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kissed me on the cheek, her lips impossibly soft against a day’s worth of stubble.
    She pulled away before I could fully take stock of the astonishing sensation of those lips. “I gotta go. Lock the door behind you when you leave.” She grinned. “Hope your day is totally mint.”
    And then she was gone, the soft, baby-powder smell of her the only sign that she’d been there at all, leaving me blinking and looking up at a picture of Charles in Charge.
    Jenny
    Matthew shouldn’t have been surprised when, at one in the morning, he emerged from his dorm room to find me sitting on the floor in the hall outside of it. I had thought he was smarter than that.
    But no. He reared back, almost as if someone had hit him, and then he nearly tripped over me.
    â€œDid you really think I was going to let this whole ‘I’m the crusading social-justice graffiti-artist man-about-town’ thing go with no further discussion?” I asked as I scrambled to my feet. “I mean, just because I promised not to tell anyone about it doesn’t mean I don’t want to talk about it.”
    He rolled his eyes, pulled up his hood, and took off down the corridor.
    Whoa. I guess our little détente of yesterday evening had only been a temporary thing. Still, I was undeterred. “How come your roommate doesn’t get suspicious?”
    â€œI’m in a single,” he said, walking so fast I practically had to jog to keep pace with him.
    â€œWhat about the other guys on the hall?”
    â€œI’m kind of a loner.”
    â€œYou don’t say.”
    He was waiting for me at the door to the courtyard, holding it open for me. I shot him a grin as I sashayed through and pulled up my hood, trying to cover my surprise that not only was he letting me follow him, he was being kind of chivalrous about it.
    Again with the eye rolling. But he said, “At least you didn’t wear that horrible pink thing you can see from a mile away.”
    â€œGive me a little credit.” I didn’t bother telling him that I’d had to borrow the navy windbreaker I was wearing from Nessa, as it turned out I owned nothing suitable for skulking around alleys committing crimes. It was making me question whether I’d need to make some wardrobe changes before launching my investigative reporting career. I trotted after him as he turned from the block of dorms on to the campus proper. “So where are we going?”
    â€œRule number one: no talking.”
    â€œThat rule is not going to work for me.” I tried not to pant—he was still keeping up quite the pace.
    He stopped then, but I had too much momentum going, so I couldn’t keep from crashing into him. He growled. He actually growled . Then he turned and stooped so he could get right in my face. With his green eyes glowing in the streetlight and his head otherwise concealed by his hood, he looked like a supernatural creature. Or, you know, a petty criminal with really pretty eyes.
    â€œListen to me, Rainbow Brite. This is my show. If you’re coming with me, you’re playing by my rules. I’ve been doing this for three and a half years, and I haven’t gotten caught yet. I’m not about to start now because you can’t keep your goddamned mouth shut.”
    Well. Okay, that was fair, I guess. Honestly, I was surprised that he had accepted my presence at all. I’d been prepared to fight to get him to let me come. So I made a show of shutting my mouth and miming throwing away the key.
    It was hard, though. Oh, it was so hard! First of all, just walking in total silence for ten minutes. Who does that? All I could do was sneak glances at him as I loped to keep up with his long, determined strides. There was something about him tonight. An intensity. Well, there was always an intensity about Matthew, but it was even more in evidence as he led the way through the gates that marked the southern edge of campus.