Chapter 2

“Got a light?”

Beau fumbled in his pocket for the Bic and held it out without opening his eyes.

“Thanks, man,” J. Crew said. Of course it was. Beau started to get up. This was going to be awkward, and hopefully as short as possible.

“Keep it,” he said.

“Don’t let me chase you out of your perch, man,” J Crew said. He pulled an honest-to-God cigarette case out of his breast pocket. It was even engraved with flowery initials. Beau could barely make out a V and everything else was an incomprehensible scrawl. “Dunhill?”

Beau stared. “Really?” He’d never actually tasted one of the luxury cigarettes before; when smoke prices had risen to over five dollars a pack, he’d seriously cut back. Five a day, that was his limit. Frankly, it was all his budget could afford.

“I only smoke ‘em to piss off my grandparents,” J Crew admitted. “You looked like you were enjoying yours.”

Beau nodded, reluctant. “I keep meaning to quit, you know,” he said. He lit the Dunhill and pulled in a mouthful of the finest smoke known to man or gods.

“I hear ya,” said J. Crew.

“Good meeting, King!” A pair of girls danced out of the stairwell, one blonde and the other an Asian with hair a shade of impossible green, holding hands. They made for an odd couple, the blonde towering over her girlfriend by at least a foot and a half.

The shorter girl had the silhouette of a chess piece tattooed just under one eye. “We made the right decision, putting you in charge. No matter what Blake might have said.”

“Thank ya, thank ya verah much,” said J. Crew. “Elvis has left the building.” For some reason, this sent the girls into gales of shrieking laughter.

“No, really,” the blonde one said. “It was great. Thanks. I think you even got a smile out of Jody the grouch!” She punched J. Crew in the arm, grinning. J. Crew winced and rubbed at his arm.

“If you say ‘two for flinching’ Ann-Marie,” J. Crew said, holding up one finger in warning, “I will nominate you for the treasury position.”

“No, not that!” Ann-Marie snorted laughter. “Anything but that!”

“C’mon.” The petite Asian tugged at her girlfriend’s arm. “I’m starving!”

“For such a little person, you need an enormous amount of food. I told you to eat before the meeting,” Ann-Marie scolded, relenting to the yanking.

“Nag, nag, nag.”

Beau stared back at the sky, enjoying the smooth, British smoke. The girls’ voices vanished into the sultry evening.

“Well, that settles it,” J. Crew said. “You should have been at that meeting.”

Beau choked on a mouthful of smoke. “Damn, bro,” he said, “don’t make me waste it. What are you talking about?”

“Any straight guy on this campus would have asked them some stupid-ass question like, ‘Can I watch?’ or at least made some sexist, bullshit observation as they walked away, meaning for them to hear it. You didn’t even look at them.” J. Crew flicked his butt off into the bushes, earning a scowl from a passerby.

“So because I’m not an asshole, you assume I’m gay?” Beau wasn’t angry. He wanted to be angry. There should be some righteous indignation somewhere in his gut, but there wasn’t. Just a dull sense of shame and heat on his cheeks and throat.

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that straight guys are all assholes,” J. Crew snickered. “But they are all hardwired to be idiots about lesbians. My name’s Vin, by the way. I’m president of Rainbow Connections, but don’t let that worry you. I’m actually pretty much okay.”

“It’s a stupid name,” Beau said. The blush was fading slowly and he couldn’t seem to shift his gaze from the trees behind Vin’s head.

Vin shrugged one shoulder. “It’s an acceptable enough nickname, considering the alternatives. Not that I mind, really. But I do get tired of answering all the questions. And all the misspellings. And the people who think, no, really, I don’t know what my own name is, I must mean Vincent, right? We can just go with ‘my mom’s right mind was somewhere on vacation without her when she named me.’ Okay?”

“I actually meant the group,” Beau said. He forced himself to look at Vin’s face, then got distracted by the shape of his mouth. He had an engaging, open smile, full, sensual lips, and straight, white teeth. The double dimple on his left cheek lent him a look of impish mischief. It was the sort of smile that encouraged a man to smile back.