Page 10 of Zero Chance

“Look, you know where Archer House is, right?”Xander asked, not giving up on the topic.

I wrinkled my nose.“No.”Why would I know where Archer House was?

“Well, I’m going to text you the address,” she announced.“And if you decide to give it a try, you’ll know where to go.Okay?”

I sighed, wondering why I’d agreed to give her my number last month when she’d asked for it.Maybe because I’d never thought she’d actually use it.

Except she did.Constantly.

“Whatever,” I mumbled, just as someone called Xander’s name in greeting.

She and I both turned to see two guys approaching.One was super tall with luscious, dark, curly hair and vivid blue eyes, while the other was still tall, but normally so.He also had dark hair, but it wasn’t at all curly and pretty.And his eyes were in no way a beautiful sparkling blue; they were more of a muddy, mossy, green-brown color, like bog water.

But he walked with a swagger and confidence that made him stand out more than his tall, pretty-haired, beautiful-eyed counterpart.

And the mere sight of him made my eyes narrow.My lips instinctively curled into an ominous snarl, and my blood pressure skyrocketed because he was also, unfortunately, the reason why I knew without a shadow of a doubt I preferred guys over girls.

It irritated me to no end how much I was attracted to this…being.

And right on cue, he smiled—at Xander, of course, not at me—making everything inside me freakingflutter.

I was not the fluttering type.I wasn’t the girl who grew crushes.I didn’t blush in the presence of pretty boys.I didn’t even care about them at all.So it really just grated on my nerves thatthisguy, of all people, forced me to quake with some kind of hungry need every freaking time he came around.

It might not have been so bad if he was actually a decent person.But he was just so…sohim.He was an outgoing, loud, obnoxious whirlwind of a flirt who thrived on attention and didn’t know when to shut up.He was the very antithesis of me.

And the draw he had on me was annoying.It was unwanted, unwelcome, and I really, really—well, I pretty much loathed him for it.

I hated him for his vivacious, ego-puffed, skirt-chasing vitality.I hated how much he made my hands want to map every inch of his flesh.I hated the control his presence had over my betraying body.I hated the way he looked at me as if he actually saw me.I hated his snarky sense of humor when he teased me.I hated how much he visited the library and loved books, which made my own book-loving heart sigh with giddy pleasure.I hated basically everything about him.Because I hated that I had absolutely zero chance of ever being with him.

Because being with him was all I’d ever dreamed of.

He made my blood pump through my veins, my heart buzz, and my entire body vibrate.He made me feel more alive than I did when I thought about death.And I probably resented him for that most of all.

I mean, what kind of jerk dared to take away my will to die?

He did.That was who.

Which was why Keene Dugger was the bane of my entire existence.

2

WAVERLY

It took everything I had to unclench my jaw as Keene paused at my counter with a pile of books in his arms and his best friend Alec Younger at his side.

He and Alec rented rooms at Archer House too, a fact I’d learned from listening to Xander ramble during class.But I’d already known who both he and Alec were for at least a decade before that.

I’m sure they hadn’t knownIexisted, though, not until last year, anyway, when I’d helped their other roommate, Oaklynn, solve a murder mystery.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Alec said to Xander with a big grin as he settled his hip against the checkout counter, facing her.

He didn’t acknowledge me.He probably didn’t even see me standing there.

They rarely did.

“Dugger and I were just going to study in the back room if it’s free.Want to come?”

“Sure,” Xander answered, smiling at Alec with a genuine grin.“I don’t have another class until two.”It was obvious she was fond of him.

---