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and settle down.
    Not caring that I was still half-wet, I pulled on jeans and my Gino’s polo, shoved my phone in my pocket, and flew out the door. I was halfway down the hall before I realized my keys were still on my desk. Fucking hell.
    A headache started behind my eyes. There was no one at the front desk—of course. Was this God punishing me? Whoa. Where did that come from? That sounded like something my mother would say. My mother. Holy shit. She was coming tonight, and I hadn’t done laundry. God knew what condition the bed was in—mine or Tanner’s.
    I pushed the door open, thankful for the smack of cold air on my wet hair to give me something else to think about for a second. My car was twenty yards away but totally useless without keys. The sound of the campus bus echoed in my head, and I saw it pulling up to the stop.
    “Wait! Hold the bus!”
    The driver closed the door and started to pull away as I barreled toward it, still yelling. “Stop!”
    Like some sort of miracle, the bus screeched to a halt, letting out a puff of exhaust that made me cough as I raced through it toward the now open door.
    “Thanks, man.”
    “Don’t thank me, thank her.” The driver pointed over his shoulder as he pulled away from the curb.
    I stumbled from the jerky movement and sat down before I fell over.
    Looking up, I saw who he’d pointed to. Wendy sat in the seat across from mine.
    “You’re lucky I saw you running.”
    “You asked him to stop?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Thanks.”
    Blonde curls bounced around her cheeks as she shook her head. “No worries. How come you’re taking the bus? Car broken?”
    “Locked my keys in my room.”
    “That sucks. Couldn’t the RA let you in?”
    “Didn’t have time. I’m late for work.”
    She took a pack of gum out of her purse and held it toward me. “You’re having a shit day.”
    I pulled a stick out, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. “Thanks.”
    She crumpled the wrapper from her piece, studying me. “You look different.”
    She narrowed her eyes. Holy fuck, can she tell? I looked down at my shirt, making sure I hadn’t thrown on one of the ones we’d used as a rag last night. No, clean. My ears felt like they were on fire.
    “It’s your hair,” she said. “I’ve never seen it wet. It looks so much darker.”
    I could have cried, I was so relieved. “Oh, yeah.”
    She ran her fingers through her curls. “That doesn’t happen as much with us bottle blondes. Your hair’s so light. You must have looked like an angel when you were little.”
    I sure as hell don’t feel like one now. “Hey, this is my stop. Thanks again for holding the bus.”
    She smiled and waved. She was so nice that I felt guilty for all the times I wished I’d never see her again. Tanner popped into my head as I jogged down the street toward Gino’s. Did he just leave to go to class? Or had he not wanted to be around when I woke up? I hadn’t seen a note. There was no message on my phone. Shit. I’m acting like a goddamn girl. He probably had shit to do. Unless he woke up with buyer’s regret. My stomach rolled over as I yanked open the back door of Gino’s.
    I grabbed the last apron on the rack and quickly tied it at my waist. The cheese bin at the prep counter was low, so I went straight to the walk-in fridge. There were only two bins left, which meant they’d already gone through three. They really were getting slammed. Gino’s gonna kill me.
    I strode up to the counter and dumped the remaining shredded cheese into the new container, then pushed it back into place. Gino glared at me as he ladled deep-red sauce onto a circle of pizza dough. I watched as the bottom of the ladle made concentric spirals across the pale dough.
    “You want to tell me what was more important than your job?”
    “I’m sorry, Gino. My alarm didn’t go off.”
    “You need an alarm to get up and be here for 11:00 a.m.? What the fuck were you doing last night that made you so tired at 11:00