Girls Like Boys

Ram and I spent the rest of the afternoon putting our things away in our room. There wasn’t much closet space, but we were used to it, so we made it work. To be honest, this dorm was a lot like our room at home, except it only had two windows instead of four and floors instead of carpet. Otherwise, it wasn’t too hard to pretend it was just the two of us hanging out at Charlie’s.

Around three, there was a knock on the door and I jumped up to open it. A short girl stood there, peaking in at Ram and I. She grinned when she saw the two of us. “Cody and Ramsy Carrigan, right?” she asked, glancing back down at the papers in her hands. “I’m your CA this year, Tegan Tyler.”

I pushed the door open wider and stepped out of the way as Ramsy got up from the floor where she was organizing some of her clothes and invited her in. “Nice to meet you,” Ram greeted, sliding past me, slightly, “I’m Ramsy.”

“I’m Cody,” I added, feeling a bit too matchy.

Tegan stood there for a moment and made a point to really look at the two of us. “You might have to remind me of that again sometime, but I’m going to try really hard not to mix you up in the beginning.” She looked honest about it, but not at all apologetic. I instantly liked her more. There was no sense in apologizing for something that couldn’t be helped. Ram and I were identical except for a few minor things, so to a stranger it would be nearly impossible to tell us apart.

“I just wanted to let you both know that we’re going to be having a floor meeting in about fifteen minutes. We’ll meet in the lounge, so please come on out and join us.” She smiled widely and then headed back up the hall without a confirmation from either of us.

“See seems decent,” Ram said as she let the door swing shut.

“Yeah, I like her,” I agreed, dropping down onto my bed.

“Do you want to go to that party tonight?” she questioned, laying down beside me even though I hadn’t given her nearly enough room. “Those girls seemed pretty cool.”

I shifted closer to the wall and stretched my arm out, so that she was laying with her head on my upper arm rather than my elbow and tucked my other arm behind my head. “I know you want to go, Ramsy,” I said, smiling. “So we’ll go. It’s sounds alright.”

Ram smiled identically. “Yeah, it does.”

We stayed like that for about ten minutes, not moving or really even talking, and then I shoved Ramsy out of my bed and pulled my shoes on while she switched into a new shirt and grabbed our room key. I wasn’t sure if the air-conditioner just wasn’t at full power or if we actually didn’t have one, but it felt cooler than outside, but still too hot for either of our likings.

We headed into the lounge about five minutes early and made sheepish eye-contact with a couple of girls who were already there. I sat down on the empty couch and Ramsy joined me, leaning forward to start a conversation with the other two girls who looked like they’d been sitting out here for a few minutes now without speaking a word to each other at all.

“I’m Ramsy, this is Cody,” she jumped into it, skipping the ‘heys’ and ‘hellos’ and other awkwardness. “We’re freshmen, what about you guys?”

“Jori,” one across from us introduced herself. “Junior, but I just transferred.”

“Natalie, freshman too,” the other one said, long dark hair falling just below her shoulders. She tucked it back behind her ear and smiled at us. I smiled back and bumped my arm against Ram’s so she’d sit back and stop blocking Natalie from my view.

We didn’t introduce ourselves to anyone else as they piled in. Tegan counted all of us and I got the strict impression that we weren’t all here. But Tegan checked the time again on her phone, and then shrugged almost to herself, brushing her dark curls away from her face.

“So, we’re missing quite a few people,” she said, pressing her palms into her thighs, “but who knows when they’ll get here, so lets get started. I’ve met most of you by now, but for those I haven’t, I’m Tegan Tyler. I’m a senior engineering major and this is my second year being a CA. Last year I was on a coed floor in Blount, but decided to kicks guys to the curb and see how it is with just girls on the floor.”

Tegan kept talking, but Ram leaned back into my shoulder and titled her head enough towards me so she could whisper directly into my ear. “You think she got dumped? I probably wouldn’t want to be around guys either after.”

My eyes widened at Ram’s words and I gave her a look, trying to hide my smile. “No, shut up.” She never was very good at staying quiet through presentations.

