Liam Davis & The Raven (Love Inscribed 1)

I narrowed my gaze on him again. Judging by the chipper smile on his face, he was quite simply having a ball.

The girl he danced with laughed loudly when he mirrored her moves. Something about them had me itching to pull out my notebook and start writing. I couldn’t get enough of trying to make sense of this bleached-blond, green-eyed, broad-shouldered, club-eared man who seemed so at ease at these parties. Maybe, if I studied him long enough, I’d uncover the key ingredient to fitting in well in social situations.

Rested against the silhouette, I pulled out my notebook. I had to write a column on the ball anyway, so I could start with a description of the dancing. I wouldn’t actually use him as my angle or anything; he was just one example of the numerous people swinging their hips. . . .

Quinn kept scanning the crowds as if waiting for someone to turn up, and each time his head swung around my way, I ducked into a crouch and pretended to pick up the pen I’d “dropped.”

Inching back up the wall until I was standing again, I skimmed the room trying to spot who he was looking for. Shannon, perhaps? Or maybe he was trying to get back with that guy he broke up with?

When the jazz band started improvising mid-song and the saxophonist burst out into a complex melody, I twisted toward the stage, my gaze sweeping over Quinn—

I froze. He’d stopped dancing, and was focused directly on me.

I couldn’t figure out why a jolt of guilt zapped me from head to foot. Just because he had friends and fit in better didn’t mean I couldn’t be here too.

I clapped my notebook shut, slipped it into my deep pocket, and without any acknowledgement, turned toward the exit. I didn’t care to exchange words with him. In fact, I shouldn’t have even cared how energetically he danced.

I was at Beckman Hall for another reason.

It was time to execute my plan of sneaking into Dylan’s room.

I waited until people started to get inebriated. Then I waved a piece of paper and asked students where his room was so I could tack the note to his door.

In fact, what I intended to do was hide out in the hall until the guy crashing in there returned. I’d hook him into conversation and push my way into his room to check out the walls, where the picture of The Raven hung.

A drunk guy with flushed cheeks and a goatee led me all the way to Dylan’s room, on the second floor above the cafeteria-ballroom. Jazz vibrated faintly underfoot as Drunk Guy used his keycard to let us both in.

“His room is just down there—” He unleashed a beer-flavored belch, and I gulped for fresher air at my side, which wasn’t that much fresher—there was a distinct smell of sweaty guy and stale beer in this dorm.

“Thank you,” I said, giving him a quick nod and moving over the thinning navy carpet toward the door he’d pointed at. From here, it seemed to be partially open; light spilled in a wedge into the dim hall.

Brilliant. The plan worked.

“Sure,” Drunk Guy said, and shuffled off in the opposite direction with another large belch.

Slowing my step, I calculated my next move. Seemed the guy crashing in there was already here. Now all I had to do was make some conversation while slyly scanning the walls.

Simple enough.

I hoped.

Voices trilled down the hall, followed by laughter and doors opening and shutting. Footsteps followed me to Dylan’s door. I moved to the side to let the guy pass, but he didn’t. I blinked at the scuffed black shoes as they moved to my side, and—

“Gah!” I startled, lurching into Dylan’s door and swinging it open.

“Liam,” Quinn said, grabbing my arm tightly to stop me from toppling into the room. He pulled me back to a standing position as the door thumped against the wall, revealing an unoccupied room. Maybe the guy had just gone to the bathroom?

“What are you doing here?” I asked, torn between the need to grab my pen and the need to investigate The Raven so I could leave before the guy returned from his toilet trip.

Quinn frowned at my hurried words and guilt-ridden tone. “Maybe I should ask what you are doing here?”

I scanned the hall and made a decision. In the name of truth, in the name of journalism, in the name of helping The Raven who’d saved me, I stepped into the decent-sized room and yanked Quinn in with me by his suspenders. I’d have preferred him to turn around and go the other way, but he might have lingered in the doorway and demanded answers, drawing all the wrong attention to us.

Once we were safely inside—the suspenders having come to a hearty snap against Quinn’s chest—I carefully placed the door in its original spot.