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“You don’t have to lie to me, I know I’m fat.”

  Darren reached out and grabbed her arm above the elbow. Not hard, but firm enough to let her know he was trying to comfort her. “There’s just some things that should be left for private. I don’t want to share you-any part of you-that I don’t have to.”

  Rachel sighed. “I know, I wasn’t going to let anyone see,” she said. “I just thought you would have enjoyed the quick thrill.”

  “I did, but let’s just save it for the room.”

  “You’ve never been one for PDA.”

  Darren clenched his jaw. He sensed another argument growing. It might be best just to be quiet and let it die-if she’ll let it.

  “But that’s okay,” she said. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

  Rachel reached the fifth floor, her chest heaving as she pulled the door open. Darren followed her in, trying not to show his own exertion. Darren gave a polite hello to the Irish guy living next door to him, and unlocked his door, holding it open for Rachel.

  Rachel stepped inside, slid her backpack off, dropping it onto the top of Darren’s desk before setting herself on the corner of his bed, looking out the window. Darren set his backpack on his chair and went to Rachel’s side.

  Now was the awkward part. They came up to his room for a specific reason, but Darren was never comfortable initiating the process. He never knew how to start, or what she liked. He felt silly at first, until the mood stabilized.

  But Rachel knew he was reluctant.

  She stood, looked down the walkway between the dormitories below, and then turned to Darren. She wouldn’t look him in the eye as she put her arms around him, and kept her eyes closed as she reached for the first kiss.

  The kiss was bland, but Darren kept their lips locked as he let his hands float to her body. She reached her dry hands beneath his shirt, and he did the same. She lifted his shirt, and he did the same.

  They released each other’s lips as Darren pulled his shirt off, but Rachel still wouldn’t look up into his face, she stared at his chest-through his chest-seeming to be in a daze, her mind off somewhere else.

  Darren tossed his shirt on the floor and worked at lifting Rachel’s over her head. She helped him, and once it was off, she moved back in and locked her lips to his. Their lips danced through the repetitive motion and Darren used both hands to unclasp her bra. She let it slide onto the floor, and then stepped into him, pushing her breasts into him.

  Darren didn’t waste a second going for her zipper, he was afraid that if he lost what momentum he had, the awkwardness would return harder. Right now he was just following along the same flight plan they had taken numerous times before, and he didn’t have to think to continue on course.

  Rachel wiggled out of her pants and then worked on unfastening Darren’s, leaving their lips attached the entire time. When she got his pants lowered, she took him in her hand until it became hard, then she sat down on the bed.

  Darren looked down at his naked girlfriend, feeling a tightness grow in his chest. Beneath the subtle roll of tanless skin around her waist, a hand’s width away from where her legs met was a small mark at the crease of the joint.

  Darren went limp and he looked at the red spot. “What is that?” he asked.

  Rachel frowned. She looked at Darren for once. “What is what?”

  Darren pointed to her groin. “If I didn’t know any better,” he said, “I’d say that was a hickey.”

  Rachel leaned forward, trying to look between her legs.

  It was difficult to be certain in the light coming off the window behind Rachel, but it appeared that her face was turning red.

  Rachel ran her finger over the spot. “That?”

  Darren said nothing. He wouldn’t have been able to even if he wanted to. There was no way that his own girlfriend could have gotten a hickey down there. She would never cheat on him, it wasn’t possible, and he sure didn’t do that. She wasn’t the cheating type.

  Yet, there it was. Plain as day. He’s seen a hickey before, and that was exactly what it looked like.

  Darren’s stomach twisted inside of him, trying to climb into his rib cage high enough to engulf his heart. Parts of his body that never sweated before began to swell with droplets of water, seeming to centralize around his armpits. His mind threw images of Rachel riding on top of an unseen guy, rolling her head in ecstasy as she screwed her brains out with another guy.

  Please don’t let it be true.

  “I did that on Monday,” Rachel said. “Walked into the corner of a table. Wasn’t looking where I was walking.”

  Nor was she looking at Darren when she spoke.

  “Hurt whenever I tried to cross my legs yesterday, but it’s been fine today. Forgot about it.”

  Darren swallowed, staring at the mark, trying to decide if her story was believable or not. It made sense, but something nagging at the back of his head told him not to trust her excuse.

  Before Darren could make up his mind, Rachel slipped off the bed to the floor in front of Darren, crawling on her knees toward him, her breasts swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a clock. She took him in her hand and pulled him closer, running her tongue along the head of his penis.

  She wasn’t helping him to think.

  Rachel opened her mouth and took his limp penis into her. The warmth around him was enough to cause it to harden and thoughts of the mark on her crotch began to vanish.

  He wanted to believe her and her story was viable. She really wasn’t the type to cheat on him, and she never acted like she was sneaking around. Darren always knew where she was, whether he wanted to or not.

  A sense of guilt washed over him. He never should have thought it was possible for her to be unfaithful. She loved him, and he loved her. They meant more than the world to each other for the last three years, and he never should have let his mind go on that train of thought.

