Girls Like Boys

Ram yawned as I took the Alabama University exit after 13 hours on the interstate. The city had sprung up around us in the last 30 minutes, and my eagerness was battling back the exhaustion. Ramsy, however, obviously didn't feel the same because she fell back asleep when the truck slowed into a smooth speed on the main highway. I elbowed her when we finally pulled into a parking space down the street from Tutwiler.

Groaning, Ram blinked awake and threw the door open. I followed, tugging my suitcase out of the bed. Ramsy stomped toward our dorm like she was sleep-walking. We spent our last Indiana morning with Esther and Charlie, so we'd drove right into the night. Ram was notorious for sleeping in cars, so I had let her doze the whole way home. Now I had a crick in my neck and eyes only for my bed.

Ram led the way practically in a trance. She yanked open the door to Tutwiler and stomped toward the elevator. The third floor was entirely quiet as we made our way to the last door at the end of the right hall. When Ram pushed the door open, I couldn't help but be relieved by the fact that we were finally back at Bama.

We crawled into our beds without a word, letting the door click closed behind us. we didn't even bother to change clothes or turn a light on.

In the morning, I rolled awake before Ramsy. More hungry than tired, I dragged my dirty clothes off and yanked clean clothes from the closet. I pulled them on hastily and then turned to pull Ramsy from her bed. It took me ten minutes of arguing with Ram's sleepy persona before she finally got up and slipped her shoes on. I grabbed my key as Ramsy walked straight out of the dorm.

We crossed the street to the dining hall in Blount. As soon as we swiped in, Ram immediately veered off toward the tables. I followed, catching on a minute later that she was heading toward our dorm friends. Natalie and Kiera were seated along the back near the windows. They'd spotted us too and were energetically waving us over. Ramsy and I sat across from each other at the edge of the table and were immediately drawn into energetic chatter.

"You're back!" Nat shouted as a way of greeting. "We were starting to get worried. The rest of us have been here since Thursday. Classes start tomorrow already."

I nodded. "Our dad wanted as much time with us as possible," I said.

Ram asked, "Everyone else is back? Where's Jori?"

I hopped up and veered off toward the food. I smiled over my shoulder as I went, hearing that Jori was just upstairs asleep, much like Ram would've been if I hadn't forced her out of the room.

When my sister and I were both back from getting our breakfast, the girls launched into quick synopses of their winter break. Kiera had returned to southern Alabama and spent the whole break working at her parent's health food restaurant. With a cheeky grin, she gobbled down as much bacon as she could.

Natalie was a Tuscaloosa native, so her time off consisted of the same things, minus her classes and her college friends.

"My high school friends are obsessed with the races now," she said, practically rolling her eyes. I could've sworn that Ram did too. "They dragged me to a bunch over the break," Nat added. She caught my eye when she said it, insinuating that the races were of particular interest to me.

Kiera, unable to wait for Natalie to get to the punch line, blurted, "She saw Travis Laughlin!"

I smiled tightly and nodded. I avoided Ramsy's gaze. "He said he'd been racing,” I answered. “I'm not surprised you ran into him." I shoved a spoonful of cereal in my mouth so I didn't have to add anything else to this conversation.

Natalie spoke up for us. "l didn't talk to him or anything, but he was there every night my friends took me. I don’t know how you go with him to that all the time, Cody. I was freaking out when the cops came, and they didn't even care about us watching; they were only going after the street-racers."

Ram frowned, and I felt an identical expression appear on my own face. "The cops broke up a race?"

Travis hadn't mentioned anything about that. He'd barely mentioned racing at all since he'd left Indiana. I knew that Benji, Shay, and Flynn had been pushing him to run more, but I didn't think the race lineups were big enough to attract the attention of the local police.

The guys were usually smart enough to keep the races out near Highway Eleven, which was abandoned years ago when they built the interstate. Highway Eleven ran between state lines, so police jurisdiction was spotty out there, and law enforcement didn't always know who should deal with the slew of young street racers.

The races were illegal, but they were more of a nuisance than anything else. They always occurred on different nights of the week at different times and were far enough outside of the city that the police had to monitor the place in order to know if the races were going down that night. The thing was, if there were police cars parked out by Highway Eleven, they'd be noticeable, so Camden and Flynn could simply cancel the race or change the location with a single text to everyone. The police usually didn't bother unless the group of racers was oversized and conspicuous.

