Freshmen Dorms

Connor chuckled, looking at the box. "Man, I haven't run like that since my senior football game..."He smirked, rubbing at his neck a little.

The elevator cranked open and they stepped inside. Seth hit 5. "Oh, you were a football jock?" he asked, amused. He should have guessed though, with Connor's build. "Bet the ladies loved that."

"Well uh you know, I try. But see you seem so much more normal! Laugh enjoy life! Dance! Pefrably not on tables we know what happened last time you did that." He winked and tried to stifle a few laughs.

"How the hell do you think I turned out this way?" Connor grinned widely, leaning back against the wall, looking at the dent and smirked.

Evelyn's cheeks reddened and she quit laughing instantly. "Hey, I was drugged!" she said defensively. "Oh God, that was...and you were such a tool. I swear. You're still giving me more attention than any of them. Honestly?" She shook her head, grinning, embarrassed. "When a girl flips you off twice, with both hands, it usually means screw off."

***

Seth glanced over at the aforementioned dent. "I personally never liked football. My brother tried to get me into it but I was always busy with random other shit outside of school. Football seemed kind of pointless," he said, grinning. "And tame."

"Well I don't know mean ever since you knocked me sensless and had me concussed with a frying pan. The way I see things is kind of fuzzy." He joked.

"The way you see things is always gutter-tinged," Evelyn retorted, lifting her hands to braid back her wet hair.

She froze halfway, and then heaved an annoyed sigh. "So Nova is alone in my suite. Has been for a couple hours. And he was alone last night." Before he freaked out, she added, "It's hard to get people to dogsit him all the time."

Evelyn paused and then bit her lip, glancing up at Jake tentatively. This was probably a long shot. "You know, it really would be easier if we shared custody again."

"Really? You're willing to pull me out of isolation to spend time with our son, ex wife?" Jake asked.

"I'm, I'm speechless. I'm so touched, I think I might cry." Jake grabbed a tissue and sniffled obnoxiously.

"Oh I didn't know this was going to happen I have so many people I'd like to thank. First off I'd like to thank the academy..." Jake went on like an over dramatic actress.

Evelyn was extremely relieved. But also extremely put off by this.

"Second, you'd like to thank the lunatic asylum that reared you," she interrupted his speech. She shook her head, flashing a small grin. "But of course, there would be conditions."

Her eyes danced devilishly. She reached down and picked up her soggy tank, dismayed for a moment. She spread it out beside her on the tub wall so it would dry. She turned and leaned down and grabbed Jake's wifebeater, draping it beside her tank.

"Hold on Ima let you finish but I just have to say that Jake Salazar has the best speech of all time..." Jake laughed sitting on the edge of the tub.

There had to be conditions it was Evelyn he was dealing with.

"What are the conditions?" Jake asked.

Evelyn shoved the shower curtain out of her face. "Oh just the usual. I'll keep him with me most of the week seeing as you have work, but then you'd have to take him on Friday nights because that's my day off and i like to go out. And if we both have to go out on Saturdays, you'll have to find him a dogsitter," she said triumphantly. She paused and added, "And you'll have to be nice to me if I need a coffee and have to face coming into your Starbucks and of course checking out your hot coworkers," she added, grinning widely.

"Okay I can handle the Friday thing, but I don't know where I'd leave him Saturday? We'd all be out and Sunday I'd be home so that's no big deal." He thought of that and he didn't know who he would get to babysit Nova.

Other than his parents or Lola and his sister and even Evelyn he didn't trust anyone else, but Lola's roommate was getting annoyed of Jake unloading Nova on them and he knew Olivia did some sort of events or whatever on the weekends.

"Oh come on why do you have to come to my Starbucks? Go to Tim Hortons its cheaper! Could you at least not come there the days I work?" Jake groaned, he didn't want her there because he knew he couldn't harass her while he was on the clock.

"Why would I go all the way uptown?" she asked logically. She grinned and leaned over, bracing a hand on the tub wall between them to smirk. "Plus, you have the extremely hot Eric there. That's reason enough. Half the female customers only go there to stare at all the cute guys over their coffee."

Before Jake could make a rude remark, she added woefully (more dramatically than anything else), "And you know, what better way to move on past my anguish and scope out potential candidates than that coffeehouse? It's filled with cute guys."

She knew this would bug Jake. That was half the reason of course.

Jake snorted, "Yeah right! Ut will take some serious convincing for me to let you go there!" He sure as hell wasn't letting her into his work.

Evelyn scoffed. "You can't tell me not to go in there! I'll go in there every single day if I like!" she informed him huffily.

"I have an unfortunate looking photo of you I'll post it on the wall and tell my boss we had to kick you out cause you're crazy." He smirked.

Evelyn grinned triumphantly. "You don't. I deleted every single photo of me from your memory card! Yes, even the ones at Sevilla." Although she kind of wished she'd kept those.

"I'll still kick you out, no way! No how am I letting you in there!" Jacob said firmly, she could go to one of the other million Starbucks in Manhattan.

Evelyn blinked, taken aback, and stopped smiling. "Why are you so against my going there? Trust me, I'm NOT going to be there looking for a fight," she said honestly. "I thought we just got over that whole ugly hating thing. I only harassed you before because I was deliberately trying to make your life hell."

Jake contemplated that thought, he didn't want her there to bother him but if she did. Jake sighed, "Fine, but bother me once and I'll spit in your coffee." He caved.

She rolled her eyes and turned on her perch so she could lift up her leg and kick his knee. "You're such a little diva! I do have better things to do than plot against you. Like ogle Eric," she said pointedly.

Then she grinned. "Nah, I'm kidding. Eric's really not my type. I mean, yeah, what girl couldn't stare at him? But that gets boring the instant he opens his mouth. I'll come scare off all your flirty customers," she said devilishly. "I mean, you more or less already announced you were unavailable, so I might as well be there, right?"

"Oh my god I've started the Apocalypse. Its the end of the world as we know it..." Jake's voice trailed off singing.

Evelyn had heard enough of Jake's singing in here to last her ten lifetimes. In a flash, she had scooted closer, knocking her and Jake's shirts to the ground and clamped her hand over his mouth. "Spare my ears!" she said, horrified. "Or I'll have to rip your tongue out of your mouth."

"Oooh sounds kinky." He winked.

Evelyn raised an eyebrow. Man, she was getting a lot of tolerance management since coming ot the Big Apple, wasn't she? Whereas back in Ash Creek, a comment like that from James would have earned him a slap, now she just stared at Jake calmly, one corner of her mouth crinkling upward. "Boy, don't test me. Otherwise we'll cross the line from kinky to cold-blooded murder and you won't even realize it." She took her hand away, and then wiped it on his bare shoulder as if to get rid of his DNA.

It suddenly occurred to Evelyn how this would look if Seth were to unlock the door right now. She'd been so busy trying to amuse herself she hadn't even noticed Jake was, in fact, shirtless. And he wasn't exactly ugly.

Oh no, not even going there.

But this thing was a fact Seth and Ashlee would find very suspicious. They'd see the shirts on the floor and Evelyn wearing Jake's jersey.

Evelyn felt her whole face flush all of a sudden and her stomach knotted. She was really sitting way too close. She abruptly scooted away, trying to pass it off as a random movement, except that she suddenly couldn't even look at Jake.

God damn compromising situations. Why was her life here so full of them? The only thing worse than this would be James walking in now.

He always seemed to at the wrong moment.

But even Seth would find this rather fishy. Oh God. Evelyn fought down the butterflies rising in her stomach, feeling suddenly horribly self-conscious, and kept her gaze on the bathroom door.