“Anyway,” Tegan spoke as I tuned back into her, “I’m hoping that we can make this a great year. I really want this floor to feel like some place you can come home to after work and class and just hangout and relax with a good group of girls. So in the spirit of getting to know each other, I was thinking we could play a little game.”

I tried not to groan and settled back into the couch cushion.

She made us go around and say our names and then we had to repeat the names of everyone that spoke before us. It was more difficult than it sounded because there were eighteen people and I actually only knew one of them. But that was more than the rest of these people, so I really figured I had an advantage over them. And I knew that by the end of the game they still wouldn’t know if I was Cody or Ramsy if they saw me walking down the hall.

Our floor meeting lasted about an hour before Tegan invited everyone to get dinner with her at the dining hall across the street. Most of the freshmen agreed, including Ram and I, and she ran back to put shoes on while I grabbed the student IDs that they’d given to us this morning.

The group was gathering back in the lounge and when Ram and I showed up. Tegan led the eight of us to the elevators, making small talk as we shuffled out and into the humid air. It almost looked like it might storm and I hoped it would bring a temperature drop with it.

Tegan pointed out a couple of the other buildings as we walked down a little ways and crossed the street. We were clustered between three more residence halls. One just boys and two coed. We were going to Burke now, one of the coed buildings.

Ram and I were in the middle of the group when the girls two inches behind us started whispering to themselves, albeit not very quietly. “They're looking right at us,” one of them said. I didn’t turn around to see who, but my eyes were already scanning the sidelines.

“God, they're hot. Do you think they live here?”

“I don’t know, probably. Why else would they be hanging out here?”

It only took me a minute to see the group they were talking about. I scanned them and my eyes landed on a familiar sight. He wasn’t very inconspicuous, leaning against the building with a cigarette to his lips. The same guy from the pizza place, with the piercing through his lip and that tattoo that barely showed along his spine near his neck. If he was before, he wasn’t looking this way now. He nodded as one of his friends said something.

Ram nudged me before I could nudge her. “I know, I saw them,” I said cooly, pulling my eyes away.

“And so has almost every other girl out here,” Ramsy added, grinning at me conspiratorially, “I wonder if they know who they are. Who he is.”

I looked at her questioningly. “Do you know who he is?”

“No, but I figure somebody must. Especially the way everyone is looking at them right now.” I spared another glance at her words, this time not at him, but at the people around him. Ramsy was right. The majority of the girls in the vicinity of him had definitely noticed them, even though a lot of them were pretending that they hadn’t. But even with all the attention, the boy with the piercing didn’t look like he gave a shit about it, and he snubbed the smoke out on the building.

When he lifted his head, his eyes met mine. This time I looked away. I could practically feel him smirking.

Tegan led us into the dining hall and explained that they had to swipe your ID card every time you came, that we all had ten guest passes per semester, and we could come here as many times as we wanted. The list of attributes went on and on as she walked us through the dining hall.

It was buffet style and there were different stations offering different types of food. Ramsy went to the grill for them to make her a turkey and cheese sandwich and I slipped away to get pasta. Ram was back at my side before I got my meal, and her arm brushed mine as we headed to get something to drink from the machines.

We could see Tegan trying to wave everyone down in the center of the crowded dining area. This room was huge, but it didn’t seem big enough. Even with high ceilings and half-wall windows, there were still so many people. Ram and I cut through the crowded tables over to where our floor was gathering. I didn’t miss the looks we got from a few of the people we passed. We weren’t very inconspicuous either.

The tables were pushed together to make rows of seating that cut across the room and I ended up next to Natalie with Ram at my side and Avery on hers. The group settled in and started commenting on the food, which I had to admit, was pretty good. It only took a couple minutes for the conversation to veer else where.

“Cody, Ramsy, where are you from?” Tegan asked, leading the conversation for the most part.

“You don’t think we’re from here?” Ram asked, grinning at the CA. “We could be born and raised Alabama girls.”

“You’re not,” Avery laughed beside her. “It’s kind of obvious.”