  But he couldn’t shake the idea, no matter how hard he tried.

  Chapter 8

  Darren dropped Rachel back off outside of her dorm after they left the dining hall together, and after a quick kiss of departure, Darren made his way back to his own room. He had to turn the lights on now that the sun was teasing the edge of the horizon, and pulled closed the cracked open window before the air began to cool down.

  The room carried the pungent smell of sweat and bodily fluids, but they would dissipate by the time Jack got back from work. A wet spot darkened the center of Darren’s blue sheets, but Darren picked the covers up off the floor and threw them on top of the damp area anyways. The air was dry enough that it should dry by the time he went to bed. And bed was going to come early tonight, after last night’s long adventure.

  Darren wished he knew what happened to Troy after he left the library. He also wondered what Troy found down the tunnels, but he doubted it was anything more than a maintenance tunnel of some sort. He didn’t care about Troy as a person-the guy had no respect for Darren, so why should Darren give him any?-but Darren still wanted to know what happened when he got caught.

  If Troy was being expelled or suspended, he would have to go back to his room to pack himself up. He would have told his roommate what was going on, wouldn’t he? Darren had no idea who Troy’s roommate was, or even what building he lived in, but it was an easy thing to figure out.

  Darren turned on his computer, settled himself into his desk, and logged onto the school’s network. He browsed through the layers of school information until he came upon the student directory.

  Troy Rankin. Northeast Dormitory. Room 422. Phone Extension 3422. Still in the directory for now.

  Darren left his computer on but flicked off the monitor before lifting the receiver of the campus phone line installed into each room. He could call across campus or across town at no cost, but any long distance calls had to be made by prepaid phone cards or collect. Darren’s mom supplied him with a lifetime supply of phone cards when he arrived at school, but Darren hasn’t even used up a single one yet.


  Darren dialed the phone number for Troy’s room. His chair squealed in protest as Darren leaned back on it, but the frame supported his weight without trouble as he waited for someone to answer.

  “Hello?” A voice said through the phone. There was a loud humming coming through the line, reminiscent of a vacuum, but more monotonous.

  “Is this the room Troy Rankin lives in?” Darren asked.

  “Lived.”

  “He’s not in the room anymore?”

  “Nope,” the guy on the other side of the phone said. “And I don’t know where he is now either. Who is this?”

  Darren flipped the monitor back on while the guy talked and used the directory to find out what Troy’s ex-roommate’s name was William Harper.

  “My name is Darren.” He skipped his last name. “Do you know what happened to him?”

  “Nope. Heard rumors that he dropped out, but that doesn’t seem right to me. Doesn’t make sense.”

  It didn’t to Darren either. “Did he talk to you last night? Say anything about something he found?”

  “Last night?” Harper said. “He never came back last night.”

  “He didn’t?”

  “I haven’t seen him since around five yesterday.”

  The idiot did get caught in the hatch. Campus police must have hauled him off right then and there. “Is his stuff still there?”

  “Nope.”

  “He came back to pack out though?”

  “Not from what I’ve heard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was at a class, came back, and all his stuff was gone.”

  “Did he talk to anyone else when he packed up?”

  “Word is that he wasn’t the one who packed his stuff up.”

  “Who did? The police?”

  “Police? Why would the police do it?”

  “I don’t know,” Darren said. “I just thought he got in trouble.”

  “Trouble for what?” Harper asked. “How did you know him anyways?”

  “We were working on a history paper together.”

  “You seem to know something about what happened to him.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Sure. Why were you asking me if he told me about something he found?”

  Darren hesitated. “I forgot something in the library, thought he might have seen it because I couldn’t find it.”

  “Yeah, sure. Couldn’t tell you.”

  “Who did pack him up?”

  “That blonde dweeb across the hall said it was one of the math professors.”

  “A professor?”

  “More believable than your story.”

  “Why would a professor do it?”

  “No idea. They did it while I was at class,” Harper said. “Came back and half the room was cleared out. I haven’t heard a thing, and to be frank, I’m glad. The guy was an ass.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Darren said. “But it doesn’t make any sense as to why a professor would pack him up.”

  “Sure doesn’t.”

  “You don’t know which professor it was?”

  “Some math one. Statistics I think he said.”

  “Professor Coleman?” Darren asked in shock.

  “Don’t know, don’t care. I took algebra because they made me, and that’s it for me.”

  “None of this makes any sense.”

  “Nope. Nor does it make sense as to why you’re interrogating me.”

  “Just wondering what happened to him.”

  “You have more than a simple curiosity.”

  “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Thanks.”

  The line clicked and went dead. Darren put the phone back onto the receiver and looked across the room toward Jack’s stuff.

  Why would Jack’s dad pack up another student’s belongings? It didn’t make any sense as to why a professor would even step into a dorm. He did arrive late to class, saying he had an impromptu meeting, but packing up a student isn’t what Darren would call a meeting.

  Why wouldn’t they just have the RA pack Troy up? Or the guy who managed the dorms? Or even the campus police? There was no reason to send a statistics professor to do it.

