The Scarlets by Madeleine Roux Page B

slumping down into his chair with a nonchalance he didn’t feel. He took a sip of his beer to cover up the sudden flush in his cheeks.
    Fallon turned to look out the window, the light coming in making her eyes even paler and more exotic. “Nobody told me,” she said. “I just crack a campus newspaper once in a while. He’s in like every other article, doing charity stuff, fund-raisers. Isn’t he helping some local politician’s big run?”
    “What are you, president of my dad’s fan club?” Cal sipped the beer, but it didn’t have the numbing effect he was hoping for. “You need a new hobby, my friend.”
    Fallon closed her book and leaned on it, flicking her pale eyes between Cal and the can of beer. “How the hell did you end up here?”
    About as quickly as he had lost interest in the assignment, he had also lost interest in the beer, and leaned back in the chair, fiddling with the chunky class ring on his left hand. “Here as in here?” he asked, pointing to his own chair. “Or here as in the college?”
    “Take your pick.”
    “Stanford didn’t want me. Princeton passed, too,” he said.
    “I can’t imagine why,” he thought he heard her mumble. More clearly, she said, “Daddy’s money and influence didn’t fix all that for you? I mean, you could be top dog on this campus, and it doesn’t really seem like you are.”
    Ouch. Cal caught her eye, staring until she looked guiltily away. What was up with this chick?
    “Well, to answer your question, I’m stuck here—at this college and in this chair—because dear old Dad’s the dean, as you seem so happy to remind me,” Cal replied with a withering sneer. “He only uses his money and influence to help himself, but because of him, I’m held to a higher standard.”
    “Are you kidding? I heard what happened in Professor Reyes’s class. Anyone else would’ve been on academic probation or kicked out for good. I’d say mandatory tutoring is pretty damn lenient,” Fallon said, and then in an undertone, “Pretty damn lucky.”
    What was he supposed to say to that? No? That he hadn’t been silver-spoon-fed since before he could remember? He pushed away from the desk and stood, wandering to the dorm room window that overlooked the quad. Fallon had managed to snag a single in Jeffreys, which, for a second-year, was about as likely as getting hit by a comet and lightning in the same day. Cal moved the cheap Ikea curtain out of his way, squinting through the painful flood of sunlight to see the students milling around between classes.
    Devon Kurtwilder and his buddies were having an impromptu lacrosse match on the grass outside Cal’s dorm, Brookline. The whole thing could’ve been torn straight out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, chiseled abs and criminally tousled hair included.
    If only he could get Devon as his tutor instead . . .
    Cal also saw his friends Micah and Lara sitting under a tree not far from the lacrosse game. One of Devon’s buddies passed a ball sharply to his teammate and it flew wide, nearly smacking Lara in her glossy dark head. Micah was instantly on his feet, all but beating on his chest Tarzan-style at the jocks. For a second, Cal thought the screaming match was going to escalate into a full-on fight. But then he saw his father striding up the concrete path that bisected the quad. Roger dodged onto the grass and came between Micah and the lacrosse players, saying something to Micah and waving around a manila file folder. Even after the players backed off and resumed their game, Roger kept waving the folder and barking at Cal’s friends. Whatever he was shouting about, it made Lara gather her things and leave in a hurry.
    Cal hoped this didn’t mean anything serious for Micah—he didn’t need to be getting in trouble. His roommate had had a rough life before college, but he worked really hard to be an upstanding student now. In fact, Micah had become the sort of model citizen at NHC that Cal had never managed to