“Indiana,” I filled them in between bites. “Terre Haute.”

“What made you come down here?” Tegan asked. And while it was really just the small group of us speaking, the other girls were listening in as well. “I bet it was the football,” Tegan added, laughing lightly. “Everyone comes for the Crimson Tide.”

Ram and I had picked University of Alabama for a number of reasons, and the football team had definitely been on the list. But our list wasn’t much different than everybody else’s. We just had farther to travel to get here.

“We looked a a bunch of places and just really liked this school,” Ram answered for us both with an easy shrug. “It wasn’t really a tough decision to make.”

The rest of the meal went by easily and I found myself enjoying talking with the girls from the floor. I was surprised by how quickly they separated Ramsy and I from each other in their minds as both of us dived into different conversations. They learned that Ram was a Political Science major and that I was undecided but hovering somewhere between English and Philosophy, which really wasn’t all that narrow or interesting. But conversation came easy and soon Ramsy was talking about leaving to get ready for the party that everyone seemed to have heard about.

“You two already got invited?” Kiera questioned, leaning across the table. She was a few rooms down from us, but everyone was listening in now. We’d managed to merge back to one large conversation just by mentioning the party.

“Yeah, Olivia and some other girls invited us,” Ramsy answered, although they hadn’t been at the meeting. “They live on our floor too.”

“Do you know where it’s at? I’ve heard a bunch of people mention it today. Apparently it’s like some big first day thing that they throw every year at one of the fraternities.”

Tegan shook her head, seeming to know more than the rest of us. “Some of the football team puts it on,” she clarified, smiling, “but a lot of them are Greek too, so they throw it at Theta Chi. It really gets huge.”

“Have you ever gone?” Reese questioned from the end of our table. “I mean, are you going tonight?”

“I wasn’t planning on it. Those things get kind of monotonous after you’ve been to a few of them. And I figure that there will be more in the future, so I’m not worried about it.” She stacked her plates on top of each other and sipped down the last of her drink. “But I can show you guys where it’s at if you want to go.”

“They could probably come with us,” Ram offered as she stood up. “I’m sure Olivia, Taylor, and Aubrey won’t mind. That way you don’t have to take everyone over there. I’ll ask her when she meets up with us.”

A couple of the girls agreed and the table collectively gathered all the dishes and took them over to the conveyer belt that would carry them into the kitchen to be washed. The dining hall wasn’t as packed as it was when we first came in, but people were still coming and going quite a bit.

“How late is this place open?” I asked as we headed outside.

“Until midnight,” Tegan answered.

We crossed back to Tutwiler in a group and then separated back to our own rooms once we got upstairs. We told Natalie and Kiera our room number and that we’d probably be leaving with the others around seven if they wanted to join us. They agreed without protest and Ram and I headed to the dorm to get ready.

“Do you think I should shower?” I asked when we pushed through the door and flipped the light on. There were still a couple boxes of unpacked clothes on the floor and miscellaneous things, but we would get around to them eventually. “I feel kind of sweaty.”

Ram leaned over and practically sniffed my shoulder. Then she shrugged hers. “You still smell good. Just wash your face and redo your makeup, I think you’ll be fine.” She dived into one of the boxes on the floor and began pulling things out. “What are you wearing? I was thinking about that strapless red dress we have, the one with the sweetheart neckline. And the black heels.”

“That’d look cute,” I agreed, lazily flipping through a few dresses in the closet. “Do you think I could get away with jeans and a nice shirt?”

Ram stopped what she was doing and looked at me blankly. “No. Wear that sequined black dress that you got last summer. And take your hair down.”

I ignored her and went with a less flashy black peplum dress and a pair of dark tights. While she dug the strappy black stilettos out of our shoe box for her, she set out my favorite high heeled ankle boots for me. We operated without a word as we both changed, fixed our makeup, did our hair, and then sprayed on the same perfume. Ramsy ended up straightening her hair and it was barely an inch or so shorter than mine. I ran the flat iron through mine too to work out the kinks that the tie had created, and we were basically done.

