Don't Rush Me (Nora Jacobs #1)(40)

I have no idea what to say to that, so I clear my throat and shrug toward campus. “Okay, so here’s the thing…I need to find a fraternity.”

Oliver jerks his head back and gives me a peculiar look. “I think you mean sorority, and you’re interested in rushing?”

I shake my head, thinking back to my vision and the meatheads who stole Shandra. “Oh, no, I mean a frat.” I shoot Oliver a look as dry as my next question. “And do I seem like someone who would rush a sorority to you?”

Oliver grins. “No.”

“No is right. We’re not here to rush, Oliver, we’re looking for clues. The car Shandra was taken in had a decal on the back window. It looked like the Greek letters of a fraternity name, but I couldn’t find it on Google. I’m hoping since Wayne State is the only university in the area, the sticker I saw belongs to a fraternity here. If we find the fraternity, we find the car. We find the car, I can do my Sherlock thing and find the clues.”

“We?” Oliver asks in a quiet voice as he holds the straps of his backpack.

I can’t tell if he’s nervous because he doesn’t want to get involved, or because I invited him along. “Well, I suppose you don’t have to play Watson to my Sherlock, if you don’t want to,” I say. “It might get dangerous. Powerful underworlders are getting snatched, and Nick Gorgeous mentioned you’re crazy-ass strong. These psychos might want you. Maybe you should just point me to the student union and—”

“No, I want to help,” Oliver blurts. “I was just surprised you’d include me.”

“Why?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Nora, but…well…you’re a loner. You aren’t the type to work with a partner or ask for backup.”

He’s not wrong about that, but what he doesn’t know is that I’ve always been a loner out of necessity. “Only because I’ve never had anyone I could trust with my secret before.”

“You can trust me, Nora,” Oliver says quietly.

His declaration makes me feel all kinds of emotions I’m not used to experiencing. Warm and fuzzy are not words I’d use to describe my life.

Ignoring the heat in my cheeks, I casually bump his shoulder with mine. “I know I can, or I wouldn’t have called you.” There’s a brief, awkward pause, which I break up with a clap of my hands. “Come along, Watson. We’ve got a troll to find.”





Even though Wayne State University is no Notre Dame, it’s still fun to be walking around campus with Oliver as if I belong here. It makes me wish this were my life—that I was normal, and had friends, and went to college. I almost see myself graduating, getting a job, having a boyfriend. For the moment, I feel normal. Of course, I’m a psychic strolling across campus with a sorcerer, looking for a group of supernatural kidnappers who’ve snatched my troll roommate’s potential mate, so…normal is relative, I guess.

“You’re in luck, because it’s Rush Week right now,” Oliver says as we move into what seems to be the main quad. It’s full of tables and booths all advertising different sororities and fraternities. “Every Greek organization affiliated with Wayne State will have representatives here. We’ll just start at one end and work our way around the quad.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Oliver smiles, lighting up his whole face. When he offers me a hand to hold, as if this were a date, I grimace and shake my head. “Sorry. I’ve got a no touching policy. Unless you want me to hear every thought in your head.”

Oliver’s face heats up, and he matches my grimace. “Oh, right. I forgot about that.”

I try to smile, but the mood has slipped into awkward territory. Surprisingly, Oliver is the one to drive us back into comfortable conversation. “You can’t turn your gift off, then?”

I shake my head, grateful that I have to be paying attention to all of the booth banners so I don’t have to maintain eye contact. “I wish. That would make my life a hell of a lot easier.”

“What about clothes? Does it work through material, or do long sleeves, gloves, and things stop it?”

“Mostly. But I hate gloves. I hate having my fingers restricted, and I really don’t like to draw attention to myself any more than I have to. It’s bad enough I’m a small white girl living in inner city Detroit.”

Oliver sighs. “That’s true. I guess I don’t blame you. But…don’t you ever crave human touch?”

No way am I answering that question. I stop to look loosely at a yellow banner advertising a fraternity.

“That it?” Oliver asks, following my gaze when I stop walking.

After a moment, I shake my head. “I think it looks similar, but the symbols were different. I’m sure of it.”

Oliver heads over to the booth. It’s being manned by a couple of tall, well-built guys—one white and one black. Both look like basketball players. They’re leaner than the meatheads from my vision, and they seem like they’re slightly more intelligent, even though all the pictures at their booth are of raging parties.

They both eye skinny, geeky Oliver warily. “Hey, bro. You looking to join up?” the black guy asks.

He’s good looking, but his condescension toward Oliver pisses me off. As if he can feel me seething, he looks my way and then does a double take before grinning widely at Oliver. “Damn, man, your girl is fine.”