She threw together a quick pot of soup, Nat bouncing on her hip, and went to wake Toly and tell him dinner was simmering for later before she Ubered back to school.
“Oh.” He looked sleepily startled as he took Natalia back. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I’m gone.”
“Text your sister.”
She threw an acknowledging salute over her shoulder.
Her Uber was a Camry, and far inferior to the back of Shep’s Harley, but the driver was quiet, and she had a chance to decompress: to shift from club kid to art student. When she was younger, she’d had no trouble bouncing back and forth between roles, changing personas like quick-change costumes backstage at a musical. But the older she grew, as did the time it took to process one identity, package it away, and don another.
She still wasn’t quite feeling like the school version of herself when the Uber dropped her in front of her building. She chalked that up to last night; to the ugly, crawling knowledge that someone at that party had wanted her unconscious.Vulnerable. Shep had been certain it was Sig, but there had been at least two dozen people in attendance. As popular as Sig was, if he had a habit of roofying his guests, wouldn’t that be the hot gossip around campus?
She didn’t want to be someone who made snap judgements; in her family those judgements put people in the hospital or the ground more often than not. For now, she would keep quiet about what happened and steer clear of any parties.
Her roommate, Jamie, was in when Cass arrived at her dorm room. The same Jamie she had used as an excuse with Toly, and who she’d now have to get up to speed on her cover story.
Jamie lay propped up on her bed, paging through a magazine, and she bolted upright when Cass entered, eyes big and smile wide. She bubbled with excitement, and let out a high-pitched squeal as Cass pushed the door shut.
“Oh my God, oh my God! How was it? Was it amazing? Did you and Sig get to make out?”
Cass laughed and dumped her bag on the desk chair. “How much coffee have you had today?”
“One cup, I swear.” Jamie pulled her knees up onto the bed and bounced one, two, three times before she swung her legs back over the edge and settled. Her curly hair continued to bounce a few seconds after the fact. “Seriously, though, how was the party? Did you get to spend any one-on-one time with him?”
Cass sighed to stall for time, and went to sit on the edge of her own bed. “A little. But I left early. I wasn’t feeling great.”
All of Jamie’s frothy energy froze, along with her smile. “Wait. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Like I said. I didn’t feel great, so I left early.” She pressed a hand to her stomach for effect. “I missed most of the party.”
Jamie blinked, and then her face screwed up with comical disappointment. “Oh, man.” She threw herself backward across her bed with awhumpfrom the covers. “That suuuuucks. You finally make it to Sig Blackmon’s and youmissmost of the party?” She twisted around so she lay on her side, head propped on a raised fist. “Was Sig cool about it?” The grin returned. “Was hedisappointedyou had to leave? I bet he was.”
Cass shrugged. “Maybe. I was kind of out of it.”
“He invited you once. I’m sure he’ll invite you again.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
Jamie frowned and sat back up. All her moving around was making Cass dizzy. “What’s up with you? You were stoked to be going to that party.”
“I don’t know. It was just a party.”
Jamie’s mouth fell open in overdramatic shock. “Justa party? Cass, this isSig Blackmonwe’re talking about.”
“Iknow.”
Oops. She hadn’t meant to snap.
The problem, she reflected with honesty now, was that it had been far too easy to cave to the hormone-fueled hype about Sig.
Sig was short for Sigmund. His mother was an heiress, the beauty of her youth spoiled by too much rich food, and wine, and all the vices that accompanied an excess of money. His father was a psychology professor here at NYU, hence Sig’s name. He lived on campus with the other students, but rode around in a chauffeured Mercedes. He dressed like a hacky-sack kid from the early 2000s, but the individual clothing pieces were all from sought-after designers. He always sat in the backs of classrooms, kept quiet and let others seek him out, slouching down low in his chair, but his artwork was consistently praised by all the professors. He had a natural talent for realism that he slapped with bold colors in an imitation of street art.
His was a carefully cultivated persona, and he was hands-down, without question theitguy of their class. He was handsome enough, sure, but not the most handsome, nor the funniest, nor the kindest. But his reputation had its own magnetic field, pulling in admirers of both sexes, wannabe friends and girlfriends alike, all convinced there was something magic about Sig that could help them achieve their dreams. If he invited you to one of his parties, you were the envy of everyone left out. If he was seen holding a girl’s hand in public, she became the topic of every conversation, some of the stories about her true, most of them pure fiction.
Cass had gotten swept up just like Jamie, and her other friends, and everyone, really. But in the cold light of day, with a lingering headache and a foul taste on her tongue she couldn’t brush away, she was embarrassed by the fact. She’d harbored crushes for Reese, and then for Toly, who both now had the misfortune of being her brothers-in-law, but the only thing Sig had in common with either of them was his slender build. Only, unlike them, Sig was slim because he didn’t do anything; he wasn’t tight and honed from wetwork the way the other two were. Not to mention he would probably scream and run if anyone tried to hand him a gun. Today, she couldn’t believe she’d ever found him attractive.
She didn’t want to get him in trouble without hard evidence, though.
