She slumped in her chair, pouting. “I don’t wanna go without Abby.”
Shepley’s face screwed with frustration. “She was with Trav the whole time last time. You barely saw her.”
“Quit being a baby, Mare,” I said, throwing a stick of celery at her.
Finch elbowed me. “I’d take you, Cupcake, but I’m not into the fratboy thing, sorry.”
“That’s actually a damn good idea,” Shepley said, his eyes bright.
Finch grimaced at the thought. “I’m not Sig Tau, Shep. I’m not anything. Fraternities are against my religion.”
“Please, Finch?” America asked.
“Déjà vu,” I grumbled.
Finch looked at me from the corner of his eye and then sighed. “It’s nothing personal, Abby. I can’t say I’ve ever been on a date … with a girl.”
“I know.” I shook my head dismissively, waving away my deep embarrassment. “It’s fine. Really.”
“I need you there,” America said. “We made a pact, remember? No parties alone.”
“You’ll hardly be alone, Mare. Quit being so dramatic,” I said, already annoyed with the conversation.
“You want dramatic? I pulled a trash can beside your bed, held a box of Kleenex for you all night, and got up to get you cough medicine twice when you were sick over break! You owe me!”
I wrinkled my nose. “I have kept your hair vomit free so many times, America Mason!”
“You sneezed in my face!” she said, pointing to her nose.
I blew my bangs from my eyes. I could never argue with America when she was determined to get her way. “Fine,” I said through my teeth.
“Finch?” I asked him with my best fake smile. “Will you go to the stupid Sig Tau Valentine’s date party with me?”
Finch hugged me to his side. “Yes. But only because you called it stupid.”
I walked with Finch to class after lunch, discussing the date party and how much we were both dreading it. We picked out a pair of desks in our Physiology class, and I shook my head when the professor began my fourth syllabus of the day. The snow began to fall again, drifting against the windows, politely begging entrance and then falling with disappointment to the ground.
After class was dismissed, a boy I’d met only once at the Sig Tau house knocked on my desk as he walked by, winking. I offered a polite smile and then glanced over to Finch. He shot me a wry grin, and I gathered my book and laptop, shoving them into my backpack with little effort.
I lugged my bag over my shoulders and trudged to Morgan along the salted sidewalk. A small group of students had started a snowball fight on the greens, and Finch shuddered at the sight of them, covered in colorless powder.
I wobbled my knee, keeping Finch company as he finished his cigarette. America scurried beside us, rubbing her bright green mittens together.
“Where’s Shep?” I asked.
“He went home. Travis needed help with something, I guess.”
“You didn’t go with him?”
“I don’t live there, Abby.”
“Only in theory,” Finch winked at her.
America rolled her eyes. “I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend, so sue me.”
Finch flicked his cigarette into the snow. “I’m heading out, ladies. I’ll see you at dinner?”
America and I nodded, smiling when Finch first kissed my cheek and then America’s. He stayed on the wet sidewalk, careful to stay in the middle so that he wouldn’t miss and step into the snow.