Off Campus by Amy Jo Cousins Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t fuck any under eighteens and please God, don’t let someone take a picture with their fucking cell phone of you with your lips wrapped around a bong. Or some guy’s dick, all right?”
    He’d thought that was a funny one right there, hadn’t he? Had elbowed Tom and rolled his eyes. A little dick-sucking joke between two straight dudes, right, buddy? Ha, ha. Tom had never been sure if there’d been a kernel of true warning in the kidding around, though. Something about that guy screamed that he’d seen it all and wouldn’t be surprised to see it again.
    Reese was waiting across the room, perched on the edge of the desk like a dark little bird with claws, thumbs ready to go on his phone. If he was tempted to smile because he knew he had Tom, in the end, even if not right this moment, he kept it to himself. But his eyes and the press of his lips together said he wasn’t going anywhere until Tom coughed up his name. If he’d said anything, one word, made one crack about cyberstalking or celebrity disguises, Tom would have told him to fuck off and gone to bed. But the kid just sat there and waited.
    Like he wasn’t going anywhere, ever. Which should have felt stalkerish and creepy but instead felt…inevitable.
    Tom looked Reese in the eye, letting him see that this was the last thing he wanted. The kid would learn why in about point eight seconds.
    â€œWorthington. Need me to spell it?”
    He waited for the light to spark in Reese’s eyes, the way it always did when someone found out who he was. Everyone wanted something, even if it was just to gossip about how awful he must feel and how terrible it must be for his family to lose everything. But even those pain vultures, who got off on asking “Aren’t you too embarrassed to show your face anywhere? You must be so miserable,” didn’t really believe it. Everyone assumed there were hidden assets. Extended family to fall back on. Foreign bank accounts. What the fuck ever. And he’d let them go on believing it, shrugging off all concern, real or fake, because after a while he couldn’t tell the difference. He nodded or shook his head and stopped saying anything at all because he never knew what someone would turn his words into. And now he waited for Reese.
    The kid laughed at first, actually looked up after a split second of staring at the screen and laughed. Tom almost shot up off the bed and put him on the floor, hard.
    â€œThe Third? Thomas Worthington the Third?” He actually snorted with laughter for a second and the grin he flashed at Tom was so full of play and lightheartedness that Tom leaned back for a moment, forgetting that he was in danger and smiled back at the kid ruefully. “You know that’s pretentious as shit, right? Please tell me you know that.”
    â€œI told my dad that nobody does that anymore, but he said it was a little late to go making changes to my birth certificate when I was about to graduate high school.”
    â€œMan, that sucks. Sorry, dude.” His eyes glanced down again, scanning the first lines of what was probably a page of Google links. Sure enough, Tom could’ve clocked it with an egg timer.
    Point eight seconds.
    â€œWhoa.” The word slipped out under Reese’s breath, his lips pursed a little on the soft exhale.
    There it was.
    Reese’s eyes flicked from his phone to Tom and back again. Tom pretended to read but waited for it.
    â€œOookay.” Reese sounded as if he were feeling his way through a dark room with a hand out to keep from walking into something hard. “That…wasn’t what I expected.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œRings a bell now? The name, I mean.”
    â€œNot really.” He flushed and looked around the room, anywhere but at Tom. “I was, um, sort of a club kid in high school. I partied. A lot. The news wasn’t really my thing.”
    â€œGuess