I gulped, looking down at her.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

But I couldn’t not say it. The moment seemed too real and raw.

She brushed my cheek and gave me a smile so genuine and powerful, I thought it could outshine the sun.

“What if tomorrow never comes?” I whispered.

“Then, my darling boy, we’ll make the best of today.”

I spent the cab drive from Charlotte to Boon drinking mini bottles of whatever the fuck alcohol I could find at the airport and popping a couple Xanax pills. The fake ID, paired with the fact I was running on zero sleep, made me look way older than eighteen. Unfortunately, I was past the stage where a few shots of Johnny made a difference. I was on edge. Agitated. Rubbing my knuckles back and forth against my jaw. I’d busted them open last night punching the treehouse tree trunk. Just for old times’ sake.

“You good?” The driver shifted in his seat, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

“Fine,” I clipped, tapping an unlit joint on my muscular thigh.

You know you have a problem when, before you meet the driver waiting for you at the airport, you meet a local drug dealer to get a fresh stash.

There was a brief silence as we zipped past green rolling hills, the backdrop of a cloudless blue sky and Charlotte’s towers twinkling in the distance. So this was the place that stole Moonshine from me. Already I hated it.

When the driver pulled up at Boon, I slapped a few bills in his hand and wheeled my suitcase down the cobblestone path. A red-bricked, Colonial building the size of a hotel stood before me, framed with lush, trimmed lawns from both sides. A herd of church-mice-looking girls in matching pastel cardigans and ironed hair poured from the double doors of the college. They stopped and eyed me curiously, exchanging looks and hugging their textbooks to their chests.

“Can I help you?” One of them cleared her throat, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose.

Was it that obvious I wasn’t cut out for higher education? Maybe because I smelled like a liquor store and a dodgy one-night stand.

“Can you?” I flashed my lazy, lopsided smirk that put women in a spell even I couldn’t fully understand.

Their frowns liquefied in an instant.

“I’m looking for the dorms.”

“Men’s or women’s?”

I stared at her blandly. “They’re not coed?”

“It’s a Catholic college.” The revelation was followed by a headshake.

“Women’s,” I clipped.

Shit just got a whole lot more complicated, as shit tended to where my life was concerned.

The girl pointed at a sign with white wooden arrows directing visitors to different sections of the campus. Her fingernails were colorless, thoroughly chewed. “You take a right and walk until you see the building with the pink flag.”

“How misogynist.” I bit down a smile, wondering how Luna had felt about that.

She hated wearing anything pink or girly, the exact opposite of Daria.

The girl flushed, drawing circles on the ground with her toes. “Thank you for saying that.”

“Huh?”

“Thanks for knowing it’s kind of offensive. Beautiful men…I mean, handsome men like yourself are…” she started, but her friends jerked her away, giggling and heading toward the cafeteria.

Are what?

Say, it sweetheart. I could use a little ego boost before I come face to face with Luna.

When I got to the lobby of the girls’ dorm, there was a man about two thousand years old behind the front desk, with a Ron Weasley-orange toupee, flipping a local newspaper that lay flat in front of him. His brows were high as he read a fascinating article about the fish prices in Asheville.

“Wrong dorm,” he said without looking up from his paper.

Instead of gracing him with a response, I dropped my designer backpack on his desk with a thud, fishing my wallet from my back pocket, plucking a few bills, and throwing them his way like confetti.

He didn’t look up from the paper. “Do you understand English?” he grumbled.

“Only when it suits me. What’s your price?”

“Why must there be a price tag on rules? Why can’t we just follow them blindly?” He licked the tip of his index finger, flicking a page.

An impatient smirk tugged at my lips. He was still staring at his paper.

“Because humans are corrupt, and rules are boring.”

“Speak for yourself, young man.”

With an exasperated sigh, I took out a few more Benjamins, boomeranging them across his desk. There was maybe a couple grand in total covering the surface before he finally looked up.

“What’s her name?”

“Rexroth. Luna Rexroth.”

“And your intentions?”

Entirely sinister.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I lied, unblinking. “I came to visit her from California. I want to surprise her in her room.”

I could see his gaze drifting to the row of spare keys under his counter. I didn’t dare breathe.

Do it, old man.

He didn’t budge. I took my wallet out and emptied it on his desk, the remainder of my cash raining in front of his eyes. I didn’t break eye contact.