“Hey! I was in the middle of something.”
“Dude, you’re pissing me off.”
“You’re just cranky because you didn’t hear from Starlee after sending her that birthday cake.”
“It’s been two days, jack-off. You know she can only write. The mail takes time.” He’s right, though. I hadn’t heard from her and it makes me nervous. She sends one of us a letter almost every day. It’s been two days since we got anything.
“Maybe she and her mom did something special for the day,” Jake says. “Like take a trip or something.”
“Maybe.”
I focus on my lunch, knowing it’s pointless to think of Starlee three-thousand miles away. It’s not like I don’t think about her all the time, especially since we spent the night together in the cabin. The way her skin felt, her mouth—god, her body. I crush the paper bag on the table into a tiny ball.
“Wait ‘til you see this girl,” a voice says loudly a table over. “Fucking hot. Wild red hair, big green eyes. And that mouth—I want those red lips, right here, you know.”
I don’t look to see that Tyson Richmond is pretending to grab his dick.
“I saw her walking down the hall with Margaret—new student orientation. Tight ass. I bet something else is tight,” he continues.
Jake rolls his eyes. “Dude’s been watching too much porn.”
“Seriously though, she looked a little skittish—totally lost—I bet she’d appreciate some personal interest. Oh, and she’s got some kind of crazy name. Star—”
My eyes shoot up and meet three pairs across the table.
“Starling? Starlee?”
I’m out of my seat before the others can react, and lifting Tyson off his plastic chair that falls with a clatter as I raise him off the ground and push him against the wall.
“What the fuck, Falco?” he squirms against my grip, but I’m not letting go. I hear the others stand behind me.
“What did you say?”
“I said what the fuck are you doing?”
“No, before that asshat, who are you talking about?”
A lazy grin crosses Tyson’s mouth, despite the fact I have him pinned against the wall. “Some new girl. I saw her in the hall. Super cute. Tight body.” His eyebrow raises. “What? You interested in girls all of a sudden, Falco?”
My blood boils in my ears along with my heart and I glance over at Jake, who shrugs. George says, “I heard them say there was a new girl in the office.”
It can’t be.
God, please, let it be.
I turn back to Tyson, who’s watching us closely, eyebrows furrowed. I open my mouth to ask for her name again, make sure he’s not fucking with us somehow—that he’s not holding onto his life by a thread--when I hear across the now-silent cafeteria, “Dexter Falco, I know you’re not about to do something you’ll regret, because I didn’t come three thousand miles to visit you in a jail cell.”
I release him on the spot, the sound of her voice crystal clear. I turn. The others turn and in the middle of the cafeteria, she stands. Starlee Jones. Girl of my dreams.
I swallow and hear Jake say, “Starlee?”
Her smile is bright and wide enough to blind the room.
We scramble, forgetting ourselves, where we are, what we are to one another, only stopping when the room returns to a slow roar—this time not in casual conversation but about us. I reach for Jake and jerk him back. He frowns at me for a brief moment before realization sets in, then grabs for George. Charlie never moved from the table, headphones around his neck. Jaw slack. Game forgotten.
“You know her?” Tyson says.
I face him and say in slow, even voice, “Yep, and if I ever hear you talk about her again, I’ll rip your tongue out.”