Read Online Love Her Madly by M. Elizabeth Lee - Free Book Online Page B

meant we’d get to keep our coveted room the following year. I picked up two jobs: one part-time gig as a lifeguard at the pool and a waitress job a few nights a week at a seafood place. Max, Lila, and Tim went back to their hometowns, so things were pretty quiet.
    Cyn picked up additional shifts at the Treasure Chest, Ecstasy II’s sister property across town. Evidently, there was a limit to her marketability at E Two. She still had her regulars, a concept that I didn’t quite understand, but apparently many strip club patrons were novelty seekers, so it helped to split her appearances across a geographic expanse.
    She quit working at the Chest by the end of the summer. We had made a pact to do nothing but have fun the last week before classes started up, and part of the grand plan was to go clubbing in Miami. Lila booked a room at a posh beachfront hotel, which for us was a serious splurge.
    We dropped E and danced until sunrise. Max and Lila ended up making out on the beach, an occurrence both glaringly predictable and unnerving to behold. They’d always shared some psychosexual tension in a queasy brother/sister way, but now, in a cosmic hiccup, Lila was on the outs with her boyfriend. Max was more than solicitous of her tender feelings, and as angels wept with joy, a glorious friends-with-benefits situation was conceived.
    â€œIt’s like incest, that’s all I can say,” I growled, watching the palmetto scrub whiz by as we drove home the next day. I was in a rotten mood because of the E’s shitty chemical afterbirth, fatigue and jealousy. I wasn’t jealous because Max chose Lila; he was a veritable eunuch in my mind. I was jealous because I seemed permanently cast as “girl not being kissed on the beach.”
    Cyn, well aware of my mood, made vague conciliatory noisesbefore pointedly turning up the radio. I knew I’d been whining all summer about wanting a love affair, so I took the hint and spared her another onslaught. I closed my eyes and tried to picture the wonderful guy who I’d meet soon enough, when the new students rolled into town. There had to be someone. There just had to be.

CHAPTER FOUR
    The first day of classes was accompanied by a late-summer heat wave. By afternoon, the local power plant had suffered a transformer blowout, and the campus was without electricity. No one knew when it was coming back. Classes were canceled because the classrooms were insufferably hot, and students returned to find that their dorm room windows didn’t open and their mini fridges were leaking frozen goods all over the all-weather carpeting. I was carrying around a box of quickly liquefying Popsicles, looking to give them away, when I noticed Cyn advancing toward me with a huge smile on her face.
    â€œThis is ridiculous!” she shouted, circling her arms to indicate either the heat or the generalized mayhem that had ensnared the campus. She accepted a cherry Popsicle, and I selected grape before handing the box to a threesome of freshmen, who received the gift with hyperbolic delight.
    I followed Cyn to a shady courtyard near the cafeteria. There was a slight breeze, but it didn’t help much. I could feel individual streams of sweat running down my back, soaking the waistband of my shorts. We raced to finish our Popsicles, the icy sweetness streaking down our palms.
    â€œThere’s a seriously awesome new guy in my biochem class,” Cyn said, licking her stained fingertips.
    â€œOh yeah? How awesome is seriously awesome?”
    Cyn blushed, a rarity. “Hard to say. Physically, he’s some sort of ethnic cocktail, like Indian and something else, maybe white, maybe Latino. Tall, shiny Superman hair, fantastic smile. Think James Bond, but with a permanently deep tan.”
    â€œWow.”
    She nodded in agreement. “Yeah. Wow, indeed. We talked a little, and he seems super smart. And funny.”
    â€œSounds awesome-awesome.”
    â€œCould