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thought he’d major in or do for a living, just that owning his own graphic
design business was not it. Did Trent know about this?
    “That sounds really interesting,” I
said.
    “Don’t get me started, or I’ll talk your
ear off.” He gave me a self-deprecating smile.
    “You’d have to start from the beginning,
because I don’t know anything about either graphic design or business.”
    “What do you plan to do with that French
degree?”
    “I have no idea.”
    He grinned at me. “Good plan.”
    “I like to think so.”
    I shouldn’t be sitting here with him. My
stomach was full of hysterically panicking butterflies, and the rest of me
ached in weird places. Intimate places. He made me feel things that, honestly,
I’d never felt for any guy before. Not even Trent. I’d never had such a
powerful reaction to anyone else.
    His hand moved a few inches toward mine
where it rested on the table. Was he going to touch me? I wanted him to, and I
felt bad for wanting it. This was not me. I’d never cheated on any of the guys
I’d dated. I was a committed serial monogamist.
    Max’s hand stopped, then retreated back
into his own space. I lifted my coffee to my lips, pretending I hadn’t seen.
Maybe I’d imagined him reaching out to me. Part of me hoped I had and the rest
of me wished he’d kept going so I could feel his skin against mine again.
    I glanced up, trying to ease the sudden
tension, and saw Paige coming toward us, looking like an Asian-American fashion
model, as always, with her long, slender legs and ultra-chic dress. She had a
big smile on her face and I wasn’t sure what that meant. She wasn’t the most
discreet person in the world, and now that she’d seen me with Max, the news
would probably be all over our sorority house by this evening.
    “Paige, this is Max, Trent’s
stepbrother,” I said by way of greeting.
    Her dark, almond eyes widened. “Trent’s
stepbrother? Wow. I didn’t know he had any brothers at all.”
    “Max, this is my best friend, Paige Lin.”
    He offered her a hand. “Nice to meet
you.”
    “And you.” She shook hands with him.
    I watched her closely, to see if she had
any kind of unusual reaction I could detect. As far as I could tell, he didn’t
affect her at all. Not the way he did me, at any rate.
    Paige dragged an extra chair to the
table. “Did Trent introduce you two?”
    “Not exactly,” I said.
    Max just smiled blandly.
    “Well.” Paige looked from me to him and
back again. “I’m just...really surprised.”
    This was going to get icky fast unless I
changed the subject. Paige could be obnoxiously inquisitive and she didn’t care
who knew. She wouldn’t hesitate trying to pry Max’s family history out of him.
    “Max is a business major,” I said in my
perkiest tone. “He owns his own graphic design business.”
    Her eyes widened even more. “Do you? I’m
a design major myself.”
    Oh, boy, here we go. I’d made a bad
choice of subject change. They’d be off in design land now, talking in their
special language no-one else could understand. I got this from Paige all the
time.
    But Max only said, “do you two share an
apartment?” Apparently, I wasn’t the only one looking for another topic.
    “I live in the sorority house,” Paige
said. “And Caroline, for reasons no-one understands, still lives in the dorms.”
    I rolled my eyes. “I like the dorms.”
    “No-one actually likes the dorms,
Caroline,” she said. “You’ve been brainwashed or something.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Hey, dorms can have some advantages,”
Max said.
    “Oh, yeah?” Paige turned to him
skeptically. “Like what?”
    “Uh...hmmm...she’s very close to all her
classes,” he said. “That’s convenient. And the library, also convenient.”
    Paige just looked at him, her face
blank, as if he were speaking in a foreign language. “She’s away from all the
action.”
    “I never miss a party at the library,” I
said.
    She snickered and after a