Chapter 16

Larissa

"They were talking about some football players until after midnight!"

Julie had to smile as Grace told us about her first night with the three other girls. Admittedly, it was entertaining. And I didn't envy her sleeping space one bit. But she had chosen it just to avoid being in the same room with Emely. However, Emely had already left when I was the second one to wake up this morning to take a quick shower. Unfortunately, the bathroom had already been occupied, and I had no desire for any discussions in the morning. Especially not with people like Vivienna, Amber and Kelly.

Finally, I had nothing better to do than get upset about the house's architecture. A single bathroom... Seriously? What were people thinking here anyway? Eight girls and one bathroom.

The architect had definitely been a man.

"And you don't want to switch with Emely?" Bay asked.

"Even if I wanted to, she wouldn't. Who would willingly sleep with those chicks?"

I understood Grace's anger.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a glance upward told me the sky was still covered with dangerous cloud towers that seemed to be putting up as much of a fight as all the girls on campus. Wind rustled the crowns of the leafy trees around us, and a girl in front of us had her dark green Vanderwood baseball cap blown off.

"This weather would make me depressed in the long run," I sighed, missing the hot Californian sun on my skin.

"It's normal for the time of year in Blairville," Grace commented, and I suppressed a frustrated sigh.

We stepped through a long archway that looked more like a small portico, connecting the adjoining forest section we had just had to walk through to the busy campus lawn.

Above us, vines of white lily blossoms grew, twining around the gothic columns, creating a romantic backdrop. In addition, the sun's rays made the blossoms glow even more.

It was a miracle that the sun had not yet completely disappeared behind these monster clouds.

I stopped, raised my camera, and looked through the lens. It looked so good, almost enchanted. Especially with the stone serpent on the column with more petals nestled against it.

I quickly took a photo and hurried to catch up to the other girls, who by now had already arrived on the main campus and settled down by a wall with a cozy seating niche.

I took a seat next to Grace.

"Such morons," Grace sighed, and we all looked at the muscle-bound guys under the big oak tree, all of whom, it should be noted, were shirtless. Two of them were arm wrestling, with the other quite attractive guys standing around them cheering the name Nash .

"Who's Nash?", I asked, hoping someone would know.

Grace nodded in the direction of the guys.

"The dark blond one." My eyes fell on a handsome young man with pretty noticeable muscles. "Professional football player, nephew of the university director, and Mady's ex-boyfriend..." Grace pressed her lips together and looked at me. "To let you know. He dumped her, like these guys do to all the girls."

I looked back up at him and admittedly... He did look hot.

The guy whose arm he was trying to push down was the dark-skinned guy who had shot Mady down with his football yesterday.

Only now did I survey all the other guys who were cheering wildly for the game. In the middle of them: Emely .

"Nash Copeland is just as much of a douchebag as all the others in his group," Grace added.

"Copeland? So, Emely and he are related?" Bay asked, seeming visibly interested in the Copelands.

"They're brother and sister," Julie replied. She, too, was still glued to the guys.

I propped my elbows on the stone table in front of us and peered over at the group through the camera's lens. Nash was squeezing the other guy's arm down when the guys around them started bawling. I took a picture.

"What are you doing?" Grace asked me with interest.

"Just taking some pictures of the people and the area around here."

She was silent for a moment, but finally looked at me expectantly.

"Show her some of your pictures!"

I looked at Bay, who looked at me in an encouraging way. My hesitation came from the fact that I only ever really showed my pictures to my best friend or anonymously to my Instagram followers.

"Yes, please!" it escaped Grace enthusiastically.

So, I gave in. "Fine."

I held the camera out to Grace and Julie, and they looked at my last eleven pictures. I had changed the memory card, which is why they weren't supposed to find anything private .

"Oh, wow, you're really good!" Grace gasped.

"It's a hobby."

"You study it, Larissa!" My best friend corrected me.

"You're studying photography? Here, at Vanderwood?"

"Yes..." I answered Julie's question and took the camera from Grace's hands again.

My fingers cupped the already slightly older bridge camera.

My savings had gone to pay for the Vanderwood, so I actually had to get another job. A new camera was the last thing on my mind. But I still had a noble compact camera in my suitcase. With that, one could not make such good pictures as with this Nikon model. However, it should be enough for emergencies.

"And you want to do this professionally later?" Julie sounded skeptical.

"Yeah, why?"

She hesitated. "That's a bit unsafe, isn't it?"

"Haven't you seen her photos? They're insane! She can easily become independent with those," Grace said.

I myself was relatively uninterested in what others thought of me and my photos. I had already had to take a lot of criticism in my life. That little bit only strengthened my resolve.

"What are you two going to major in?" I tried to divert attention from my hobby to something else.

"Economics major," Grace yawned. She apparently hadn't slept as well as the rest of us.

"Economics? Both of you?" Bay asked in disbelief.