“Are you bringing a purse?” I questioned, turning around to look at her.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Are you bringing the same one as earlier?”

“No.” She held up a smaller, glossy black one to show me and then make a point of taking my wallet out of the other one and sticking it in this one like she knew what I was about to ask.

I grinned. “Thanks.”

There was a knock at our door closer to seven-thirty and Ram pulled it open without any hesitation, grinning at the girl on the other side.

Taylor stood there on her own and she grinned at the sight of us. “You two look hot,” she said, laughing as she made a face. “Olivia and Aubrey are downstairs waiting for us. Lets go.” She backed out of the doorway so we could follow her.

“A couple other girls from the floor were wondering if it would be cool if they came with,” Ram said easily. “I figured it wouldn’t be a problem, but I said I’d ask for them.”

Taylor glanced into the empty lounge as we stopped. “Just two of them?” she asked, glancing again to see if she’d missed them. “Are they ready to go? We were planning on taking Aubrey’s car, but we could probably make two trips.”

“We can drive,” I answered just as simply. “So we don’t have to make another trip.”

Taylor looked a little surprised that we had a car on campus, but she didn’t mention it as Ramsy spoke up first, stuffing her cell phone into the purse that she was still holding onto. “Yeah, we’ll get Kiera and Natalie and meet you guys downstairs in a minute. Then we’ll follow you over there. That way if some of us want to leave it’s not a big deal.”

I didn’t miss the glance she gave me, but I also didn’t comment on it.

“That’s good,” Taylor agreed. “I’ll wait for you near the elevator while you go get them.”

Ram and I headed over to the two rooms in opposite hallways. Their doors were directly across the lounge from each other, so Ram knocked on one and I knocked on the other. I looked away from my sister when Kiera pulled the door open, looking nervous but hopeful.

“Wow, you look great,” she said enthusiastically. “Are you both ready to go?”

“Yeah, Ramsy is getting Natalie,” I said, using her name so that Kiera would be able to differentiate between us if she hadn’t already. “The others are waiting for us. We’re going to take two cars, so you guys are riding with us.”

Kiera wore tight black jeans and a white peplum top that was more ruffly than my dress. Her hair was normally short, but the tight curls she put in it made it stop just near her jaw line. She looked really great too. “You ready?” I asked, hearing Ramsy speak up as Natalie came out of her room.

Kiera nodded, stepping back in her heels to grab her bag from her desk. Her room looked identical to ours and I caught a glimpse of her roommate. She checked that she had her key and then stepped out into the hall as Ramsy and Natalie got to us. Natalie looked great too, her dark hair looked even thicker than before.

“Hey, Cody,” she greeted with a charmingly crooked smile.

Aubrey and Olivia were waiting outside when we got downstairs and they didn’t look at all surprised to see two more girls, so I figured that Taylor filled them in when she was waiting for us. Ramsy took the liberty of introducing everybody and then we headed down the street to the joint residence hall parking lot. Ramsy pulled her keys out of her bag and handed them to me.

“You two drive a truck?” Olivia asked moments later. We’d started to split into two groups to go in two different cars, but they were only parked a few vehicles away from each other. The blonde was openly surprised to see the truck light up as I unlocked it with the key fob.

“Yeah, it was a present from our dad,” Ram answered, opening the passenger’s door and then the back one so that Natalie and Kiera could climb up. Kiera had no problem in her jeans, but Natalie looked a little apprehensive about getting up there without flashing the other girls her underwear. Ramsy held her dress down for her.

“Okay, well, follow us. It’s only a few blocks or so away.”

Ramsy nodded and climbed up into the truck. We’d had plenty of practice getting in and out in all kinds of outfits, so neither of us had to worry about showing anything or driving in heels. We practically lived in this truck.

Aubrey pulled out first and then I did, backing the large truck out of the small space. The rows were narrow between the cars, but I didn’t have an issue following Aubrey’s small Saturn through the one way aisles to the exit. I pulled out right behind them and we headed towards Greek Row.