Wrecked(11)

Normally, he’d be nowhere near the history building at this time of day. Neither would she, so it strikes him as odd. Her whole morning has been out of joint. She and Gail had breakfast at the dining hall (which they almost never did), then set off across campus to one of the freshman dorms. He didn’t have class, so he waited on a bench, a comfortable viewing distance from the entrance.

I’ve become a stalker. This is bad. He’s got it bad.

“Have a little pride, man,” Jordan said when he confessed that he’d been following Carrie. They were drinking beers in the Taylor common room. Jordan had been unsympathetic. “It shouldn’t be that much work,” he said. “Constantly watching every word you say? Putting up with her ridiculous friends? There are more fish in the sea, and they are way easier to hook.”

Richard regretted telling him. Not that Jordan was wrong. It had been too much work. But Jordan didn’t get that he felt bad anyway. It was like some little piece of him had been surgically removed, and he was looking around for it. In a dark tunnel without a flashlight. Making an idiot of himself in the process.

Richard knew it wasn’t good.

“See, you made the wrong choice,” Jordan continued. “Not just about Eco Carrie. That was the big wrong choice. About the weekend in general. Shouldn’t have blown off our party.”

Richard smiled. “Seriously? If you had a choice between sleeping with a gorgeous woman or raging with the guys? Give me a break.”

Jordan tilted back his head and drained his beer. “I didn’t have to choose.”

Richard looked at him skeptically. Jordan was usually a lot of talk when it came to women. Whether there was any action connected to that talk was debatable. More than a few guys at the house had a running bet that he was all talk.

“Seriously?” Richard repeated.

“Freshman.” Jordan winked. He reminded Richard of a raccoon, with his cunning point of a face. Those cute animals that cock their little heads then tip your trash.

“Hmm,” Richard responded. Which Jordan interpreted as encouragement.

“Exley invited her. And she brought others. So you would not have been lonely, my friend.”

“Hitting on freshmen is sort of like shooting fish in a barrel, don’t you think?” Richard said. “I mean, as long as we’re sticking to your fish metaphor.”

Jordan laughed. “And that’s a problem . . . why? If the whole point is catching a fish?”

Richard shook his head. “Whatever. Just not my style. At least one of us had a good weekend.”

Jordan popped another beer.

“So are you going to see her again?” Richard asked.

“Who?”

“The freshman.”

Jordan snorted. “See, this is what I’m talking about. This is why you are moping around with your tail between your legs. News flash: no one’s trying to get married. Except maybe you.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

“Hell no,” Jordan replied, laughing. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. She was great. But this is college. It’s a freakin’ buffet! When else in our lives are we going to be surrounded by so many females our age? Besides, it’s not like we exchanged numbers or anything.”

“Or could find your phone the next day,” Richard added.

“True. God, we were wrecked. Exley mixed an entire trash can of Skippy.”

“Skippy?”

“Beer, ice, vodka, and Country Time lemonade,” Jordan ticked off. “Has to be Country Time. Something about the sugar.”

Richard wrinkled his nose. “Since when did our man Exley become such a bartender?”

“Dr. Exley,” Jordan corrected. “He’s got a PhD. People Hafta Drink.”

Richard laughed in spite of himself. As he drained the rest of his beer, he thought about what Carrie would make of this conversation. He could picture her disgusted expression. Which was why, in the weeks they’d been together, he’d never introduced her to any of his housemates. That had been easy: except for the one time she’d surprised him in his room, they’d always gone to Out House. And he’d said nothing to the guys about her. Until Jordan spotted them the morning of the pancakes.

Richard had been the last man chosen for Taylor. His freshman year roommate and running buddy, Joe, wanted Richard to live with him at the party house, Conundrum, but Richard decided to pass. It was looking like he’d end up living in a basement single in one of the old dorms (his room draw number sucked) when Jordan, whom he also knew from their frosh hall, said they needed one more guy to fill out the application for a house block. Richard jumped at it. He was pumped when they got it. He’d be part of a pack of twenty guys, most of whom he knew, living in his own (closet--size) bedroom in a three--story house.

Then Richard met Jordan’s friend Brandon Exley.

Richard was no stranger to partying, but nothing prepared him for Exley. A boarding school veteran, word was the guy basically stopped living with his parents at age fourteen. It wasn’t simply that he drank a lot, and drank harder stuff than anyone—he did. It wasn’t that he did drugs, and not just pot—he did. It was the grim purposefulness to Exley’s partying that set him apart. The closed look in his eyes as he stood in the dim corner of a room, draining one red cup after another, watching. Laughing without smiling. You didn’t see him talk to girls, but when he was ready, he’d move from his place on the wall to the dance floor in the center of the room and begin grinding with whomever he’d decided to target that evening. At some point, you’d see them leave together, his arm around her waist as they stumbled upstairs.