Chapter 561 | The Problem with Transparent Blouses

Chapter 561: 561 | The Problem with Transparent Blouses

The water came crashing back down over our heads the second he turned the corner. Naomi yelped and grabbed my arm. Blair stood there with water streaming off her nose and her eyes shut again, and I watched her lips move as she counted to ten in what I think was French.

"We need to leave," Naomi said, and she pulled on my arm with all of her fishing-boat strength. "My notes are getting wet, and if I lose my Nishimura notes I’m going to cry in front of everyone."

"Building C is closer than the dining hall," Belle said, and she snapped the laptop shut and shoved it into her bag in one motion. "Davenport, your apartment is twenty minutes uphill, and you can’t walk across the quad in that blouse unless you want a second viral video."

Blair opened her eyes. "I will walk wherever I please, Fox."

"Sure, go ahead, and the burger clip will finally lose its top spot to a Davenport wet t-shirt contest." Belle hooked her arm through Naomi’s free one. "My apartment’s dryer is broken, so Monroe’s it is, and you’re coming with us."

"I’m not going to his apartment."

"You’ve already been in a hole in the ground with him, so his apartment is a step up."

Blair turned to look at me, and the expression on her face could freeze bone marrow. I smiled the way Naomi says makes me look like a trash-eating raccoon. Her jaw locked so tight I heard the bones shift.

We ran.

Four drenched hunters barreling across the quad at noon pulls every eye on campus. Naomi led the way with my hand locked in hers, her braid whipping against her soaked blazer. Belle matched my stride on my left with her bag clutched to her chest like a shield. Blair trailed a half-step behind on my right with her arms crossed over herself, which made her run like an indignant penguin someone had just insulted three generations back.

A Ruby boy on the library steps dropped his sandwich straight into the dirt. An Emerald girl started to lift her phone, but Blair pivoted her head and fixed the girl with a look that made the phone disappear back into a pocket without conscious thought. I couldn’t tell if Blair actually raised the temperature around us or just raised one perfect eyebrow, and I had no interest in testing which it was.

The Building C lobby stood empty except for old microwave popcorn smell. The four of us squeezed into the elevator together and formed a growing puddle on the tile floor while the doors slid shut with their quiet mechanical ding.

Nobody spoke for three floors. Blair stood in the corner with her back to the wall, and steam drifted off her shoulders and fogged the mirror behind her. Belle checked her phone. Naomi leaned against my side with her wet hair stuck to my sleeve, and her fingers slid between mine and stayed there.

"Your hand’s freezing," Naomi said, and she squeezed it hard.

"Blair’s isn’t."

"I know," Naomi said, and she said it with a little twist in her voice, like she’d bitten into a lemon she’d chosen on purpose.

Blair heard that. Her eyes moved to our hands where they were still locked together, and the mirror behind her went white from condensation. A second later the metal rail under it started to drip.

The elevator dinged on five. Hikaru’s door was closed with no light showing underneath, and her clean mug sat in its usual spot on the drying rack. Belle dropped her bag on the couch and pulled out the laptop, then started wiping it down with a dish towel like she was handling a rescued infant.

"Bathroom’s on the left, Davenport," I said. "There’s a clean shirt hanging on the back of the door, and you can dry your clothes however you want."

"I don’t need your shirt, Monroe."

"You need something that isn’t transparent."

Blair looked down at herself. Water had turned her uniform into a second skin. She looked back at me with her jaw set, then turned and walked into the bathroom. Her chin stayed up the whole time. She slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame.

A second later the light under the door turned orange, and the smell of hot cotton drifted through the gap.

"She’s ironing herself," Belle said without looking up from the laptop. "That’s the most Davenport thing I’ve ever seen."

Naomi tugged on my hand. "Come on, you’re soaked, and your uniform is going to shrink if you leave it on."

She pulled me into my bedroom and shut the door behind us with her hip. The blinds were half open, and the noon light came through them in stripes across the bed. Naomi turned around, and her pink eyes went straight to the scorched patch on my shirt where Blair’s palm had been.

"She burned you," Naomi said, and her fingers brushed the brown handprint on the cotton.

"It’s a love tap."

"Jace, it’s a handprint."

"It’s a love tap with a handprint."

Naomi rolled her eyes, but her mouth curved up at one corner. She peeled my blazer off my shoulders and let it drop onto the floor in a wet heap. Then her hands went to my tie, and she worked at the scorched knot where Blair had grabbed me earlier. The thing wouldn’t budge. Heat had fused the silk at the center where her palm pressed through.

"I’ll have to cut it," Naomi said, still trying to work the knot free with her fingertips.

"Aurora bought that tie."

"Then Aurora can buy another one." She stopped trying to be gentle and just yanked the whole thing loose with one hard pull. The knot gave up all at once, and she tossed the ruined silk over her shoulder without looking where it landed. Her eyes came back to mine, and there was something in the set of her jaw that said she was daring me to argue. "I’m allowed to say that, right?"

"You’re allowed to say anything you want."