Page 58 of Arctic Titans of Northwood U: Volume 1

“You’re stylish yourself,” she said.

A thought crossed my mind and I hid the way it made the corners of my mouth quiver by taking another sip of my drink. Whatever the hell she had given me was vodka based. I didn’t care to find out the rest. What I cared about was Heather. Tonight. Then, if the stars aligned, Zach. Wouldn’t that make it a bingo?

And as Heather began asking about my tattoos, I glanced back at Zach who was melting into the crowd. He looked over his shoulder and found me whispering something back to Heather, our gazes lingering on one another for a few moments. He rolled his eyes and turned away.

This was going to be a fun game to play. And when Heather caught me glancing at her twin, she gave a coy smile that said she was interested in exactly the same amount of attachment as I was. Could I give her a night to remember? Hell yeah. And would she give a damn who I went after the next day? Not in a million years.

For a moment, I could stop thinking about Wallaby and physics and the impossibility of finding Noah Foster. For a night, I could indulge in the thrill of the chase.

Oh yeah. The game was on.

Chapter Two

NOAH

“Everyone here is rude, Matt.” I fixed my glasses and ran a hand through my unruly hair. Each time the beat dropped, my stomach rose. I was going to be sick just from the smell of sweat and spilled beer. I didn’t need the bass rocking my body this hard on top of everything else.

“They’re not rude,” Matt said, holding two plastic cups, red on the outside, white on the inside, and filled with the golden liquid I had no taste for. “That’s what people are like.”

“People are rude,” I insisted.

“And you’re never going to meet anyone if you don’t give them a chance.” He gave me a pointed look.

“Maybe I don’t want to meet anyone,” I said sulkily. “Maybe I’m enough for myself.”

“You, my darling, are a handful for anyone, but a date wouldn’t kill you.” He took a sip of his beer and looked like he had just knocked on the Pearly Gates.

I sniffed the air and cringed. “What’s that smell? Are someone’s socks on fire?”

Matt inhaled deeply and looked positively pleased. “That, my friend, means there’s a working bong in this house. Laters.” He thrust the beer into my hand and winked, then disappeared into the crowd.

I was shit at parties. No, actually, I was shit with people. Parties without people were totally fine. And this particular party was packed with pretty much every type of person my personality clashed with.

If only I could be more like Matt, who was a rare human I wasn’t terrified of. He could just walk up to anyone and blend in. There was no doubt in my mind that the bong users had no idea who Matt was, but when he approached them, he would be welcome. And good for him. I just wished he would make good on his word to be my wingman.

I was half-certain he had given up on me ever actually scoring a date. The last million attempts he’d made had ended in me stammering, offering an obscure piece of comic book trivia, snorting at my own physics joke, and the other guy yawning in my face.

I looked around the spacious ground floor area of the neo-colonial frat house, parsing through people I’d seen before. All alone, I had no choice but to pick a human and approach him. He was a frat bro by the look of him, partying in his sweatpants and hoodie, currently all by himself because the two other guys began making out and moved a few feet to the side. He wasn’t that much bigger than me, which made him less scary, but he was still as far out of my comfort zone as I could push myself.

I missed my striped pajamas and soft slippers.

“Hey,” I said, curling my toes in my shoes like I was grounding myself.

The frat bro scanned me and I watched interest leave his face. “‘Sup?” His head was turning away as he spoke.

“Not much,” I sighed and blended back into the wall. He never noticed.

I wasn’t exactly the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I wasn’t your sexy fuckboy, either. My only strength was my sharp brain and that brought my average up. But being smart about stuff and knowing how to do stuff were two things that I had never reconciled in my life. And for some reason, I had been stupid enough to believe that focusing on my mental capacity would make me happy. Silly me. Why on Earth would I have believed that?

Oh yeah. Mom and Dad, I thought sarcastically. Not that I should blame them for making me into a socially inept, awkward, and introverted geek. Which wasn’t to say I didn’t blame them anyway.

I kept looking around the house. Here, a girl was tripping over her own feet. There, a guy was glaring at another, more distant guy who was smiling and joking with a blond girl. What the hell was all that about? And further still, Matt was red-eyed and holding the most blissful little smile of contentment that I ever did see. He spotted me, then made his way toward me. “Get laid yet?” he asked as he reached me.

I rolled my eyes and covered up my blush by drinking tiny sips of beer for a long while. If anything, it cooled me down. Not that Matt knew how well his arrow had struck the bullseye. Even my best of friends wasn’t included in that bombshell. “Do I look like I got laid?”

Matt narrowed his eyes at me and considered me for a time. “Laid? No. You look like you got screwed. What happened?”

“Everyone. At. This. Party. Is. Rude.” I finished my beer and felt like I needed to burp. Oh no. Oh, God. Not here among people. What do I do? I held my breath and looked around, waiting for it to settle. If I accidentally belched in a crowd, I might as well climb the highest level of this house and put Newton’s laws of gravity to the test.