I was itching to go find Travis and figure out what he'd been up to with the guys, but there wasn't a lot of time to unpack and get prepared before classes resumed again tomorrow.

After breakfast, the four of us crossed back over to Tutwiler together before breaking off. Ram and I went to our room so we could seethe in. Our blankets were all disheveled and our suitcases were haphazardly tossed on the floor. With a sigh, Ram moved to her luggage and began taking things out.

Around two, we finished putting our clothes and small items away and decided to make our way to the bookstore to get what we needed for class this semester. Without the snow that blanketed the Midwest, walking across campus in the cold weather was a breeze. Unsurprisingly, the bookstore was full of students. We had each located half of our textbooks when Ramsy's phone rang.

She yanked it out of her jeans pocket and flashed the screen at me. She greeted Charlie with a simple, "Hi, Dad. We're alive."

I could anticipate Charlie's reply without even hearing him. We'd completely forgotten to call him last night when we'd arrived, and this morning we were focused on getting everything back to normal. Ramsy placated him with tales of our first twelve hours back in Alabama.

After about fifteen minutes, he was relaxed enough to let us go. We each said goodbye and took our books to the checkout. The price of textbooks was completely outrageous, but we we're lucky enough to be able to charge them to our remaining financial aid.

We were coming out of the student center when Benji came around the corner across the street. He grinned at us the moment we made eye-contact and darted past a couple cars to cross to us.

"If it isn't Cody Carrigan back in Bama!" he shouted. "When did you get here?"

I grinned back. "Late last night," I answered. "I haven’t had time to make it over to Travis’s yet."

Benji threw an arm over my shoulder. "We’re having a family dinner tonight. Come on by around seven. I'll be a little late, but I'll be there."

Ram was unamused. "You make yourselves sound like the mafia, Benji."

He smiled arrogantly and shrugged. “We are a race mafia." he joked. "That's the first rule of racing: don't talk about racing."

Ram met my eye.

"That's Fight Club, Benj," I retorted.

He grinned and shrugged again, rolling away from us. He was in his work shirt beneath his coat, and he yanked a uniform hat on as he crossed back over to the other side of the street.

Ram huffed and continued toward our residence hall.

“You know you're invited too," I said as I hurried to catch up. I hopped down off the sidewalk and barreled to her side.

She hit me with a stony look. "I'm pretty sure when he said come over later, Cody," he didn't mean 'come over, Cody and Ramsy'."

"It's not even Benji's house. You know Travis would extend the invite.''

"Then why didn't he extend it to you?" she asked pointedly. "He has to know you're back at school."

I sent her a glare of my own. "He does actually. But when he told me to come over, I told him you and I were busy getting settled in."

We headed back in almost silence, watching the other students on campus. There was an energy about the place that brought me back to our first weekend here. Already, I felt excited to start again. At the beginning of last semester, I was apprehensive. It was a decision that we were all a little unsure about. Between leaving everyone behind and being on our own for the first time in our lives, we weren't certain that this place would even work out. And we were even more skeptical that Charlie and Esther wouldn't drag us back. Last semester felt like a trial run to adulthood. Now we were entering round two and had somehow made lives for ourselves here.

We found our Tutwiler friends in the common room when we made it back. As much as I tried, I couldn't convince Ramsy to come along to Travis's house. She opted to stay behind with Natalie, Jori, Kiera, and Aubrey, who'd appeared to us for the first time since we'd gotten back. She updated us on her winter break: how Perry's parents had rented him an apartment so he didn't have to move back home all season. And now she stayed there so she didn't have to see her parents either. They were apparently still in love and had spent all evening together at the Theta Chi return party the night before. I didn't say anything, but I was bummed that we'd come back so late that we'd missed the Theta party. It's where I'd officially met Trav almost half a year before. And, of course, Benji. I'd have to ask him if they'd gone again this semester.

