly, suppressing a giggle.
Annie stormed out of the room, slammed the bathroom door, and didn’t meet me at the front of the condo for another fifteen minutes. Not surprisingly, it was one of the more quiet walks we’d ever had. Luckily we made it to The Pit before they stopped serving breakfast and were able to sit down with Hope and Steph, who were sitting with a few unfamiliar faces. As we approached the table, Steph jumped up and gave Annie and me big hugs and introduced us to the four newbies sitting at the table. Emily and Sean were a cute couple, although their constant PDAs were a bit uncomfortable. Chase and Tyler were exactly as Hope had described them. Their voices were way too monotone, and they were physical specimens. They were extremely friendly and kind of cute as they held out our chairs to sit down and held the doors open for us when we left The Pit.
“So, what do you think of Vegas?” Tyler asked in a baritone voice. I actually had to look up at him to answer, which was bizarre for me.
“Um, it’s alright I guess.”
“That’s not very convincing,” he said cynically.
“Well, I’ve never been so hot in my life. This isn’t normal!” I joked. It was another gruelingly hot day already, having hit one hundred degrees by 10:00.
“Nah, it’s a dry heat. Trust me, you’ll get used to it,” he replied, putting on his shades. “So, where you guys from?”
“Born and raised in Seattle.”
“Ah, that explains it. What brought you guys down here then if you hate the heat so much?”
“Annie’s never been a fan of the rain really,” I shrugged. “And she’s my best friend, so I go where she goes.”
“She’s a smart girl, Vegas is awesome! Once you get used to it, you’ll never want to leave. I guarantee it.”
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” I laughed. It was such an odd sensation. Someone was actually talking to me, wanting to know things about me. For the first time in a long while, I finally didn’t feel ignored.
As we walked, Chase and Annie were having an animated discussion about football, while Emily and Sean were holding hands and kissing as they walked. Steph and Hope had caught up to Tyler and me as we headed towards our own Perspectives classes.
“So, Zoe,” Steph started cautiously, looking somewhat frightened.
“Yeah?”
“Well, since the first week is over today, and the upperclassmen will be here soon, we wanted to know if you and Annie would be down for throwing a party at our places next weekend,” she asked. I looked at Hope who just smiled timidly, looking uncomfortable and out of place.
“Oh,” I gasped.
“Oh hell yeah we’re down,” Annie quickly shouted from in front of us. She shot me the most glaring warning look I’d ever gotten from her.
“Uh, I guess so,” I said nervously.
Steph’s face looked shocked at first. “Really? You sure?”
“Sure,” I replied hesitantly, holding back the millions of reservations that were building up inside.
“Wow, well thanks! It’s going to be a blast!” she said excitedly, turning to everyone else. “Next Friday it is!”
“PARTAY!!!” Chase and Tyler yelled as they ran down the sidewalk, yelling at the other freshmen walking by. Soon, they were out of sight, but t
heir voices were still heard for another few seconds. The thoughts of a party, in our apartment, started wreaking havoc on my nerves. Instead of starting in the shallow end of the social pool, Annie and Steph were throwing me into the deep end. It was as though within that minute, the day which looked so promising had quickly taken a turn for the worse. Luckily, Perspectives and my last professor meeting were still ahead which made the party pill a little easier to swallow.
Class flew by quicker than any other class had during the week, and before I knew it, the Religious Studies building crept into view. I started to feel anxious. My religious studies professor was also my University advisor, which meant we’d have to talk about my four year plan. Since none of the other professors had piqued my interest in their subjects, I was extremely worried that he’d be expecting some ideas of what I wanted to do, and I’d have nothing. My only hope was that he’d just want to ask me a few questions, get to know the kind of student I was and then let me go. But I had a feeling that because he was my advisor, he’d probably want to talk a little more in depth.
As I entered his office, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn’t dreaming again. It was absolutely magnificent. There were hundreds of framed awards, recognition letters and honorary degrees hanging all over. I also noticed tons of pictures hanging along the opposite wall showing all of his various travels around the world. Just from the appearance of his office, I could tell that he was one of those professors that President Goodwin talked about the first day.
“Hi, I’m Zoe Christensen and I have an appointment with Professor Woodard at eleven,” I told his secretary, as I approached her immaculate desk which was flanked by two huge fern plants. She was a thicker set woman, more similar to Hope than any of the other people I’d met at school. She sat behind a massive computer monitor, and appeared quite happy.
“Ah, Zoe, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you!” she said in a very friendly voice. “Is there anything I can get you while you wait?”
“No, nothing, thank you,” I said as my palms started to sweat.
“My name is Annabelle if you need anything dear. He should be out in a few minutes, he’s finishing up a phone call,” she finished as she led me to a seat outside his door then returned to her desk.
Common Ground (The Common Ground Trilogy Book 1) Page 4