A small, crooked smile was on his face, and he glanced down at my sodden belongings in the grass as if to say, I told you so. That smile would have been charming if he wasn’t such a jerk.
Who was I kidding? His smile was still charming and my traitorous body was getting tummy flutters from him staring at me.
“Aw, Rae, what happened?”
I looked up with a book half-way stuffed back into my useless bag. Inaya was jogging over the lawn toward me, her bright yellow raincoat a sharp contrast to the gloom. She made a sympathetic noise when she saw the state of me: trying to kneel in the grass without giving everyone a look up my skirt, the knees of my black leggings damp and muddy, glasses sliding down my nose.
“It’s the First Day Curse, I swear,” she said. “Things always go wrong.” She knelt beside me, making quick work of collecting my books as I snatched up the ruined papers. She helped me to my feet, and I did my best to tie the bag’s shoulder strap back together. “It’ll be smooth sailing from here, don’t even worry about it.”
I pouted up at her, but couldn’t keep up the expression and gave into laughter as she pulled me into a hug. I looped my arm through hers, walking with her across the quad.
“I see you’ve already met our lovely new security guard, Leon,” she said, giving a slight glance back.
“Oh, he’s a piece of work,” I grumbled, but I had more on my mind than just a disturbingly hot asshole. I gave her arm a playful slap. “Why didn’t you tell me there was a murder on campus, Inaya?”
She groaned, rolling her eyes. “Because most people would get freaked out and I didn’t want to make your move any harder, you weirdo!” She shook her head at me. “It was pretty grim, girl. I’ve never heard of anything like that happening here.”
We made our way toward a square of four stone benches sitting beneath some tall red alders. Several students were seated there, and Inaya waved to them excitedly as we approached.
“I finally get to introduce you to everyone!” she whispered excitedly as a tall, familiar man in a gray peacoat rose up from his seat on the bench and extended his arms.
“Miss Raelynn Lawson!” His big voice boomed, and he picked me up for a tight squeeze as Inaya laughed. “It’s been so long, I swear you’ve grown.”
“Oh, ha-ha, very funny!” I smiled as he set me down. Trent, Inaya’s fiancé, had graduated two years ago from Abelaum University and — from what Inaya had told me — was already doing well for himself at an investment firm in Seattle. “It’s the boots, I wore them specifically so I could reach your waistline.”
Trent chuckled and reached over to give Inaya a quick kiss on the forehead. Inaya motioned to the man and woman still seated beside us.
“Rae, this is Jeremiah and Victoria Hadleigh.” They were obviously twins. Light brown hair, dark blue eyes, pale skin and freckled noses. They looked like they would have been the popular ones in high school. Victoria’s hair was perfectly straight, her black nails long and coffin-shaped, her lips glossed pale nude. Her brother seemed like a jock: muscular, tall, square-jawed, with a cocky smile that managed not to come off as annoying.
“Their dad pretty much owns the school, so if you have any complaints, just go straight to them,” Inaya said, which got a groan out of Victoria, and a shake of the head from Jeremiah.
"No, no, no," Jeremiah said. "We don't own the school."
"Technically, Dad only owns three buildings," Victoria said, taking a drag from a slim silver vape she pulled from within her black raincoat. "And the only building that really matters is Hadleigh Library.” She motioned behind her, toward the large structure that occupied the entire east side of the quad. She gave me a wink. “If you have any book requests, you can totally bring that to us."
“That’s awesome, thank you!” I made a mental note of that, as having a library’s worth of knowledge at my fingertips was extremely helpful for investigations. Not everything could be found on the internet, especially when it came to particularly old or rare texts. The library was lined with trees, and a massive arch of stained-glass windows crowned its entrance. “It’s gorgeous.”
“Thanks.” Victoria shrugged, as if having your father’s library complimented was something she heard every day. “But enough about us. What about you, Miss California? What’s your sign, what do you like, what do you do?”
“Oh, uh, Sagittarius,” I cleared my throat, fiddling with the knot in my bag’s strap. “I’m a Radio-TV-Film major, I like photography, uh…”