The Four

The next day, my curiosity got the better of me. I turned to Sam after our professor dismissed class, and began putting my things away in my backpack.

"Sam?"

"Mmhmm," she hummed, straightening her skirt as she stood up from our row.

"Who are the other members of The Four? You know... besides Travis?"

She paused and raised an eyebrow at me. "Wait, really? You want to know?"

"Well... yeah. I'm just wondering," I mumbled.

She grinned and plopped back down next to me happily. "To be honest, I've been waiting for you to ask."

I rolled my eyes. "God knows I can't seem to avoid them. Might as well learn their names."

Sam laughed. "Okay, well, first we have Sebastian de Luca. His family hails from Italy, and is huge in the gold business. I heard they have beach homes in, like, Malta and Florence, and you'll never catch him without at least one item of solid gold on him. He's majoring in International Economics." She looked at me. "He's the dark and muscular one. With the black hair."

I nodded. Sebastian was the one that held the basketball yesterday.

"Then there's Noah Hamilton. He's the brunette with the glasses. His parents are world-class business owners and restauranteurs - name a five-star establishment in the City and it's bound to be owned and operated by the Hamilton's. It's rumored they have three five-star chefs living-in with them. Three! Ugh. Oh, and Noah's majoring in Management, I think."

I raised an eyebrow at her uncertainty. "I'm disappointed. I thought you knew them like the back of your hand."

"Oh gimme a break, I can never tell all these business majors apart. Like, what's the difference between finance and economics?"

"We don't have time to unpack that."

"Moving on," Sam deflected matter-of-factly. "Last but certainly not least, Alexander St. Clair. Alex, for short. He's the only non-business major: he's a musical pro-di-gy. He can play, like, any instrument, but his specialty is piano. It runs in the family: his dad is a hit movie composer and his mom is president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He has an older brother studying in London, too."

"He's the blonde one?" I asked.

"Yep."

So it was Alex. The blue-eyed one on the roof was Alex.

"I presume you don't want to know more about Travis Vanderbilt?" Sam asked teasingly.

Eyes rolling, I replied, "I'm well-versed."

"Oh, and get this," Sam poked me in the arm with a pen. "They're single."

My jaw dropped at her. "You're joking."

She shook her head excitedly. "Serious as a judge. All four of them."

"How is that possible?" Despite their gross behavior, I still couldn't wrap my head around none of The Four dating. They had literal mobs of beautiful, rich girls chasing them at every corner.

"Believe me, it isn't for lack of proposals. Sebastian and Noah date around pretty often, but rarely the same girl twice. They're players, but they respect women, you know?" She eyed me with a smirk. "And in case you were wondering... Travis and Alex are notoriously[/Ii hard to get."

I smacked her arm. "I was not going to ask about them!"

"I was just being informational," she said with a wink.

---

"Analeigh Taylor?"

My head, resting on my hand, snapped up. My professor, Dr. Matthews, who had been mid-lecture just a moment ago, was now looking right at me from his podium. My eyes flicked to the doorway, which swung shut - someone had just came and went. The class fell quiet in attention.

"Yes?" My voice felt small and echoey among the hundred students.

"You're needed in Barnard Library. You're dismissed." He waved a small note in his hand.

The classic uproar of whispers and gossip spread through the class. I stood up slowly, closing my notebook and stuffing it in my backpack.

Barnard Library? What was at Barnard Library?

I shuffled out of my row and up to the professor. "What is this concerning?" I asked him in a low voice.

"No telling. Looks administrative. You'll have to get the rest of the day's notes from a classmate." He handed me the note and resumed the lecture.

I had never been to the west side of campus before - I only had classes in a few buildings, and none of them were on the west side. With the help of my map, I found the library in question - it was one of the more modern buildings I'd seen, with white walls and steel beams. A few older-looking students were sitting around the entrance on metal benches, buried in encyclopedia-sized textbooks. The inside was seemingly empty, too - I approached the reception desk, where some of the only signs of life could be found.

"Um, hi," I said to the redhead behind the desk, typing away on a MacBook. "Do you know where G112 is?"

