Holbrook nods. “Pretty much. I’ll be here Tuesdays and Thursdays during the scheduled course time if you have questions or want to run something by me.”

I frown. Wait—we don’t actually have to come to class?

Normally this kind of freedom would be right up my alley, but I’ve kind of been counting on this course to keep me busy this summer. In previous summers I was able to stay on campus as long as I took a certain number of credits, but this year they’re repainting all the dorms, so on-campus housing isn’t available. Instead I’ll be subletting my cousin’s shoe-box-sized apartment in Queens, and I’m not sure she has Internet, much less air-conditioning. What am I going to do all summer?

Still … anything beats going home.

“Okay, unless there are more questions, I’ll connect you guys with your partners and you can be on your way.”

It takes my brain a second to absorb that.

Partners?

I am not a group project kind of girl.

“I had my four-year-old daughter draw names out of a cereal bowl last night, so this is as random as it gets,” Martin was saying, pulling a small notebook out of his bag. “Aaron Billings? You’re with Kaitlin Shirr. Michael Pelinski, you’re with Taylor McCaid …”

The list goes on, and Carrie looks at me, holding up crossed fingers.

Oh, please, God, let me be with Carrie. I can tolerate that. Mostly.

“Stephanie Kendrick …”

Oh, please, oh, please …

“… you’re with Ethan Price.”

My mind goes temporarily blank. Film students are a pretty tight-knit group, and I thought I knew everyone in the class.

Everyone except …

Oh, God.

Pretty Boy must have put the pieces together too, because I feel another sharp poke between my shoulder blades.

“You hear that, Goth? Partners!”

I close my eyes. This can’t be happening.

Instead of the carefree, find-myself summer I envisioned, I’ll be spending the next three months with my own life-sized Ken doll.

And that isn’t even the worst of it.

Chapter Two

Ethan

My new film class partner is hot in a scary kind of way.

Or maybe she’s just scary, but in a slightly hot way?

Either way, I’m not sure why I can’t stop looking at her. She’s not even close to my type. I prefer blondes, and the leggier the better.

This girl has dark hair—almost black, but not quite, and she can’t be more than five-two. And instead of wearing the flouncy sundresses and strappy sandals I’m used to girls wearing in the summer, she’s decked out in black cargo pants tucked into boots that belong on a Civil War battlefield.

And then there’s that skimpy little purple tank top. That tiny shirt is the only part of the outfit that I like.

This girl has got a fantastic rack for someone who’s so small.

Less appealing is the raccoon makeup thing. It’s like the intense black eye makeup is a big f**k you to summertime and happiness. Not to mention she’s bitchy as all hell.

Definitely not my type.

And now I’m stuck with her for the summer.

I guess it serves me right for being such a dick in the hallway when she obviously wanted to be left alone. Normally I would have just helped her pick up her crap and let her stomp away, but the way she so blatantly slapped a “prep school” label on me before I even opened my mouth pissed me off.

She was right, of course. I don’t fit in here. If I were to do some stereotyping of my own, the girls on this part of campus look like they spent most of their time sipping organic kale juice while discussing feminist literature. And most of the guys look like they’d know more about said feminist literature than the women.

Which is cool with me. To each his own, and all that.

I’m just more of the beer-and-football type while I’m at school. At home, it’s more chess and Scotch, but whatever. The point is, I saw at least five dudes in that classroom wearing nail polish. Nail polish.

I wouldn’t be caught dead in it.

So the weird girl is right. I don’t belong here, any more than she belongs at my Wall Street internship from last semester. But I’m not used to people actually saying these things out loud.

I resign myself to apologizing to the miniature goth monster. Maybe a peace offering will help us survive the summer working together. But she’s already out the door.

I catch up to her in a few strides, grabbing the top handle of her backpack. I’m tempted to lift her off her feet, simply because I know I can, but instead I yank just hard enough to let her know I’m there.

She glares up at me, and I’m startled for a second at the close-up view of her eyes. They’re wide and bright blue, and somehow totally incongruous with the rest of her personality. Frankly, I’m surprised she hasn’t gone for black-colored contacts just to stamp out all the color from her life.

“How was your first day of second grade?” I ask, falling into step beside her. “I mean, seriously, who wears a backpack anymore?”

“We can’t all afford Prada,” she says, shooting me another of those death glares.

“Oh, wow, reverse snobbery. So unexpected!”

I see her blink in surprise that I’ve called her out. Most people seem to find it socially acceptable to jeer at rich people. Maybe they confuse our dollar bills with a shield; I dunno.

She doesn’t respond, and I’m becoming all too aware that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with this irritable mess of a human being and am not at all looking forward to it.