Having to share a dorm with three boys older than you wasn’t for the weak. It was your first year at Kildare University, the highest-rated in the state, where your brother already went. This year, though, the dorm-sharing situation must’ve been fucked up a little, because you somehow ended up sharing a room with your brother and his two friends—Rafe Cameron and Topper Thornton.

You didn’t mind at first, as it was your brother. You’d grown up with him, shared a room on Christmas Eve every year, went camping together, shared rooms on holidays. Yours and his relationship was great and tightly knit.

But when it came to his friends? Absolutely not.

You’d already known both of the boys—and their other friend, Kelce—your whole life, considering you were all Kooks, and it was an unwritten rule for all Kooks to become friends. They’d come over at Christmas, have sleepovers that lasted all summer. You’d even been to Rafe’s house a few times for free drinks and shit while your brother played video games with him.

He’d been nice to you then—but then he got fuckin’ evil, and crude, and gross, and inappropriate ever since you entered the dorm.

You couldn’t even get changed in peace in the bathroom without him “accidentally” walking in, which would end in you screaming at him to get out and to knock next time, with a few insults going his way.

Even if you tried to go for a nap, Rafe and Topper would purposefully play loud music and begin yelling and shit. The difference between you and them was that you deserved the nap. You were a good student—top grades, all your homework handed in before its deadline, etc. You didn’t need to be woken up by some rude boys who saw fit to be an almost noise complaint.

You’d just finished your final class of the day and had lugged your backpack and homework folders up to the third floor to your dorm (there was currently an elevator ban due to leaving students messing up the buttons and breaking it).

All you wanted to do was get in and take a nap. So you walked through the door, gave your brother a little wave, and flopped onto your mattress—just to be woken again by Rafe shaking you awake, saying it was urgent, only to laugh in your face afterward.

“Dumb, stupid girl!” he yelled, and Topper and your brother were howling with laughter, almost doubling over. “Gosh, why would you ever believe me when I say that there’s a fire? You’re so gullible. Lord!”