"Yes, it's the most popular major here. But we have different minors." Grace looked at Julie, who had a habit of blushing quickly. "I'm minoring in administration, while Julie is actually trying to struggle with molecular biology."

God , I wonder if they were really interested in those minor courses. Grace didn't sound that convinced, but I could at least imagine that economics was popular as a way to get out of here. Personally, I wasn't that interested in it now, yet I had minored in business to get a foothold in the photography industry.

I turned my attention back to the camera. It was easy to look at the surroundings through the lens.

"You're a literature major, right?"

Julies looked questioningly at Bay.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"It was on your list on the university server yesterday."

"But how did you know which list you -"

Bay stopped mid-sentence as the loud squeal of tires became audible.

I pointed my camera at the parking lot, where a black sports car came to a full stop in the very first parking space next to the fat Jeeps. To be more precise, the driver slid his vehicle into the space so elegantly that he even parked straight.

What the...

Through the camera, it looked almost perfect and even though my knowledge as well as enthusiasm for cars was very much limited to just these photos, I held my breath and pulled the trigger.

Just intime, because shortly after all four doors went up and in the front two men in fancy suits got out.

The passenger, a handsome man in his mid-thirties with short brown hair and a neat three-day beard, looked around scrutinizingly. He radiated coolness but, at the same time, something elegant through his black three-piece suit.

The athletic-looking driver on the other side wore the same tailored suit, but this time with sunglasses. He took them off and put them in his chest pocket. He had to be in his late 30s, and somehow, with his dark blond hair and three-day beard, he reminded me of Chris Pine.

I took a photo. To my surprise, the men immediately turned his head toward me. Jerkily, I lowered the camera, but they were already looking somewhere else again.

Had they noticed that I had taken a picture? From that distance? Impossible .

"Oh my God!" I heard Grace murmur darkly beside me.

Her words made me look around. Of course. Absolutely everyone had stopped what they were doing a second ago and was now looking at the sports car. Even the topless guys under the biggest oak tree. They looked like they were facing a comet flying toward them.

I took a picture. Simply because I found it amusing.

"What are they doing here?" This time, it wasn't one of us but the voice of that dark-haired Amber, who had apparently just shown up with the other goats and was now sitting down on a bench nearby.

Vivienna took off her white sunglasses, and her jaw dropped. "What the..."

I quickly looked back to the source of all the confusion, who was walking straight toward us. There were three young men who had apparently gotten out of the back of the sports car, each one prettier than the other, followed by the two older men who were looking around scrutinizingly as if someone had planned an attack on them.

The guys just seemed to like how they were the center of attention on campus. Even my attention they had stolen shamelessly.

One of the three young men had short platinum blond hair, which was slicked back. His mine was expressionless, his walking pace smooth.

Another of the three had dark brown hair, which reached his chin and balanced his handsome, angular face. He wore a white shirt, had thrown his suit jacket over his right shoulder and was looking around, obviously self-satisfied. Although he was wearing sunglasses, I couldn't help but notice how he turned his head to the speechless Copelands and a grin flitted across his lips.

There was something about the guy in the middle, wearing black chinos like all three guys, that made him hot as hell.

Not that they didn't all look like they'd been flown straight here from a James Bond movie....

His black shirt was open at the first two buttons and tucked into his pants. The suit jacket sat as damn neat as his raven black hair.

The sight of him literally took my breath away. His very dark eyes, with his equally dark hair, contrasted sharply with his pale skin. If there was one thing he was, it was hot – forbidden hot.

Our eyes met and I froze. I didn't know whether to look away or hold his gaze. His intense, scrutinizing eyes took the decision away from me. I just couldn't look away.

If this was his way of flirting, then he had invited me into his bedroom at that very moment.

The five of them walked past us, with the Chris Pine guy and then the rest staring in our direction again. Then they disappeared into the main building, and I sadly had to take my eyes off them....

"Who are they?" I immediately asked Grace, while whispers broke out around us. Grace's whole face had lost color.

"The DeLoughreys..."

Bayla looked at Grace in confusion.

"Who are the DeLoughreys?" I asked.

It sounded like they were important.

"The downfall of this university," Shockingly, it came from Vivienna next to us.

"Let me put it this way. You don't want to get in their way."

Now, there was more concern in Grace's gaze.

I didn't inquire further because it was clear to me what she meant. Those good-looking guys had stunk of money. And money meant influence and power.

That was exactly the problem. Men who were influential and knew what they wanted were damn attractive. But that wasn't the only problem. One of those men had caught my interest. And somehow his intense gaze had branded me. The memory alone caused my skin to tingle.

No , it was impossible that this young man had looked at me, even though I was used to exactly such encounters. But this time it had been different... more intense, more exciting. Just one look had been enough to make me....

The ringing of a bell jerked me back to the present and told us that the first mandatory lecture was starting in five minutes, so I grabbed my things and followed the other girls into the university building.