• • •

I'm still half asleep fifteen minutes before I need to get behind the wheel on Monday morning. Gray and I have three consecutive classes that fill nearly four hours before I'm due to meet Liam at two. Even if it's awful, date or not, I have the excuse of another class at three thirty.

An hour and a half. The same length as my awful classics class, and I make it through that twice a week. And this isn't class, I have to remind myself. It's just a coffee. A date. The word is barely in my vocabulary. I've never been on a date, nothing remotely close, and I'm still not one hundred percent convinced that it is a date. The specifics of this meeting were never spelled out

Gray nudges me, a piece of toast in his hand. "Are you ok?"

I nod.

"Nervous?"

I nod again. He gives me a comforting smile.

"You know you don't have to go," he says. "If you don't want to and it's just going to make you feel bad, don't go. Give me the word and we can go to McDonald's instead and relive all my terrible dates."

He knows how to put a smile on my face. In just twelve weeks, he has got right under my skin, infiltrating my life to the point that I feel like something's missing when he's not around. He's almost always around, though. If he's not sitting next to me in class or the car or at the table, I can hear him singing to himself next door or I can see him reading in bed before he shuts his blinds.

I know he's right and it's reassuring to hear him say that, the confirmation I need that this decision is mine, but I feel like there are two versions of me at constant odds in my own brain. One is the reserved recluse who tells me to just skip the date and all the stress that comes with it; the other is bolder, pushing me to step out of my box.

The two sides rarely agree. Every decision I make is subject to a million arguments back and forth and no matter what I decide, I often feel like I'm disappointing a part of myself. I tried explaining that to Dad once and he got upset, saying he wished there was something he could do to help. I hadn't been looking for a solution, just a chance to get it off my chest.

"I'm going to go," I tell him. That's the decision I made yesterday and I'm going to stick to it, if only to prove to myself that I can stick to a decision. If I can't bring myself to go on a date where there's a friendly, attractive guy asking, when will I ever?

"Good." He rests his arm on my shoulder and finishes off his toast, reaching for another piece. It's no wonder Gray's dad calls him pacman: he has an insatiable appetite.

• • •

Gray chatters away next to me, distracting me from the fact that we didn't leave until eight thirty on the dot and while the journey can be ninety minutes on the dot, it can take two hours to reach South Lakes. We've been late to class before, and we've never been the latest, and at least I'm not alone, but the thought still fills me with dread.

There's little worse than walking into a class with all eyes on me as Gray and I try to find a couple empty seats that invariably mean squeezing past knees and backpacks crammed into too small a space. I'd sooner sit in the aisle than have to inch my way to the end of a row and squash myself into one of those stupidly small seats with the attached desks that won't budge.

The little town is almost the northwesternmost point in Ohio, just a couple miles east of Indiana and five miles south of Michigan. Ordinarily I like to hop on the 163 and get straight onto the I-90, which carries us almost all the way, but today there's a whole bunch of traffic as soon as we get out of Five Oaks. Gray's in charge of maps and I can see him pulling a face out of the corner of my eye.

"What?"

He shows me his phone and the red line that stretches all the way to the interstate. My stomach plummets and my heart sinks.

"Delays of at least an hour," he says, and he squints at the screen as he moves his map around. I'm not sure how good his glasses are when he squints at his phone so much. I've tried them on before and got an instant headache: his prescription isn't messing around.

"What do I do?" My hands are tight around the wheel. This is a kink in my plan. My chest hurts and I can feel a cold sweat coming on, and I hate myself for the disruption that has the power to overrule me.

"It's ok," Gray says, in exactly the kind of lighthearted, nonchalant tone I need him to use. "We can hop on the 2 up to the city and then we can take the US-20 all the way to South Lakes."

The city always used to mean Manhattan to me. Now it means Cleveland, where Kris lives. To Gray, though, the city is Toledo, and it's not somewhere I want to be trying to drive through at nine in the morning. But he shows me his phone, and it's the recommended route. Even the I-90 is marked by patches of red disturbing the blue line of our journey.

"I'll get us there," he says. "This is just a Monday morning adventure."

