“My father,” Boone explained. “He sent me to UMASS because he went. He practically pledged me to Alpha Rho himself because that was his fraternity. He’s one of the founding fathers of our chapter, actually. I got in automatically. I’m a first-year legacy.”
I looked at him again, almost as if seeing him for the first time. Did he still look like a frat-boy? Suddenly I wasn’t so sure.
“You didn’t even want college? Why not?”
“Because I’m good with my hands,” he explained. “Worked manual labor, all through high school. Still do it. Construction, renovation, odd jobs. It’s my thing. I want my own company someday, and nothing beats hands-on experience.”
“So you’re taking business classes?”
Boone laughed. “Fuck no. I’m an engineering major.”
I could see it now; I’d judged a book by its cover. Placed a label on someone who didn’t want or need one.
“Engineering is great,” I said.
“It will be,” he agreed, “eventually, anyway. Building is one thing. Designing is another. I’ve found a love for both, which is why I’m still in school. And still working, of course.”
If he was attractive before, he’d just doubled my interest. Boone was juggling a lot of balls at once, and handling it all without complaint. I admired him for it.
“And fraternity life?”
My lover sighed beneath me. “It is what it is,” he said. “I like the friendships, the camaraderie. That part’s actually pretty cool.”
“Not to mention the sorority girls,” I teased.
Boone smirked. “Yeah, I can’t complain. That’s definitely a perk.”
I felt a pang of jealousy. A quick stab of envy, just thinking about all the women he’d probably been with.
“Still,” he went on, “this whole alpha beta gamma bullshit your other friends subscribe to?” He jerked his head in the direction of the exit. “Nah, that’s not for me.”
The guilt came rushing back, and the worry too. I wanted to defend Shane and Jeremy. I wanted to go back and see if the storm had worsened, too. We’d been down here for too long. Down here doing nothing…
Well, not exactly nothing.
I sat up and shook out my hair. I still had a radio to fix. A fire to feed…
“Come on. Let’s head back to the lobby.”
Boone grunted as he turned on his side. “Why? It’s warm here. It’s nice.”
“Because there’s still stuff to do,” I said. “Lots of stuff.”
Reluctantly he got up and stretched his arms to the ceiling, pulling every muscle of his body wonderfully taut. I couldn’t help scanning him, top to bottom. I knew his body intimately now. My eyes stopped strategically at all my favorite places.
“Get a good view?” he grinned down at me. “I could turn around if you want.”
I shook my head back and forth to clear it. I had to shake it twice.
“Maybe later,” I said with a smirk. “But right now… show me that garage.”
Twenty-Six
MORGAN
When I was eleven, I was invited to my classmate Kim Balas’s birthday party. I didn’t know her, really. I only knew I was expected to bring her a present. And so my mother took me to the toy store, and I picked out the one thing I figured all eleven-year old girls wanted more than anything else in the world:
A build-your-own radio kit.