Tap & Gown by Diana Peterfreund Page A

even before we were in the same secret society. We’d shared plenty of meals, merely by belonging to the same class and college. He was not friends with this sophomore, and due to her youth, he certainly wasn’t courting her for Rose & Grave.
    And not once during the times that George and I had been both sleeping together and having brunch together in front of our friends had I ever once thrown my arm around his shoulder and pressed a kiss to his cheek. As Little Miss Sophomore was doing now.
    My mouth went dry. George and I were over, but that didn’t make it the slightest bit easier to watch him canoodle with another woman. Was this even remotely how he’d felt when he’d seen Jamie and me making out on Cavador Key? Did George—could George?—have this same lump in his throat when he’d approached me in Louisiana and told me how Jamie had tried to rescue me?
    “I gotta go,” I mumbled, grabbing my tray. I had to … what?
    Check out Facebook, for starters. Who was this girl?
    “Where?” Arielle asked. “I’ll walk with you.”
    “Room … study … thesis …” I faltered with a hand wave as I headed toward the back of the hall to bus my dinnerware.
    Page 34

    But I didn’t go to my place.
    I went to Jamie’s.
    Jamie answered the door in an undershirt and sweatpants. “Hey there!” he said, smiling broadly. “What a pleasant surprise. Have you had breakf—”
    I threw myself into his arms and started kissing him.
    “Pleasanter surprise,” he managed, backing us away from the threshold. There’s the idea. I pushed him gently against the wall and started tugging on his shirt.
    “About to get even pleasanter,” I murmured against his neck as my fingers found the drawstring of his pants. Bad grammar is such a turn-on. I loosened the strings, then dragged the pants down and over his hips. Ooh, nice. He had a bathing-suit tan going on. I trailed my fingers across the line of demarcation on his torso, then lower.
    I leaned in, pressing my advantage. I was fully clothed, his pants and boxers now pooled around his ankles. He leaned against the wall of the foyer, practically in view of the street, relaxed and yet utterly alert. “No,” I whispered. “I haven’t had breakfast.”
    “Oh,” he said as I began to slide to my knees. “Because I’m making waffles.”
    “Hmmm.”
    A loud buzzing noise interrupted me. Jamie clunked his head against the wall.
    “What’s that?” I asked.
    “I told you: I’m making waffles.”
    “Will it go away?”
    “Around the time the fire alarm starts up, yes.”
    I groaned and rocked back on my heels and Jamie hurried to pull up his pants and tend to his burning breakfast.
    I stared into the kitchen. “That’s a Dining Hall waffle maker.” I knew them well. The industrial-sized spinning machines were stationed on tables for student use every brunch.
    “I know. Can you believe they were tossing it?” He pulled a golden, fluffy Belgian waffle from the machine and plopped it on a nearby plate. “All it needed was some work on the springs.”
    “You fished that thing out of the trash and now you’re cooking with it?”
    “I washed it first. And fixed it, too, I might add. Aren’t you impressed with my engineering skills?” He rejoined me at the wall. “Okay. I’m back.”
    I stood up, lips pursed. The scent of freshly cooked waffle filled the air—sweet, bready, wholesome.
    Page 35

    “Or did you want me to bring the syrup?” he asked.
    The first time I’d been in this apartment, I’d felt nothing but contempt for the guy standing before me.
    And every ounce of that contempt had transferred to his belongings—the sagging couch, the old and threadbare clothes, the giant snake. His room hadn’t had the same panache as George’s jukebox-filled bachelor pad or the comfortable, lived-in look of the suite I shared with Lydia. But Jamie’s place had reincarnated waffle makers and half a dozen vegetarian cookbooks and a pet mouse he’d kept and named