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He heads off toward Corvin Hall. Koda follows him, then turns around halfway across the lot and walks backward so he can yell at me. “Cop!”

There’s a party on the first floor that night, because somebody down there has a speaker and a friend who’s twenty-one. I don’t want to go. Rafe says I am, because if I don’t, he’s going to tell everyone I’m a cop. So I go.

It’s packed and hot, twenty people in a room built for two, beds shoved against the walls, somebody’s roommate somehow asleep under a coat on one of them. There’s a row of red cups on the dresser full of something pink. I take a water from the mini fridge, because we have a captain’s skate at seven and Dannebrog will know.

Rafe gets sucked into a card game. Koda finds the pizza and then a freshman from the swim team who made the mistake of reaching for the same slice, and within five minutes, Koda has the kid doing push-ups on the carpet for it while he counts out loud and eats the slice himself. I end up against the wall by the window with a sophomore from the team, talking about nothing, while somebody on the floor explains the rules of a drinking game to three people who aren’t listening.

Then I see the blonde walk in. Angry girl. She’s impossible to miss, because she walks to the middle of the room, already arguing.

There’s a tall guy in a backward hat pointing at a desk chair, and she’s between him and the chair. Behind her are two brunettes, both watching the argument like it’s their favorite show.

“I was gone for two minutes,” says the blonde.

“Twenty.”

She scoffs. “It was not twenty minutes.”

She turns to a kid sitting cross-legged on the floor with a plate of pizza on his knee. “How long was I gone for?”

The kid looks like he wants to melt into the carpet. “I don’t know.”

“See?” says the guy.

“He’s scared of you,” she says.

“I really don’t know,” the kid says.

“I put my jacket there,” says the guy.

The girl with the ponytail takes a long, slow drink out of a red cup.

“It’s my chair,” the guy says.

“I want my seat back.”

“It’s just a desk chair.”

“Then this should be easier for you emotionally.”

The sophomore beside me laughs, and all three girls turn to find the source of it. I’m drinking from my water bottle when the blonde’s eyes land on me, and they narrow instantly. Now I’m her new target.

“Are you following me? Is that a thing you do?” She doesn’t wait. “Are you laughing at me?”

I look back at her and don’t answer. On the floor, the kid with the pizza is visibly grateful her attention has moved on. Across the room, Rafe looks up from his cards.

“This asshole stole my washer,” she tells her friends.

The girls are gawking at me.

“I’m going to leave,” the blonde says. “I can’t be in here with—” she throws a hand at me and the guy by the chair, “—this.”

“Kylie,” the girl with the ponytail says, laughing, and grabs her by the elbow. “Babe. Let it go. The chair guy’s leaving.”

The chair guy is, in fact, leaving, backing away with his hands up and looking at the three of them like they’re a pack of wolves.

Kylie.

The blonde has a name.