"I've already got a Monday afternoon adventure waiting," I say. "I could've done without this."

Gray laughs. "The world's just testing you," he says. "This is a pop quiz in dealing with the unexpected. Step one: turn around and get on the 2. It's a mile behind us."

He seems to know exactly when to sympathize and when to distract. He doesn't engage in my panic when we both know it'll pass quicker if I can just get my head in the game, and with his expert map-reading and well-timed instruction, we sail onto the US-20 at ten after nine.

It's too late, but we couldn't have got here any faster.

"We're going to be late," I say when I glance at the time on the radio.

"We'll be fine."

"We're more than an hour away; we won't get to South Lakes until ten thirty, let alone class." I shoot him a look. "We're going to be very late."

"We're not going to class," he says, "so we're going to be early for our eleven thirty." He grins and shrugs. "No point walking in a half hour late, so let's just relax and enjoy this wonderful road."

Just like that, my panic flees. I feel a hundred pounds lighter and I unclench my hands from their unforgiving grip on the steering wheel. "Ok." I laugh. We haven't missed a class so far. I guess this is the best way to kick off our fourth week of college.

"Never played hooky before?" Gray asks, his arm hanging out of the window. My car's old – it was old when it was Mom's – and the windows roll down with the crank that jams against Gray's thigh.

"Not college hooky," I say.

"High school?"

"Quite a lot." It got hard to care about school when my grades were dropping whether I went or not, and I couldn't grasp the importance of trigonometric functions when I still didn't understand how my family had been torn in half.

I wanted to turn over a new leaf with college, but I'm not going to lose sleep over missing a class. We're definitely not the first. In just three weeks, classes that once had every seat taken are already losing students, at least twenty empty places dotted through the room.

"A woman after my own heart," Gray says. "And we're only missing classics. If anything, that traffic has significantly improved our day, and we get to check out my favourite road."

I roll down my window too, relishing in the warmth of the sun and the breeze that can't mess up my hair, secured in a couple of French braids Mom did for me. "What makes it your favourite?"

"Longest one in the country!" he says, with far more enthusiasm than I'd ever expect about roads, but I'm beginning to expect that from Gray. "It starts, like, right by the Pacific Ocean, in Oregon, and it ends in Boston." He draws a long line in the air, crossing an imaginary country. "Twelve states, more than three thousand miles."

"I guess that's pretty cool."

"We should drive it one day."

"If you ever get your license."

"I will. One day. And when I do, we're gonna fly to Oregon and rent a car, and we'll drive all the way to Massachusetts. Maybe we can take a couple of weeks this summer."

I'm not a hundred percent sure he's being serious but in the moment, the idea appeals to me. I've hardly seen my own country, a pathetic line that stretches from Queens to South Lakes, and Gray's the only person I reckon I could travel with without wanting to punch him.

"On a scale of one to fifteen, how cool would it be to do a cross-country trip?"

"Fifteen," I say. He looks surprised for a moment, quickly replaced by glee.

"What are the odds we can do it together?"

"One to one," I say. I'm not entirely sure how odds work and I've never betted in my life, but that seems like an affirmative.

"Awesome. We'll do it. We should probably do some practice trips first, though. I'll take you to Ann Arbor. Oh, and Chicago! And when we're feeling adventurous, we have to go to Nashville someday."

I grin at him. Gray has a skill for taking an idea and running wild with it, and for the next hour he talks about all the cities he wants to visit. He cycles through his encyclopedic knowledge of all the states I never thought I'd see, and he's just starting on Canada when I miraculously stumble upon a space in one of the student lots.

"So, basically, you want to see every inch of the country," I say. He gives me a dreamy look.

"That's exactly what I want."

• • •

I'm glad we missed classics. We might as well have missed the other two for all that I can concentrate as two o'clock looms. My notes are usually thorough but today they're patchy and hardly add to the slides. A bunch of students look panicked when the professor shows us the heavy book we have three days to read, but that's the least of my worries. I can read that in a few hours.