  And Jack’s dad out of all possibilities.

  Darren had never talked to Professor Coleman on a personal nature before, but maybe it was time to introduce himself. He seemed like a good man, he might tell Darren what happened if Jack backed him up. Or better yet, why not just get Jack to ask his dad? Professor Coleman would tell his son everything that Jack wanted to know.

  Could the professor even know where the tunnel led to, or what it was used for? The man had been working here for twenty-odd years, Jack had said, so it made sense that after that much time he would have some knowledge about the campus.

  But that meant Darren would have to explain everything to Jack then.

  Jack would keep it all to himself. At least Darren thought he’d be able to if Darren explained his desire for secrecy to Jack first. Darren didn’t want anyone to find out about the hatch if they didn’t have to, and even if they had to, he still didn’t want them to know anything more than they had to know. But he could trust Jack, he knew he could.

  Darren glanced at the clock, still an hour until Jack should be getting off of work, and then another half hour for him to get back to the room. Darren wanted to go to bed early tonight, but it wouldn’t take long to explain the little bit that Darren knew to his roommate. That way Jack could talk to his dad in the morning, and have answers for Darren when he got back from gym class.

  The sooner the better.

  Darren dug open his backpack and started on his homework as he waited for Jack to return from work. His mind wouldn’t stay concentrated at first. It kept wandering back to thoughts of Troy and the hatch, but after awhile he was able to keep his mind focused.

  Until the door opened.

  Jack stepped inside and tossed his wallet onto the desk with a sigh.

  “Rough day?” Darren asked.

  “To put it simply,” Jack said. “It must have been I-didn’t-order-that-Wednesday or something.”

  “That bad?”

  “I swear, only one person actually wanted what they ordered. Everyone else thought a Reuben sandwich had a burger patty or chicken on it. Know what? They don’t. Never have, never will.”

  Darren gave a polite laugh.

  Jack collapsed behind his desk. “Just order what you want, or don’t eat anything,” he said. “Thank God today was my early day. By the time they close at eleven, I’m sure the drunks will have had their go around, and they’re always the worst.”

  “I thought they didn’t serve alcohol at the Midtown Cafe?”

  “They don’t,” Jack said. “But it doesn’t help with a half dozen bars down the block.”

  “Suppose not.”

  Jack rubbed his eyes. The skin around them was red from the force he used. “I need to get to bed early tonight.”

  “You and me both.”

  Jack stood up from his chair, groaning as he straightened his back. “It’s hell working on your feet.”

  “Before you head to bed, do you think I could ask you a small favor?”

  “Sure,” he said. He frowned. “Should I sit back down for this?”

  “You may want to.”

  Jack groaned again and lowered himself into his chair. “Shoot.”

  Darren felt a shiver pass through him. “I have to explain the whole thing before I can ask the favor.”

  “Okay.”

  Darren let out a sigh and wiped his hands on his pants. “Please keep this all to yourself. Don't tell anyone this.”

  “Okay.”

  “I mean it, not a soul.”

  “Got it.”

  “Last night, Troy and I were in the library.”

  “Researching for your paper.”

  Darren nodded. “But we never got that far.”

  “This isn’t
going to turn gay on me, is it?”

  “What?” Darren said.

  Jack held up his palms between them, trying to lean back into his chair further.

  “No,” Darren said. He shook his head. “When Troy and I were looking for books, I tripped over the edge of what turned out to be a hatch beneath one of the bookcases.”

  “A hatch?”

  “A big metal door on the floor. We opened it, finding a tunnel then led north and south from below the library.”

  Confusion spread across Jack’s face. “Where did the tunnel go?”

  “I don’t know,” Darren said. “I didn’t get to find out. Troy jumped in and wandered down the tunnel.”

  “Didn’t he tell you what was down there?”

  “I tried to keep him from even going down there, but he insisted,” Darren said. “After he wandered off down the tunnel, they closed the library. I left.”

  “You left him down there?”

  “After the whole ‘kill all the Arabs’ thing, yeah. Figured I’d let him fend for himself.”

  “He never told you anything?”

  “Never saw him again. That was when I came back to the room last night. I stopped by the library before math class to see that he made it out alright, that he wasn’t hurt, but the hatch had been closed up and covered, even vacuumed around it.”

  “So he at least made it out in one piece.”

  “Well, his backpack was still laid out on the tables though. He must have been dragged out to have left his ID card in it.”

  “Police got him?”

  “That was my guess.”

  “I heard Ms. Hammil say he wasn’t going to be coming to class again, so he must have gotten himself in quite a bit of trouble.”

  “I tried to find out what exactly happened to him, but no one knows much.”

  Jack shifted in his seat. “But what does that have to do with asking me a favor?”

  “About an hour ago I called Troy’s roommate to see if he knew anything about what happened to Troy after I left the library.”

  “Did he?”

  “He never saw Troy last night or today,” Darren said. “But while he was at his morning class, someone packed up all of Troy’s belongings and moved him out.”

  “Who packed him up? It wasn’t Troy?”