Page 23 of Out of Bounds

Zariah paused. "Did you win more contests? What’s up with your computer? It’s like being at the hotel desk."

If I could only ask the same thing.

With a groan, I buried myself in the other side of the chair. One mountain of NDAs, a forty-five-minute meeting—mix it all together, and my whole life was tied to a single man, Ryan Cross. It was still hard to believe. If anything, shouldn’t I get a little bit longer without highlighted responsibilities?

"Emails from the PR assistant," I muttered reluctantly. "There’s a couple of formal nights, alumni stuff, football games, some ceremony at the end of the semester, and I’m supposed to go to their practices."

"What?"

"Yeah."

"No, you’re not." She laughed.

I grumbled under my breath. "Yes, I am."

"Are you? His practices?" she said, grabbing my laptop.

"Six in the morning."

Zariah whistled and I could hear her clicking away at my laptop. "You don’t have to go to those. There’s…requirements and then there’s…if you show, you get a gold star kind of stuff. It’s like notes for Ishisaka’s class."

"You’re supposed to turn those in."

"Yeah, but if I don’t, I won'tfail. You know?" She clicked something twice. "Memory packet?"

I slung out the hole-punched packet on everything Ryan Cross. We both filled out a long survey and Cleo had printed them out tostudy.

"Get this." I flipped through the pages. "His ideal breakfast? Whatever’s healthy and available. Bananas are a good source of potassium, a benefit for workouts—I'm reading this off word forword, Zariah. What kind of jockhead…?" I scanned down the list. "Favorite music, workout music. But…doesn't need any? Doesn’t need anymusic?This man is doing this to me on purpose."

She frowned over my laptop, scanning the docket. "Uniforms?"

"I’ll get it later."

"You have to wear auniform?"

"It’s university merch." I groaned. "Fifty-dollar crop tops. I’ll be a walking Marrs billboard."

I took a good look at our bookstore down the hall, the place I’d worked at since week two as a freshman. Students bustled in and out of the front entrance, carrying bags crammed with overpriced crap.

Even if I worked there full-time, I didn’tshopthere. A fifteen percent employee discount meant nothing. The only things I could afford were mandatory scantrons. I tried explaining all that to Cleo, but she winced when I asked if free volunteer shirts would cut it at the alumni dinners.

"How do they expect you to pay for…?"

Zariah’s question vanished as I produced the black card from my wallet. Ever since Cleo had cracked it out of the plastic, I’d kept the card, at most, three inches away from me. If I lost it, it’d be like losing a pint of blood.

My roommate went slack-jawed. "No way."

"I know. I’ve got heartburn just holding it."

"You’ve got this card, and we were going tostudy? You’ve got this card, and I was going to eat leftovers from thecoffee shop?"

With a grimace, I tried to shove it back into my wallet, but she had it in her hand before I could hide it. "Hey!"

"We’re getting lunch."

"Zariah!"

"It’s a business lunch, abusinessexpense. The guests at my hotel say that all the time, right before ordering, like, everything off the menu," Zariah said matter-of-factly.

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