Before we reach Starbucks, Gray squeezes my arm and wishes me good luck, and once we've established that the date's still on, he joins the end of the line while I head over to Liam, who ties his hair in a quick bun and stands to greet me.

"Hey, Storie. You came." His smile is warm and there's a kind look in his eyes even when they gloss over my body. Paranoia tells me he's regretting his decision in the hard light of the coffee shop. I've exchanged the black bookstore uniform of our first meeting for my yellow dress. It fits well and I feel good in it, even if it draws attention to me.

"Hi, Liam." I don't go in for a hug. It's too soon for that.

"You look amazing," he says. "I love that colour. Bold."

I'm sure he means it in a good way but I'm instantly self-conscious and I want to bury the hands in the pockets Mom added. "Thanks. I like your hair like that," I add, anything to return the compliment and not look like a rude and floundering mess.

There's a moment of awkwardness, hardly more than a second or two, but it feels like forever before Liam says, "I'm gonna join the line. What d'you want?"

"I'll get it," I say, even though I get the feeling he has the kind of disposable income I've never seen. He laughs.

"No you won't. I asked you here; I'm getting drinks and cakes."

He asked me here. He didn't ask me out. I can't tell if I'm overanalyzing linguistics. Probably. Mom says I do that a lot. Gray's pointed it out a couple times as well, but he does it too. Dad once said that most people don't have the same appreciation for language as the two of us and I cling to that to stop myself from overthinking Liam's words.

The few minutes that he's gone after I stumble out my order are painfully long, to the point that it's a relief when he returns with two Frappuccinos and a couple of brownies. I always feel immature at coffee shops when I don't even like coffee and my order screams seventh grade, but Liam's order is nearly identical.

"I'm glad you came," he says, nudging the brownie towards me. "How was your weekend?"

"It was good. Pretty much just took advantage of the weather," I tell him, and I pray the entire date isn't going to be comprised of small talk, but I'm a terrible conversationalist. "Thanks for Friday."

He shrugs. "He was a jerk. I'm sorry."

"You don't need to be sorry. It wasn't you," I say.

He smiles and shrugs again. "No, but still."

"Well, thanks. You kinda saved me."

"He was being an asshole," Liam says. "It wasn't cool."

I can't argue with that, and my lack of words is evident when we fall quiet and I blurt the first thing that comes to mind, instantly blushing when I ask, "Why'd you ask me out?"

He grins. His eyes crinkle a bit. They're the most intoxicating shade of mossy green. "Because I wanted to see you again," he says. So simple. I shut out the part of my brain that says it can't be that simple. There's nothing much I can say that isn't self-deprecating, so I'm relieved when he continues.

"I wanted to give you a proper SoLa welcome," he says. "You're new here; this is my third year."

"You're a junior?"

"Yup." He nods. "Business major. Don't ask me what I want to do when I graduate – I've got no idea." He folds his arms on the table and smiles at me. "Your turn. I know you're a freshman from New York ... that's it."

"I took a year out after high school so I'm nineteen," I tell him. "I'm majoring in English lit, and I guess we're in the same boat," I say. "I don't know what I want to do."

"I don't think anyone does. They're all faking it."

"Fake it 'til you make it," I say, and he chuckles.

"Just about sums up college. So, what brings you to South Lakes?"

I could talk for an hour on that subject and I wouldn't be done, but I bite my tongue and remind myself that this guy doesn't know the first thing about me and this is no place to start. "My dad died; Mom wanted to move," I say. I can see that human curiosity on his face. He wants to ask how Dad died, or when. I pray he doesn't. I don't want to have to admit that I've got no idea.

"Damn. That's rough," he says. "I'm sorry. This must be a bit of a downgrade."

I smile. More honest than saying it's ok. "I'm getting used to it. I must've always had an inner country girl hiding away." I sip my drink, something to do with my hands.

"You'd need one. South Lakes is hardly exciting unless you like fields and a surprising lack of lakes."

I laugh at that. The town is halfway between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, but it has no lakes of its own, unless you count the large pond at the west end of campus.

"I actually do live by the lake," I tell him. "About ninety minutes away, by Lake Erie."

