The Romantics(62)

By the double grace of God, students were regularly coming in and out of the front doors, so he didn’t have to worry about not having a key to get in.

He breezed in the double doors and headed straight for the elevator bank in the middle. He pushed the up arrow about fifteen times.

“Chill, dude. It’ll come.” A tall skinny girl in workout clothes gave him a bit of side-eye.

He ignored her attitude and took a risk. “You don’t know Sammy Sutton, do you?”

She raised an eyebrow in obvious annoyance and took a long swig out of her Nalgene bottle. Finally: “You do know that there are like a thousand people who live in this dorm, right?”

Triple shit.

The elevator came, and he avoided the eyes of snippy miss yoga pants as he walked in, pressing the button for the tenth floor.

The climb up was miserable—the damn elevator seemed to stop on every floor. Plus, everyone was so laid-back and relaxed, so happy for the weekend—chatting with friends, some already smelling of booze. Just get off quickly and let me make my way, he wanted to scream. Big stuff on the line here!

After what felt like hours, he arrived on the top floor. Gael was the only one left by this point. He bounced anxiously on his feet as the rusty elevator doors took forever to open.

Finally, he was out. The dorm was a mess of balconies, like a crappy motel. Gael didn’t know quite where to start, so he made for the first door. Out in the fresh air again, seeing the campus from the top balcony, he headed to the right and into the first hallway. It had four doors. One of them was open. He gave it a knock as he poked his head in.

Mumford & Sons was playing on a computer, and a bunch of pasty guys were holding forties.

“Sorry, but do you know Sammy Sutton?” he asked, without much hope.

“Pay the entry fee, and we’ll give you an answer,” one of the guys said.

“Huh?” Gael asked.

“One shot, sir,” the same guy said.

Gael shook his head. “It’ll make me sick, and . . .”

The guy’s friend shrugged. “No can do, then.”

“Are you freaking kidding me?” Gael asked. “Can’t you just point me to her room?”

The third guy stood up, opened the fridge. “All right, dude. Come in. If not a shot of alcohol, a shot of pickle juice will have to do.”

The guy didn’t wait for Gael to answer, just took an economy-size jar of pickles out of the fridge and deftly poured a shot like he’d done this a time or two before.

He handed the shot to Gael. “Everyone must pay the entry fee.”

Gael took a deep breath. It smelled disgusting. But he tilted it back anyway.

It accosted his senses, making his lips pucker. If only Sammy knew the lengths he was willing to go to find her.

“Happy?” Gael handed the shot glass back as a pickle-y burp snuck up on him.

The guys clapped.

“Now can you tell me where she lives?”

“Sorry, dude, don’t know her.”

“You’re shitting me,” Gael snapped. And he rushed out of the room before he did something stupid like punch someone when all of the guys were probably stronger than him.

Gael headed into the next suite of rooms. There was an open door, and a different girl sat on almost every available surface. There had to be eight of them packed in, at least.

“Hey,” one of them said. “A dude!”

“Do you guys know—”

But the girl didn’t let him finish. “Okay, I’m glad you’re here because we really need a guy’s opinion.”

“Jessica!” another girl yelled.

But Jessica just shooed off her concerns with a wave of a hand. “Okay. So Madison met a guy at a party last night who’s also in her history class, and he friended her on Facebook, but he sent her this message that said”—she grabbed Madison’s phone for utmost accuracy—“and I quote, ‘Do you know what the history reading is?’”

The girls all stared at Gael.

“Yeah,” he said. “So?”

Jessica rolled her eyes. “So the debate is, is it date-y or not date-y? I say date-y, because I know for a fact that his roommate, who I talked to last night, is in the class, too. So why wouldn’t he just ask him for the reading?”

Madison sighed. “But we talked about so many more interesting things last night. And I told him I was probably going to see the Breakfast Club, the eighties cover band, you know, at Sigma Chi tonight, and that leaves him a super-open window to ask me out. But instead, he’s messaging me about history?”

Gael shrugged. “Maybe he’s testing the waters.”

Jessica burst into cheers, along with a few of the other girls. “Told ya so!” she said.

Even Madison was happy with his answer. “Maybe if you write back, then he’ll mention the show,” Gael added.

More cheers.

“Thank you, kind dude,” Jessica said.

“Now I need your help.” Gael crossed his arms. “Do you know Sammy Sutton?”

He watched in agony as all eight girls shook their heads. And then he bolted. He had no more time to waste.

The next few attempts were equally unsuccessful. He interrupted girls putting on makeup for a night out, guys arguing about whether or not to get extra cheese on their pizzas, a huge group crowded around a laptop watching YouTube videos.