“He can’t do this to me.” Kris snatched a dress off the rack and tossed it on the growing pile of clothes draped over her arm without glancing at the price tag. “I won’t let him.”
“Be careful!” Olivia winced. “That dress is like a thousand bucks.”
“Good. I’ll get one in every color.” Kris added the red, gold, and blue versions before moving on to the skirt section.
Farrah trailed after her, trying to ignore the fact that the total value of the items in Kris’s arms equaled that of a small country’s GDP.
“She always does this when she’s upset,” Courtney whispered. “She’ll be fine after some retail therapy.”
“Honey, that’s not ‘some.’ That’s a lot of retail therapy,” Olivia said as Kris dumped her haul into a nearby saleswoman’s arms so she could flick through a rack of Maison Margiela skirts. “Besides, I don’t think shopping will cut it this time. Her dad is getting married to someone five years older than her. That’s gotta sting.”
“I can hear you.” Kris yanked a skirt so hard off the hanger the delicate material ripped. Everyone gasped. The saleswoman looked like she was going to have a heart attack. “Calm down. I’ll pay for it.”
“Sweetie, slow down,” Farrah said gently. “We can’t carry all of this back to the dorm.”
“I’ll hire someone to carry it back. Don’t you know? Money can buy anything, including a 26-year-old redheaded bimbo who thinks she can take my mom’s place.” Kris’s lips trembled before she caught herself. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, her jaw set in defiance.
“Oh, honey.” Courtney’s eyes swam with sympathy. “It’ll be all right.”
“Maybe she isn’t so bad,” Olivia said. “Maybe she really loves your dad.”
“Please.” Kris sniffled. “He’s twice her age, and I love my dad, but he’s not George Clooney. The only thing she loves about him is his bank account.”
“Soo…the strategy is to drain it before they get married?” Farrah joked, trying to lighten the mood.
It didn’t work.
“Hilarious,” Kris said. “I can’t stop the wedding while I’m in Shanghai, but I can strategize. They’re not getting married until next November. In the meantime, I’m going to let Daddy know exactly how upset I am.”
“Oh, I think he knows,” Courtney said. “The entire girls’ hall heard you screaming yesterday.”
Farrah and Olivia nodded in affirmation.
“The only language my dad understands is money, and he has tons of it. What I spend today won’t even make a—” Kris stopped and held up a finger. “Wait.”
They waited.
“Court, your birthday is coming up.”
“Two weeks.” Courtney rubbed her hands in anticipation. “We’re going to rage. Gino’s and 808 will never be the same.”
“Forget Gino’s and 808.” Kris fished her black Amex out of her purse and handed it to the saleswoman, who snatched it up and hurried to the cashier without dropping any of the clothes items on the floor. “I’ve got something better in mind.”
What that something was, no one knew. Kris refused to tell them because she wanted it to be a “surprise.” All she said was not to schedule anything for the entirety of Courtney’s birthday weekend and to let the rest of the group know.
When they returned to the dorm, Kris hightailed it to her room with her purchases. Olivia, who’d made it to the interview round for the CB Lippmann internship, went to prep for her video call tomorrow, while Courtney had a Skype date with her family.
That left Farrah with the rest of the afternoon to herself. She’d finished her homework and didn’t feel like wrestling with YouTube or Netflix. Between her VPN and the dorm’s slow-as-a-snail WiFi, streaming video was a constant struggle.
She wandered down to the boys’ floor to find Sammy. He wasn’t there. Neither was Blake. Farrah wondered whether he was with the brunette she’d seen coming out of his room the other day. Her stomach twisted at the thought.
Were they dating? Where did they meet? If they were dating, Blake and Farrah’s dinner seemed quite intimate for a guy who had a girlfriend, no? Farrah could’ve sworn—
No. Stop it.
Farrah forced herself to stop thinking about Blake and ran through her other options for company. Luke and Leo lived in homestays, and she wasn’t desperate enough to seek out Nardo.
As a last resort, she checked the student lounge, which FEAers never used. Why would they, when they had a whole city to play in?
