I find the other guys all in the kitchen. Hunter is flipping pancakes on a griddle, while Evan is sitting at the dining table and Clay is leaning against the counter.

“Inmate Kennedy, reporting, sir,” I drawl sarcastically to Clay.

“You need to eat, I made you breakfast,” Hunter says, flashing me a soft smile.

“No, thanks.”

“You need to eat, you ran miles this morning,” Evan agrees.

“The asshole upstairs already made me change my shirt three times, I’m late, I’m ready to leave.”

“Starling, can we please just call a truce?” Evan begs.

“I’ll wait outside, if I’m late you can explain the reason why,” I say, ignoring Evan and speaking directly to Clay. Turning my back on all of them, I march out the front door, inhaling deeply and trying to find that elusive, full breath that’s eluded me since I came back to Florida.

“Here,” Clay says, appearing beside me, holding out a banana and a bottle of water.

The moment the gates slide open wide enough for me to fit through, I stride away, trying to figure out a way to escape without him realizing. Pushing my AirPods into my ears, I drown out the sound of him with some old-school ’90s angry-girl music. The dulcet tones of Alanis Morrisette fill my ears and I manage to block out all thoughts of Elite, Collinwood House and anything else that’s related to Sebastian Lockwood. Instead, I focus on the crescendo that the music is building inside of me. I try not to think about the fact that my mom calls this album the sound of her puberty, or that it was her who told me to listen to it one day when I was filled with teenage hormone-induced rage. By the time I reach the building my very first college class is being held in, I’m angry and empowered. I am woman hear me roar.

“I’ll be here when your class finishes,” Clay tells me.

“Fantastic, I can hardly wait,” I deadpan, flashing him my middle finger as I open the door to my classroom and walk inside. Intro to economics is quite possibly the most boring class I’ve ever taken, but as I have no idea what I want to major in, I figure I might as well get as many of my required general ed classes out of the way in my first semester.

After two years of avoiding people and friendships, I’ve got becoming invisible down to a fine art. Most people think that sitting at the back of a class makes you unapproachable, but that’s where they have it wrong, you actually need to be a row or two away from the front. No one likes the people who sit on the front row, but they never notice the mediocre middle people, so that’s who I’ve become. Two rows from the front, two-thirds of the way along the row, I’m in the perfect position to be completely unremarkable. Or at least that’s what I’d be if the beautiful Clay Jansen wasn’t waiting right outside the classroom doors for me the moment the bell rings to signal the end of class.