Work Hard, Love Harder

“Hey! Come on now. No way am I going to be one of those people. My brother is one of those people and it took all the fun out of him moving out of the house.”

Zoe laughed as Colton helped her move her bags forward until they were both first at the long row of tables. The tiny bottle-blonde manning it, who already reminded Colton of Zoe, put two long contracts in front of them. Although she was actually white and much shorter than Zoe. Zoe was kind of tall; she had long honey-toned legs, really shapely, tapering down into slim ankles and long yellow sandal-clad feet. Her toenails were painted robin’s egg blue. It was really pretty.

“Hi, I’m Kristen. I get to welcome you to Harvard University. I’m the RA on the fifth floor. My job today is to go over this great list of rules for you so that when you get caught breaking them, you can’t claim ignorance. Yes, I know it’s boring and you could care less, but you only have to hear this once and I have to say it fifty times, so you guys are totally winning.”

Colton figured he was kind of right before when he guessed that they were going to have to sign their lives away as he listened to Kristen tell them about all kinds of rules he fully intended to break.

“Okay, and now seriously, no explosives, guys. Please try to actually not break that one.”

Kristen pointed out the place for them to sign their souls away before directing them to the next table.

“Think he’d hate me all year if I tried to rub his head for luck?” Zoe whispered in Colton’s ear as the guy behind the table waited for Colton to get all her bags moved with them.

“I’m the third floor RA if you’d like to try that out in my room later.” The guy smirked as Zoe’s cheeks glowed with embarrassment. Her blush enhanced the honey complexion of her skin, and Colton found that he wanted to lean forward and lick her soft looking cheek.

“John, stop perving on the freshman.” The RA at the next table reached over, swatting him on the arm.

“You know I was going to let you have the other one, but if you’re going to be like that…”

When the other man ignored him, John turned back to Colton, and Zoe and pushed the red index cards at them.

“Okay, these little cards are what we use to look up who you want us to call when you get drunk and fall out your window. I suggest you list your parents. I know you may not want them to know you got drunk and fell out your window, but they have the insurance and the money, and I promise that they’ll get over the whole drunk thing once they hear about the window thing.”

As Colton and Zoe finally got to the last table, Colton was trying to figure out how he could talk his dad into carrying all Zoe’s stuff to her room. How much did he really need a friend anyway? Besides, Zoe was already drooling all over the guy at the table, so he guessed he was wrong in his hope that he’d be rid of his virginity by Christmas break. If all the upperclassmen looked like this, he’d still be very much not screwed.

“Hey, guys. I’m Femi, the sixth floor RA. I just need you to hand over your IDs and I can get your keys.”

Colton fished his license out of his wallet and wondered if they just hired this guy to balance out John and Kristen. Like maybe they had a quota on perky craziness and it was filled already by those two, so they had to find this guy.

The guy did smile though when he found their names on the list.

“Hey, well, looks like you guys are both on my floor. I’ll be down here for the next couple hours, but I’ll be in my room after that if you need anything. Mandatory hall meeting down here Sunday at six. Mandatory floor meeting right after that.”

Colton started working on getting all Zoe’s bags moved again while Zoe beamed at Femi, who was doing nothing but sitting there, unlike Colton who was carrying all her stuff.

“You guys already know each other?”

“No, we just met in line,” Zoe answered.

Traitor.

Colton almost dropped her suitcase when Femi reached out and caught his wrist.

“Okay, man. As your RA, I feel I need to help you out here. College girls? They’re not all nice. You gotta be more careful or you’re going to be carrying everything that every girl moves into this place while they hook up with the assholes.”

“Hey!” Zoe objected while Femi laughed. “I was wonderful entertainment through this line you guys put us through! Colton. You trust me, right? You’ve known me way, way longer than this guy.”

“I don’t know. I mean he’s older and wiser.” Colton pretended to start putting down her suitcase.

“Come on. We’re friends, right? Okay, so I didn’t promise to sleep with you. But hey, I’m hot, so either way I’m bound to have all kinds of hot friends I can introduce you to.”

“Well, okay. I guess if that’s the deal, I can work with that.” Colton exchanged a smirk with Femi as he started to maneuver her suitcases out of the line.

*****

Colton had only been at college for two hours and he was already exhausted. Even with his dad helping, it took two trips to get all of Zoe’s stuff upstairs to her room and then another trip for his stuff. Then he had to convince his family to go home and convince his mom that she really did not need to come up the next weekend before classes started to check on him.

And on top of all that, he had no idea where his roommate was. He’d gotten his roommate’s name and phone number weeks ago and called him just like Zoe. His name was David and he was from New York and he was supposed to be here at noon. Supposedly, he’d flown in the previous night with his family. Okay, so he sounded like kind of an ass on the phone, but he’d promised to bring a microwave and a TV so it would kind of suck to have a different roommate. And the names on the door were Carlton and Finn. So, not only was he wondering who the hell Finn was, but his own name was spelled wrong.

Colton was just about to doze off when the door opened and a head poked in the door.

Apparently, Finn looked about twelve years old and wore glasses. At least Colton knew he could get all the girls that came to visit. He was just thinking that maybe it wasn’t so fair for him to be calling David an ass when the guy extended his hand.

“Hey, I’m Carlton. I’m guessing you’re Finn? You know, you don’t look anything like you said on the phone.”

Colton stared. Okay, so his momma would kill him for not reaching right now to shake hands, but he was pretty sure he had a good reason here.

“Um, no. I’m Colton. And I’m also completely confused now.”

The guy heaved a sigh way too big for the situation and reached in one of his bags to pull out one of those expanding folders Colton’s mom used to keep track of the homework from the different classes she taught. He held out a piece of paper with his room assignment to Colton. Okay, so maybe Colton had no idea where his paper was or even if he’d packed it.