The quiet lounge carried the musty smell of a place that hasn’t been disturbed for a while. Farrah was about to leave when she noticed the person reading in the armchair in the corner. A faint sliver of sunlight illuminated Leo’s sculpted features.
“Dostoyevsky,” she said, making out the book cover from a distance. “Impressive.”
Leo’s head jerked up. His shoulders eased when he saw who it was. “You should work for the CIA. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I’m guessing it’s less my spy skills and more the Crime and Punishment.” Farrah pulled up the chair opposite Leo. “Not a lot of college students spend their Saturday afternoons reading Russian literature.”
“They’re missing out. What’s more exciting than crime and punishment?”
Farrah’s mouth quirked up. “You have a point.”
This was the first time she’d seen Leo since Thailand. He and Courtney said they made up after their fight, but the air between them remained tense. Leo had begged off every group dinner since they returned, citing schoolwork or homestay obligations.
“You look like you just ran a marathon.”
“Sort of. I went shopping with Kris.”
“Ah, that explains it.”
“I don’t know if Courtney told you, but Kris found out her dad’s getting remarried to some 26-year-old he met at a cocktail bar a few months ago. She’s pissed.” Farrah watched for a reaction to Courtney’s name.
“I wasn’t aware.” Leo’s face was as smooth and blank as marble. “That sucks.”
Time to stop beating around the bush. “What’s going on with you and Courtney?” Whatever it was, they needed to suck it up and make up—for real.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You had that big fight in Thailand, and things haven’t been the same since.”
Leo thumbed through his book. “They’ve been fine.”
“You’ve avoided us—correction, you’ve avoided Courtney—since we got back.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Bullshit.” Farrah slammed her hands on the armrests, causing Leo to jump. “Tell the truth. What’s going on? Are you guys breaking up?”
“We’re not dating.”
“I’m not an idiot. Neither of you has been with anyone else since the year started. In college world, that’s dating.”
“Really?” Leo arched an eyebrow. “Shall I pull out a dictionary?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
He flipped his book open and closed. “Look, Courtney’s a cool girl. She’s fun, and I enjoy hanging out with her. But…” He trailed off. His brows drew together in a deep V. “She can be a little…”
“Bossy?”
Leo shrugged.
“We all know she’s bossy. She knows she’s bossy. That’s part of her charm.”
“I guess.” Leo sighed. “Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to be with someone more chill. Someone like you, for example.”
Farrah choked on her spit. He didn’t say that. Did he just say that?
This was the moment she’d fantasized about since she first laid eyes on Leo.
She expected fireworks.
She expected sweaty palms and jitters in her stomach.
Instead, there was…nothing. The butterflies that used to take flight whenever she saw Leo didn’t so much as stir.
“Um, I—”
“Hypothetically.” Leo’s face crinkled into a smile. “I know I’m not your type.”
“You’re not?” That was news to her. Leo was exactly her type: tall, dark, handsome, sensitive, intelligent. He checked every box on her Ideal Guy checklist.
And yet, nothing.
Maybe she was so used to pining after him she didn’t notice the flutters anymore.
“Nah, you need someone who can challenge you. You’d get bored with me. The two of us would just sit around all day in our thoughts.”
She laughed. “There are worse things in life.”
“True, but it wouldn’t be very exciting.”
“Which is why you and Courtney are perfect. She talks enough for both of you.”
Leo’s laugh joined hers. “That she does.”
In the approaching dusk, Leo looked like a sculpture come to life. But as Farrah sat there across from the boy she’d fantasized about since the beginning of the semester, she felt nothing. No butterflies, no skipped heartbeats, no giddiness from his mere presence.
There was only one person who made her feel that way.
He was blond and cocky and infuriating, everything Farrah thought she didn’t want. But he was also sweet, thoughtful, and made her laugh in a way no one else could.
Oh god.
Farrah slid down in her chair. She ignored Leo’s questioning look and instead wondered how the hell she ended up falling for Blake Ryan.
