It took me a moment to recover from Bodie's words, and to remember that I was standing on stage in front of almost a hundred people with what had to be a very shell-shocked expression on my face.

I snapped my mouth shut and scanned the crowd for Andre.

He was sitting three rows from the back and two chairs in from the aisle, where he'd saved me a seat with his backpack. His hair was easy to spot—tall on top, fade on the sides, with twin racing stripes buzzed over each of his ears. It helped, of course, that he was six foot four and wearing the same black Nike jacket as all the other football players.

He watched me with one eyebrow raised as I hurried up the aisle and drop into the seat beside him, sighing in relief.

"The fuck did you do?" he whisper-hissed, "Swim here?"

"Funny," I grumbled, shaking a little as I tugged my backpack off.

Andre must've notice I was flustered, because he shut up and let me unpack. I slapped the loose pages of my article onto the uselessly small swerving desk built into my chair and sat back.

"Thought that was due today," Andre commented.

"I'm going to the student union after this," I explained, tucking my hair behind my ears for what felt like the millionth time and remembering, belatedly, that I'd left the apartment that morning with a full face of make up on. My foundation was probably dripping down my neck. "Printing in Buchanan was a nightmare."

"You should hit up the architecture library," Andre told me. "They got new printers this summer. Nice ones. I'll swipe you in."

I murmured my thanks.

On stage, Nick was connecting his laptop to the projectors.

Three rows down, Bodie squeezed past people's knees to get to a clump of football players sitting together.

"What's up, jerk-off?" one greeted affectionately.

"Holy shit," said Kyle Fogarty, the senior tight end. "Coach shakes down the professor to get you into the class, and then you show up late? What a fucking power move."

I'm not sure why the knowledge that Vaughn had gotten Bodie a spot in a class with a full roster came as such a surprise. A football player getting preferential treatment at Garland was far from a novelty.

While the Daily had to print in black and white because the university "couldn't find it in the budget" to give us color printing, the football team got free soft-serve ice cream and massages at their brand-new training facility. Every fall, the town of Garland rejoiced in the almighty glory of collegiate football and worshipped the players like they were deities with matching Nike sweatshirts and mediocre GPAs.

In short, Garland kissed the football team's collective ass.

Bodie grimaced, so quick I could've blinked and miss it.

"Wasn't on purpose," he said. "Coach asked me to grab breakfast with him this morning. We had to talk strategy for next weekend."

The rest of the players welcomed him with a ritualistic series of handshakes and pats on the back.

I watched them with detached fascination, wincing when Scott Quinton—the offensive tackle with the neck of a sea lion—clapped Bodie on the shoulder so hard I felt a phantom twinge in my own arm.

"Boys are so dumb," I murmured. "Doesn't that hurt?"

Andre glanced up from his laptop and gave me a withering look.

"You and Hanna tweeze each other's eyebrows," he said.

"Fair," I conceded, then frowned. "Shouldn't you be down there?"

Andre shrugged self-consciously.

"Nah," he said, even though I could tell it had something to do with the fact the he was second string and the guys sitting up in front of us were starters. "You're way better company. Plus, I need your advice. Which font looks better?"

He tipped his laptop screen so I could see what he was working on—something bright and geometric and beautiful, like all the graphic art he made, with the words Garland Black Student Union across the top.

"Second one," I said after he clicked between a few options.

"Futura," Andre hummed thoughtfully. "Keeping it classic. I like it."

I wasn't sure how Andre ever found time to sleep.

He always seemed to be bouncing between places—the studio, football practice, BSU meetings—and would show up at the apartment Hanna and I shared at odd hours of the day to riffle through our kitchen, eating handfuls of breakfast cereal and pistachios until Hanna's oldest sibling of five instinct finally took over and she cooked him something more substantial.

I'd call him a moocher, but that didn't seem fair. He just needed to consume more calories a day than I did in a week (which was why I really needed to stop going taco for taco with him at Pepito's).

I turned my attention back to the display of camaraderie.

Fogarty and his blonde faux-hawk—which he'd undoubtedly dye green again next weekend, as he did for every opening home game—were so loud. The other boys fed off of his rowdy energy, laughing and shouting to be heard over each other, until half the room was chuckling along with their jokes and insults.

And then Bodie tapped the shoulder of the guy beside him and pressed one finger to his lips, smiling in a way that was too friendly to be authoritative.

The whole group quieted instantly.

"How's St. James looking?" Andre whispered.

I shot him a glare.

(I hated that my cheeks got warm.)

"I'm not—" I began, then huffed. "I'm just thinking. Do you know what he's like? Have you ever spoken to him?" I asked, trying to sound casual as I wrote my name and the date on top of a blank sheet in my notebook.

It wasn't that I liked Bodie now, because I didn't.

Just because a conventionally attractive white boy with a pretty smile and the body of an Olympian had been nice to me didn't mean I had to spontaneously develop an infatuation.

Besides, if I was being honest with myself, I wasn't entirely convinced that Bodie had been nice to me out of he goodness of his heart.

I had a different theory.

Here was my thesis statement: Bodie St. James had an insatiable need to be liked—by his teammates, by his professors, even by the dripping wet girl in the elevator who couldn't hold a conversation to save her life.

He'd wanted me to like him.

Why else would someone go out of their way like that than to feed their own ego?

And if what Kyle Fogarty had said was true—if Coach Vaughn had reached out to Nick to secure a spot for Bodie in one of the most popular classes at Garland—then that was a gross misconduct I couldn't forgive. The cherry on top of a pile of privilege.

So, no. I didn't have a crush on Bodie St. James.

I just thought he was fun to look at.

"I mean, we've talked once or twice," Andre said, shrugging. "Seems like a nice guy. Everyone on the team likes him—I hear he doesn't talk shit, though, and I don't know if I trust a guy who doesn't say a bad word about anyone. He's gotta be keeping some shit bottled up, right?"

"Right," I murmured.

I was staring at the curve of Bodie's jaw, thinking that he must've shaved that morning because the skin there was clean and smooth, when the words Unit One: Evolution and Sexual Anatomy suddenly appeared on the dual projector screens, bright red and menacing.

The lecture hall erupted with snickers and nervous laughter.

Nick, bless his heart, hadn't seemed to realize just yet that the class was full of student athletes who were more interested in the prospect of watching adult films than in learning about the sociology of fetishes and romantic attraction.

He dove into his lecture without flinching.

I sighed and tried to forget about the crumpled, slightly damp article on my desk.

❖ ❖ ❖

I turned 23 on Monday, got my driver's license on the first try today (to the shock and surprise of everyone in my family) and I'm about 2k words from finishing Float.

Your friendly author,

Kate