Chapter One
Banks
“Who are we?”
Banks Principle winced, glad he’d situated himself at the back of the crowded auditorium, currently pulsing with frenetic, hormonal, teenage, pep rally energy as Nate, their “Orientation Oracle,” as he’d apparently billed himself, whipped the crowd of about 300 incoming freshmen into a rabid lather.
“Panthers!”
The auditorium boomed with the unanimous response, half of it coming from the lungs of his direct neighbor, a future frat boy type in an actual blazer and loafers, no socks, who was currently giving his neck veins a run for their money to see just how big they could get and not actually explode all over the back bleacher seat where he and Banks sat.
“We can do better than that, can’t we freshman?”
Nate scowled dramatically, waving his cheerleader megaphone emblazoned with the school logo of a hulking, stalking black panther at the sizzling crowd.
He held the bullhorn up to his mouth and screamed, “Who?Are?We?”
The crowd roared back, predictably.“Panthers!”
Nate nodded, waving his bullhorn overhead and stomping his feet dramatically, like a kindergarten teacher showing his class how to march in place.In turn, the bleachers shook and swayed as the crowd began stomping their feet.
“Panthers!”
Nate chanted between stomping his feet, his already high-pitched voice bordering on a squeal as it boomed through the cylindrical mouthpiece.
“Panthers!”
The crowd stomped even louder.All except Banks, that is, who got a glaring stare from his hulking frat boy neighbor and, in reply, pretended to stomp his feet just to avoid a potential beat down on his first day on campus.
The future frat boy smiled and stomped even louder.
As the bleachers thundered and the chants echoed, Banks feared for the first time his decision to buck family tradition, skip Georgia’s giant Peachtree State—where his parents and three older brothers had already gone—and go to a small, liberal arts college in South Carolina instead.This was exactly the type of high school do-over, frat boys love it, cheerleaders eat it up bullshit he was trying to avoid after four years of pretending to be something he wasn’t only to land ...here?In the middle of a forced fun, ooh-rah fire and brimstone pep rally?
“That’s it, kids!”Nate was still screaming through the bullhorn, neck veins bulging as Banks wondered if their host for freshman orientation was trying to compete with his frat boy neighbor.“Now that you’re part of the Panther Nation, your freshman year at Piedmont State is off to a ‘roaring’ start!”
With that, the crowd stood as one, as if they’d all rehearsed that very move at some point before showing up to the auditorium promptly at 9:00 that morning.
All except Banks, of course.
He lingered in his seat as long as he could, studying the rambunctious crowd and wondering why he hadn’t seen this particular part of the promotional video on the Piedmont State website when he was scouting out colleges at the beginning of his senior year.If he had, Banks knew, he would have definitely considered skipping the small Liberal Arts college in the scenic foothills of nearby South Carolina and gone somewhere even smaller—and far less peppy—instead.
As he gripped the bleacher seat beside him, if only to appease the future frat boy glaring down at him expectantly, Banks peered across the rows and rows beside him only to find one other person still sitting down.
He squinted for a better look, sure his eyes were fooling him.
Is that Harper Grant?Banks marveled, peering intently through the sea of stomping legs and waving hands and screaming, maxed out freshman faces.It couldn’t be, Banks assured himself, pausing in mid-stand for a better look.The Harper Grant he knew back at Piedmont High was bookish, quiet, sedate, fond of baggy flannel shirts over faded concert t-shirts, skinny jeans, and scuffed up sneakers.
This alternate Harper Grant, his sleeker, sexier, hotter twin it would seem, was duded out in a black tank top that hugged his lean, compact, washboard torso above a pair of pink and white checked madras shorts, long, pale legs tapering down into a pair of clean white sneakers that looked brand new.
ObviouslynotHarper, Banks thought to himself, preparing to glance away when Hot Harper turned slightly, still sitting in his tricked out studly garb, peering through the stomping legs and clapping hands and screaming, blissed out faces until he caught Banks staring at him.
And stared right back.Banks froze.Hot Harper froze, as if mentally counting the odds of how the two from opposite poles—and a couple of social cliques—away from each other had wound up at the same exact college.And then Harper mouthed the very words Banks had been feeling since glancing slightly left.
No.
Fucking.
Way...
