Mia sighed, kicked a pebble out of her path. She still felt angry enough to spit. She said, “You did tell me Rod would cheat on me if I didn’t put out—and right away. Like buy a girl a hamburger and she owes you sex? Them’s the rules? I heard some of these frat boys keep their scorecards posted in the common room.”

Serena said matter-of-factly, “Some of the girls in our dorm collect guys, too, keep count, they just don’t advertise it as loudly. Look, Mia, it’d have been worse if you’d slept with him, so that’s something you don’t have to feel mad about.”

Mad? After how he’d treated her? Mia wanted to kick him in his crotch until her knee hurt. Then use her other knee.

Mia said, “Doesn’t it ever worry you that Tommy Maitland’s a jock? And not just any jock, the starting quarterback?”

“Yeah, he is, but Tommy’s one of a kind, you know that. Of course I wondered about him at first, but it didn’t take me long to realize his head’s on straight. Of course he thinks about sex a lot—he has to since he’s a guy and it’s hardwired—but he isn’t out to score all the sex he can get in four years. He wants to be an FBI agent, like his dad, a bigwig in Washington, so Tommy knows he’s got to be disciplined, take all his decisions seriously. And he’s been raised right, he and his three brothers. Tommy tells me his old man is tougher than any of them. He says the only one tougher is his mom.”

Mia looked at her best friend grinning at her from ear to ear, her beautiful hair all twisted up on top of her head, to make her look taller, she said. Serena was a dynamo, full of energy, always ready for almost anything, not to mention she was a knockout with her black hair, white skin, and blue eyes. Black Irish, Serena claimed.

Mia splayed her hands. “All right, I give up. Tommy’s a fricking saint, and unlike me, you lucked out.”

Serena wiggled her eyebrows, whispered, “I wish he’d come with us tonight to this rave, but his mom had her appendix out yesterday. He and his brothers all zipped back to Washington to hold her hand. They say it’s a good sign when a son really loves his mother, right?”

Mia didn’t have any brothers, but she supposed that was true. She said, “I’ve never been to the Delta Rho Phi rave before, but I do know we’ll have to be careful. There’ll probably be drugs. I heard there’ll be guys from other schools there, older guys, too, so be watchful, okay?”