Read One & Only (Canton) for Free Online Page A

the guy that the virgin I’d lost my own virginity to had made me come more.
    After that, the whole enterprise seemed to be more trouble than it was worth. I’d even wondered if that thing with Dylan was sort of a fluke—exciting because it was new and naughty and forbidden by the rules of the summer camp. Maybe it was genetic that I only liked sex if it was somehow wrong. After all, that was how I’d been conceived.
    I highlighted all the emails from Dylan, and my finger hovered over the delete button. I really should’ve gotten rid of them. Emails about a two-year-old project cluttering up my account, emails about a two-year-old fling that the other party had just this evening told me he’d gotten over in a week? What purpose did they serve?
    But I didn’t. Curse you, unlimited storage space. You indulge me in all my worst habits.
    ***
    After my first day of classes, I was coming down the wide steps in the bioengineering building’s center atrium when I caught sight of Dylan passing by at the bottom of the staircase. My steps faltered as he looked up, those blue eyes shining out of his tanned face like beacons.
    “There she is.” His smile hadn’t changed as much as the rest of him. Last night, reading his old emails, I’d almost convinced myself he was still eighteen, with floppy hair and too-short pants. They were gone now, like his glasses. I missed those glasses—without them, there was nothing protecting me from the power of those baby blues. But as for the rest…I couldn’t complain. The cuteness evident in the teenager had morphed into full-blown hot. No, handsome . Handsome was safe. Objective. Hot meant I cared.
    “Hi,” I said as casually as I could, coming down the last few steps to meet him on the tiled atrium floor.
    He shifted his laptop from hand to hand. “How have your classes been?”
    “Good,” I said. “Nothing too early, which I appreciate.”
    “Lucky you.” He fell into step beside me as I headed for the door. “I have one at eight fifteen this term. Do you have your schedule on you?”
    I pulled it up on my phone and handed it to him. He perused the list.
    “Ah, Haverford. You’ll like him. Really no-nonsense. Try not to get the redhead TA for your section, though. He doesn’t like chicks.”
    “‘Chicks’?” I pursed my lips.
    “That’s what he calls you, and believe me, it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Dylan said, still looking over my schedule. “We have Transport Process Design together. People are going to be jealous you got in. Didn’t you lose a semester transferring in?”
    How did he know that? “I got a few strings pulled.”
    He cast me a glance over the top of my phone. “More than a few, I’d say.” He pushed the door open for me, which only gave me a second’s pause. “Org 3, Stats…too bad you didn’t get into Tissue Comp with me.”
    “I need a few more prereqs.” We hit the sunny part of the pavement. “Part of the reason I transferred is because I could never get a full course-load at State.”
    Dylan handed back my phone. “Then it sounds like you made the right choice, coming here.”
    There was something odd in his tone, and the silence that fell in between us was even weirder. “Any other tips?” I forced myself to say.
    “Um, don’t bother with the red book in Stats, make sure you sign up for the early lab in Org 3, and if you make friends with Dr. Chen, he’ll let you into the Photonics lab after hours.”
    “Great,” I said with false cheerfulness. “Thanks.”
    “No problem.” He shrugged. A shiny silver BMW pulled up to the curb. “Ah, my ride.”
    As he opened the passenger door, I caught a glimpse of blonde hair and heard a female voice say, “Hey, honey.”
    “Hey—oh, this is Tess McMann. She’s new to Canton.”
    The girl leaned across the seat to smile up at me. Our identical eyes met and I reeled back, my entire body going cold despite the late summer sunlight.
    From somewhere very far away, I heard