"Down this hallway, last door on the left," she replied uninterestedly, gesturing to a long hall behind her.

"Thanks." I walked per her directions until I came upon a frosted glass door with a metal plaque reading "G112" to the side of it.

An administrator's office? In a library?

I took an uneasy breath and pushed through the door.

A glass desk stood dead center of the small room, with a single brown leather chair in front of it. The soles of my loafers, as lightly as I was walking, noticeably slapped against the marble floor, unadorned with a rug. It was a dark, relatively small room - hardly decorated, save for floor-to-ceiling bookcases against the back wall, and a modern grandfather clock against another.

I shut the door behind me and stepped toward the desk. A small plate of what appeared to be pad Thai sat idly by - just the smell made my stomach grumble. The tall-backed brown leather chair was facing away from me, like I was in some kind of horror movie.

"Hi, um... You... You wanted to see me?" I asked quietly. "I'm Analeigh. Taylor."

"So it is true," a cool, ominous voice replied from the chair.

No. There's no way.

The seat swiveled around, revealing Travis Vanderbilt in all his dark, rich glory. He wore a maroon button-up shirt tucked into black pants, black leather loafers and a huge, glittering silver Rolex. His greasy black hair was coifed to infuriating perfection, with that obnoxious single strand falling before his piercing eyes. His arm was propped up, showing off the whiskey glass he held, and his long legs were crossed before him.

My jaw dropped. "What?" I asked incredulously.

"Your name. I distinctly remember you telling me it wasn't Analeigh."

"Did you... Did you seriously pull me out of class just now?"

He took a swig out of his whiskey and set it down on the glass table with a clank. "I can summon you in more ways than one," he said huskily.

That word again.

"Well, in that case, we might as well settle it now," I said, crossing my arms angrily. "What do you want, Travis?"

He stood from the chair and walked around the desk towards me. I repeated the familiar: tilting my head back to keep eye contact as he closed in on my petite frame. He stopped maybe two feet in front of me, hands in pockets, though not deep enough to hide the glimmer of his watch.

"You try my patience," he said.

I snorted. "Me? I try your patience?" Honestly, the nerve of this guy. "And before you ask, yes, it's funny to me," I said sarcastically.

His expression turned icy. "Do you realize who you're talking to?"

I ran a hand through my hair and nodded. "I do: an upperclassman boy with a first and last name, just like everybody else."

He took two abrupt steps forward, eyes shining. "I own this school. Do you think some sophomore English major with an attitude can provoke me?"

"I'm not trying to provoke you," I retorted, choosing not to react to the jab. "You broke my phone and I confronted you about it. You just chose to be rude."

"I'm not the one throwing drinks at the other," he hissed.

"No, you're just the one going out of the way to call for me in the middle of class."

He spun around violently fast and slammed his hands into the desk, causing me to jump in surprise. I couldn't believe the glass didn't shatter with the impact - the noise alone was loud as a gunshot. The plate of pad Thai rattled unnervingly in its plastic container. I faced his lean back, rising and falling with heavy breaths.

"Do you have no sense of superiority?"

I straightened my shoulders. "I'm not inferior to jerks."

"Call me a jerk, one more time," he seethed.

"Or what?" I exhaled in frustration. "Honestly, Columbia is filled with the best and brightest students in the country, and you still think you're better than the rest of them. I worked my ass off to get here, and I won't let some ill-mannered, well-to-do-"

"SHUT UP!" In a flash, Travis turned and launched the container of pad Thai directly at my defenseless frame. A fountain of sauce-covered fried rice, chicken and vegetables descended upon me before I had a prayer of reacting. My hair, neck and shoulders were absolutely covered; my flannel was oozing in sauce, and I felt remnants of food sticking and falling down my collar.

I was paralyzed with shock. Ears ringing, my eyes widened at Travis, standing above me with a fierce, if not equally surprised expression.

"You..." he broke eye contact, turning away from me. "You insulted me first. You deserved it," he said heavily.

My vision began to blur. I could feel my breathing becoming shaky and uneven. I took two slow steps back from him, unfixed pieces of pad Thai raining down to the floor below, until I finally whirled around and bolted out the frosted glass door.