Page 8 of Psync
He wandered by a small ornamental pond and agonized for about nine thousand years until his phone buzzed twice.
When he opened his phone, he saw that he’d only been waiting for four minutes before getting a group text from his new friends.
mAlice:Yes, please! Meet us at the duck ASAP!
NatetheGreat:She means the bronze statue in front of the big pond
He sent back a thumbs up and did his very best not to skip all the way to said duck.
Chapter Four
Eli
The first few days of class went by in a blur as Eli systematically worked his way through his teachers, wheedling and cajoling his way into testing out of each class. So far, he had three out of five teachers on board.
Somehow, he had fallen into the pattern of collapsing into an exhausted, but optimistic, pile of goo next to Alice and Nate as they ate lunch every day. Sometimes he even managed to find the energy to eat with them.
On day three, he discovered he and Alice were both in the same History of Japanese Religion class, and the two sat in the back rating various Buddhist priests on hotness using a completely arbitrary scale.
Juniper would have loved it.
After class, Nate met them outside and demanded they follow him to his dorm to have lunch. Eli was still struggling to juggle his class syllabus into his backpack when it happened again.
:Why is it always my right shoe that gets soaked? This happens every day.:
Eli stumbled and nearly spilled the contents of his bag across the hallway, but at the last second, he managed a—relatively—graceful save.
:Beautiful moron . . .:
“Eli . . . hey, Eli!” A delicate hand with intricate nail polish designs in shades of pink and blue waved at him from the doorway as Alice tried to get his attention. “Are you coming?”
“Sorry, just having fine motor control issues.”
“Well, hurry up, I need you to defend my virtue if people find out I went to this dork’s room alone.”
“Um . . .” Eli looked down at himself, then back at Alice who easily topped him by two inches and may or may not have had more muscle mass as well. Petite was the word his mother often used to describe him. Juniper called him travel-sized. He liked to claim he was densely packed for maximum power—on days he was feeling particularly self-delusional.
He gave her a feeble smile in response.
“Don’t tease him, I think he’s cute.” A new voice joined in, followed by a heavy arm over Eli’s shoulders.
Wrongwrongwrong . . .
His face froze into a panicked half-smile as he took in the stranger.
He was taller than Nate by an inch and had messy, light brown hair. If Eli wasn’t busy trying to figure out how to politely escape back to his room, he might have called the effect charming.
“Eli’s having a stressful day, if you need cuddles, go for Nate.” Alice said gaily and smoothly lifted the newcomer’s arm away from Eli and dropped it onto Nate’s shoulder instead.
“Sorry, Eli. The name’s Sam.” The boy stretched out a hand.
Eli looked at it, feeling a bit like he was being handed an old, dead fish. This was normal. Normal people shook hands. Eli shook hands, even. On good days though. Not after having another brush with what he had started to call the Voice. Just as he was about to suck it up and shake the outstretched hand, Nate intervened, knocking it away.
“If there isn’t food in that hand, we aren’t interested. We’re starving man, you’re more likely to pull that thing back as a bloody stump.” Nate laughed and pulled on Alice’s arm. “Come on, folks. My stomach waits for no one.”
Eli bowed at Sam because he watched way more anime than was normal, (but honestly, bowing was such a graceful, noninvasive way to greet people, and it really should catch on in Massachusetts if people were smart) then he turned and hurried after his friends, secretly marveling at how smoothly they’d helped him.
He tended to have mixed results with his touch aversion, ranging anywhere from narrowly escaping a hug with only mild awkwardness to being full-on tackle hugged and smiling outwardly while silently screaming inside.
