Size 12 and Ready to Rock (Heather Wells 4)

It’s a relief to know this, since I’d worry if I thought he was out there getting shot at and then returning fire.

“This time it’s serious,” I tell him. “Campus police got a report of an unauthorized party—”

“You don’t say,” Cooper says, eyeing the beer.

“—and someone unconscious,” I add. “No one seems to know who called in the report. Sarah isn’t picking up, and everybody else is spread out across the building, playing paintball war.” I don’t want to seem ineffectual at my job in front of the residents, but the truth is, I’m not entirely sure how to handle the situation. I’m only an assistant residence hall director, after all.

Cooper has no such reservations.

“Fine,” he says and levels his paint gun at Gavin and Jamie. “New game plan. You’re all my prisoners, which means you have to do what I say.”

I can’t help letting out a tiny gasp. I used to fantasize about becoming Cooper Cartwright’s prisoner and him forcing me to do what he said. Full confession: wrist restraints were involved.

Now my fantasy is coming true! Well, sort of. It’s typical of my luck lately that there are a bunch of undergraduates hanging around, ruining it.

“Let’s go round up the rest of the players,” Cooper says, “and make sure they’re all accounted for. Then I’ll take anyone who’s interested out for Thai food.”

Gavin and Jamie groan, which I think is quite rude, considering my boyfriend has offered to buy them dinner. What is wrong with kids today? Who would rather run around shooting at one another with paint than eat delicious pad thai?

“Are you serious?” Gavin demands. “Right when we were about to demolish the basketball team?”

“Yes, I can see you were mere moments from accomplishing that,” Cooper says, one corner of his mouth sloping up sarcastically. “But my understanding is that Heather likes this job, and I don’t think she should get herself fired for fraternizing after work hours with students firing paintball rifles while intoxicated.”

I stare at my husband-to-be in the half-light. I think I’ve just fallen in love with him a little bit more. Maybe he would have known what to do with my dolls.

I’m turning back to my cell phone—really, where is Sarah? It’s completely unlike her not to call me back right away—thinking about how I’m going to repay Cooper as soon as we get home (wrist restraints will definitely be involved), when we hear footsteps in the hallway. From the sound of them, they’re masculine. And insistent.

“That’s them,” Gavin whispers. He grabs his reloader. “The pansies. . . .”

He isn’t being offensive. The Pansies are the name of New York College’s basketball team. Once known as the Cougars, a cheating scandal in the 1950s resulted in their being demoted from Division I, the highest college ranking, to Division III, the lowest, and their being renamed after a flower.

One would think this would have taught the college a lesson, but no. Just this past spring “Page Six” got hold of a memo from the office of the president of New York College, Phillip Allington, written to my boss, Stan Jessup, head of the Housing Department, telling Stan to make sure that each of the school’s basketball team players received free room and board for the summer, as some of the Pansies lived as far away as Soviet Georgia and the cost of the flight home was too crushing an expense for their families to bear.

That’s how Fischer Hall ended up with a dozen Pansy “painters” living here for the summer.

Since current NCAA regulations strictly forbid providing players with cash or gifts—and Division III players in particular from receiving athletic scholarships of any kind—this memo from President Allington’s office launched what had become known as Pansygate . . . though personally I don’t see how exchanging free room and board for painting nearly three hundred dorm rooms can be considered a “gift.”

“Those bonehead jocks can’t have figured out we’re in here,” Gavin whispers. “Please lemme shoot ’em.”

Jamie adds a heartfelt “Please?”

Cooper shakes his head. “No—”

It’s too late. As the door to the library swings open, Gavin lifts his paintball gun and shoots at . . .

. . . Simon Hague, the director of Wasser Hall, Fischer Hall’s bitterest rival, and my own personal workplace nemesis.

Simon shrieks at the Day-Glo burst that’s appeared on the front of his stylish black polo. His companion—a campus protection officer, from the outline of his hat—doesn’t appear too happy about the bright yellow paint that’s splashed onto the front of his blue uniform either.

Jamie, realizing her boyfriend’s mistake first, gasps in horror, then says almost the exact same thing to them that she’d said to me: “It comes out in warm water!”

A part of me wants to burst out laughing. Another part longs to disappear on the spot. Simon, I remember belatedly, is the residence hall director on duty this weekend, which means he must have gotten the same message I did about the unauthorized party and unconscious student.

If I wasn’t dead before, I am now, at least career-wise.

“What,” Simon demands, fumbling along the wood paneling for a light switch, “is going on here?”

Hide the beer, I silently pray. Someone hide the beer, quick.

“Hi,” I say, stepping forward. “Simon, it’s me, Heather. We were just doing a team-building exercise. I’m so sorry about this—”

“Team-building exercise?” Simon sputters, still trying to find the light switch. “This building is supposed to be empty for the summer. What kind of team could you possibly be building, and on a Sunday night?”

“Well, we’re not really empty,” I say. I hear movement behind me and am relieved to notice out of the corner of my eye that Gavin is discreetly shifting the six-packs of PBR behind the couch. “Dr. Jessup wanted us to keep the front desk open, so of course there’s the student desk staff and the mail-forwarding staff and a few resident assistants, because of the—”

—basketball team, I was going to say. Conscious that the college president’s favorite students were living in the building for the summer, the head of Housing had asked me to make sure that the team—who are, after all, students first, athletes second—had plenty of supervision, so I’d provided it, in the form of seven RAs, who were also receiving free housing for the summer in exchange for working a few hours in my office or at the desk, but also keeping an eye on the Pansies.