I left Ram in the common room with the others and quickly got ready to head to Travis's. By 6:30, I was out the door with the keys in hand. It felt odd to drive to Trav's; he usually picked me up so we could leave Ram the truck. Although it felt right to be back in Bama, it also felt slightly different. I didn't feel like the out-of-place freshman who'd just been trying her best to make it work. It all felt familiar, like somehow this place belonged to me now too. I slid into Travis's driveway and couldn't help but grin at the converted warehouse. The garage doors in the front facade that opened to the pit were all closed, but the windows above were all bright.

I climbed out and crossed the blacktop to the actual garage where Trav parked the M5. The garage code came to mind easily. It was the four numbers of Travis's license plate for his favorite racecar, the Toyota Supra; T6LL331. I typed 6331, and the door began rolling open. I closed the garage door on my way inside, noting with excitement that the BMW M5 was parked in its rightful place.

The second I stepped inside, I was met with commotion. Music played loudly over the speakers that the guys had mounted around the building, and rowdy voices were coming from the kitchen. I immediately grinned at the five boys standing around the marble-topped island. Shay, Ryan, Flynn, Erick, and Camden turned to look at me as I walked into the kitchen. They mostly all grinned, except Camden, with whom I shared a love-hate relationship. I grinned at him extra hard.

Shay moved forward to hug me. "Well if it isn't our girl back from the wastelands of Indiana," he joked. "When did you get back?"

"Last night," I replied, sliding out of his arms and into Ryan's. “I missed you guys so much."

Ryan grabbed me up in his arms and held me tight. Since he was basically the same height as Travis, I was able to tuck my head under his chin, and I wrapped my arms around his slim waist. I didn’t know if it was because Ryan was related to Travis or because of his own level-headed personality, but I was closer with Ryan than the others somehow.

There was a hierarchy in the relationships I had with the guys. Travis, of course landed at the top, and Ryan followed with Shay close behind. Erick and Flynn were the kind of friends whom I loved. We had a lot of laughs when we were together, but had never really hung-out outside of Travis's world. And Camden, well, he rarely hung around outside of race nights. I eyed him as I turned to the others.

"Where's Trav?" I questioned. "Is there a race tonight? Is he in the bathtub?"

The others smiled at Travis's race-day ritual of avoiding the world and the stress by smoking in his empty bathtub, but they collectively shook their heads.

''He should be home soon," Flynn said with a shrug. ''He was out running with a friend."

"Must be." I nodded. "The BMW is here."

We were in the living room when Travis came in fifteen minutes later. One of the garage doors off of the pit began to open, and Travis pulled the Supra right into the open slot. We all turned to look as he hopped out. Simultaneously, the passenger's side door popped open. My gaze flicked to the girl who got out. Trav must've seen my truck outside, however, because he made straight for me.

"Code! " he shouted, practically throwing himself down onto the arm of the chair where I was sitting. Even from the side, he wrapped his arms around my neck and tucked my head against his chest. "You should've told me you were coming over,” he said. "I would've been here. What happened to your night of settling in with Ramsy?"

I grinned and shrugged against him. "We're all settled. I ran into Benj earlier, and he mentioned family dinner night, so I thought I'd make an appearance."

Trav smiled. "Good," he said. He climbed up off the arm on air and turned back to the girl behind him. "This is Hannah," he said nonchalantly, which was the 'Travis' way of doing everything. He didn't bother to mention our names to her. He just turned from the living room and meandered toward the kitchen. “Whose turn is it to cook?" he yelled back as he went.

Hannah looked unsure of whether she should follow him or not. I wasn't sure if she'd already met any of the guys, since Travis had never mentioned her, but I knew that we hadn't met so I hopped up to greet her and break the awkward silence.

She smiled gratefully as I stopped in front of her.

"I'm Cody," I introduced myself. "It's nice to meet you."

She looked surprised for a split second. "It's good to meet you too," she said. "Travis definitely mentioned you; I just hadn't realized that you weren't a guy."

I heard the guys snicker behind me, and I glanced back to glare at them. Most of them looked away quickly, feigning innocence, but Ryan looked amused as he met my gaze, and Shay smiled ruefully, shaking his head at the common misconception caused by my name. To Hannah, I smiled. "He must not have talked about me that often then," I answered, "but yeah. I’m definitely a girl."

The group of us headed after Travis into the kitchen. I was a little worried about what he was doing. I'd never seen him cook, and I had a creeping suspicion that these dinners involved Travis supplying the kitchen and someone else preparing the food.