His eyebrows jump up. "Oh. Wow. You commute?"

"Yup. Ninety minutes, twice a day."

"Damn. Can't be much smaller than South Lakes, though."

I raise my eyebrows at him. This guy doesn't know small. "It's called Five Oaks," I say, "and it only has four oaks."

He's even more attractive when he laughs and my nerves loosen a bit.

"Damn," he says. "I though SoLa was a culture shock, coming here from Cincinnati. That's wild."

"I take it you live here?"

"Yup. In the frat house. Finally got a decent room this year after two years of slumming it in the cold-air," he says, and he lets out a half laugh at my expression of utter confusion. "It's like a giant, freezing dorm room with nothing but bunks. Twenty of us shared one but I'm in a proper room now, and down to one roommate."

"Wow. I thought the whole fraternity thing was about luxury. Aren't the houses huge? And expensive?"

"It's about brotherhood," he says. "Your frat is your family. I'd do anything for my brothers, even if that means freezing my ass off for two years to prove my worth. Brothers are for life."

It sounds a little cultish to me. I never had the slightest interest in joining a sorority. Even if it was affordable, I can't imagine any sororities would be interested in having me. From what I've seen, they seem to rank appearance pretty highly.

"I can't imagine sharing with one person, let alone nineteen," I say after a moment.

He laughs. "Yeah. It's an ... interesting experience."

He talks about frat life for a while. It's completely alien to me, and I'm intrigued as he talks about the initiations he went through, the parties they throw and the fines he's had to pay. Gray was right: he definitely has money.

"Talking of parties," he says, "we're throwing one on Friday. Celebrate beating the first month. You should come."

"I don't know..." I don't like parties. They're loud and messy and I never know enough people. I haven't been to one for a couple of years, when my sort-of-friend asked me to one and disappeared shortly after we arrived. I ended up wandering around for an hour before I caved and got Dad to come get me.

"It'll be fun," he says. "It's at the Theta Chi Theta house, and we're known for throwing good parties."

"I'm not much of a party person." Not only that, but it's a long way to come for a party I'll no doubt hate.

"You haven't been to the right party," he says with a wink. I don't know why he wants me to go so badly when he still only knows about seven facts about me.

"I don't know. I wouldn't be able to get back."

He shrugs. "Stay over. My roommate's gone for the weekend."

Alarm bells start ringing. Gray's words are blaring at me. He just wants to get into your pants. It seemed ridiculous when he said it, after a lifetime of guys avoiding what lies beneath my clothes, but now it sounds like and more like a possibility.

"No," I say. "I barely know you, Liam. And I'm my friend's ride on Friday, so I can't."

"She can come too."

"He."

He chuckles. "He can come too," he says. "A Theta Chi Theta party is an experience. It'll be fun – you can check out the house, get to know me, have a good time. You can crash in my room."

I finish off my brownie, thinking it over. He takes a bite of his, watching me think.

"You'll have a good time," he says, as though he knows me well enough to know that. I don't know myself well enough to be so certain. "If you don't, I'll make it up to you."

I'm not sure if that's sweet or ominous but I smile. His face is genuine and eager, though I don't know why, and it gives me just enough confidence to agree with him. My competing thoughts can't come to a decision so I have to step in and end the battle.

"Ok," I say, fiddling with the straw in my drink. I haven't given him a reason to want me there: I make a poor first impression. My second impression is hardly better – it takes time for me to get used to someone enough to let my guard down. His insistence makes no sense to me, but I don't want to push away the one guy who's ever shown the slightest bit of interest.

It gets easier to talk once I agree to the party and that topic can slide off the table. When I complain about classes, Liam sounds like Kris when he says class is only a small part of college. Apparently, the next four years of my life are designed to be prime networking time, with a bit of education.

My mind is put at ease when he talks about his life as a freshman. More parties than class, a general distrust of professors, and his fair share of late assignments, and yet he managed to hang onto the 3.0-average he needs so he won't get kicked out of Theta Chi Theta. I managed the same average when my life was falling apart. Maybe it won't be so hard.