Hailey grabbed her handbook and flipped through it, moving her eyes as if she were reading, but she was way too distracted by the show in front of her to comprehend the words.
“Yes,” she chastised him. “It was fun three times,” she whispered loudly in his ear, and Hailey peeked over her book in time to see him scowl and lean away from her.
Shrinking into her seat, Hailey pulled her handbook over her face. She didn’t want to hear this.
“Don’t act like you don’t remember, Pádraig,” she said, and Hailey detected a shrill note of warning.
“This is no act.” Fin was using his irritated voice, and she matched it. Then she brought it up a level.
“You’re such an asshole!” It sounded like she slapped his face pretty hard, scooted her chair out, and stormed away.
Very cautiously, Hailey lowered her handbook. “Who was that?” she asked once the cafeteria resumed its normal hum of activity.
“Uh…Joanne,” he said, looking bewildered. “I caught up with her last night at the LOED meeting.” He looked at Hailey, still blinking rapidly from the slap. “I honestly have no idea what the hell that was all about,” he said, lobbing a pointed finger in the direction of Joanne’s retreat.
Hailey looked at him sideways. “Really?”
“Really,” he repeated.
“Maybe she’s pissed off because she was naked in your room last night, and now you’re acting like nothing happened.” She took a thoughtful bite of toast.
Fin dropped his spoon and fumbled with his napkin. Clearing his throat, he sat up in his seat, and Hailey stole a glance at him.
“That—” He sat back, licked his teeth, and continued. “No,” he said definitively, and he looked her dead in the eyes. “I don’t know what you think you saw, but don’t believe it. I don’t do that.”
“Maybe you were drunk or something?” She knew what she saw.
“Yeah…orsomething,” he said emphatically.
“Anyway, what’s a ‘load’ meeting?” she said, letting him off the hook. At the end of the day, she didn’t care what he did as long as he didn’t leave her again.
“It’s actually pronounced LO-ed, like co-ed. It’s a club—the Legion of Earth Dwellers,” he said dismissively. “Come on,” he said checking his watch. “You’re gonna be late for your tour.”
Fin hurried her out of her chair, grabbed her tray, and pushed her out the door even as she was itching to ask him about LOED, about her roommate from Hell, about DOPPLER, what the heck ParaScience was, and what, if anything, he knew about Asher and the other Envoys.
“Don’t forget your flail-beat,” he said, straightening her shirt like a parent putting his child on the school bus for the first time. “And don’t talk to strangers,” he added with a smile.
Hailey turned her back on him and walked toward a gaggle of freshmen who stood in front of a girl holding up a Bear Towne flag.
“ParaFreak!” Fin called after her.
Running with her hands over her ears, she caught up with her campus tour just in time to see her orientation leader step back, fold in half, and disappear.
Chapter twenty-one
Campus Tour
“Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The southern belle, who had opened her mouth to greet her freshmen ParaScience orientation group, took a small step backward; her body pleated like a skirt, and then she vanished, leaving behind the echo of a guttural yelp.
Leaning over her vanishing spot, the group murmured and exchanged worried expressions.
“I think she fell into an in-between,” one of the students whispered.
“She should have come out of it by now, right?” worried another.
“We have to help her!” Hailey yelled. She plowed through the group and jumped, head first into the in-between to rescue the orientation leader, fully expecting somebody to jump in with her.
