****************************************************************
Chapter 1
This is a kick in the wallet.
Mina thought fondly of the meager wad of cash stuffed in her
purse and how, in a few short minutes, she would be supporting
the already-rich heirs of Mssrs. Barnes and Noble. There were
no clean clothes or takeout in the foreseeable future; she would
have to make do with substituting Febreeze for laundry detergent and
"borrowing" money off Raye for frat parties. She thought briefly
of selling her plasma, which Lita suggested while she checked
all of the lounge couches in Goshin Hall for change to buy Pop
Tarts.
No I hate needles. Disgusted, she crammed the hated
book list in her pocket and pulled open the glass door of the
campus bookstore. She groaned. Every student and their
respective siblings were packing the aisles, each with a stack
of books piled up to their chins and a Mastercard tucked in
their fist.
The used book were undoubtedly gone by now. She would pay
through the nose for the shiny shrink-wrapped ones that cost
an arm and a leg.
Damn Raye for buying her books early. Mina had waited
until classes actually started before she plunked down any
dinero. She and Raye had roomed together, and the arrangements
had worked out quite nicely for both parties. Mina's laziness
was cancelled out by Raye's ambition, and in turn, she got
Raye to chill once in awhile and play with the Dreamcast.
They both liked to sleep with the windows open, and Raye would
do all of the ironing if Mina left her alone when she meditated.
They interchanged clothes on a regular basis, and to date
neither remembered who originally owned the gray J. Crew
sweatshirt. They both pledged Delta Zeta their first semester,
and the madness of Rush Week had strengthened the already tight bond
between the two friends.
Lita and Serena roomed together in Ramsey Hall, and Amy,
the lucky little squirt, scored a single in Bedford, so she
could concentrate fully on her studies without the nuisance
of a roommate watching "Days of our Lives," while she tackled
Genius Math 101. Lita speculated that Amy's mother had been
involved in a little string pulling, since freshman with singles
were as rare as icicles in Hawaii. Serena thought it had to
do more with Amy's "super humongous brain."
"Pick me up a pack of HiLiters," Mina mumbled as she
hefted a two-ton Spanish book off the top shelf, nearly breaking
her arm in the process. "Don't give me money or anything, Raye.
Of course I have tons to spend since I bought you guys all
awesome Christmas presents." The spirit of the holidays hit
her a little too hard, and all of the money she had earned
from the catalog spread and body wash ad was gone. She had
to practically grovel until her father loaned her money for books.
If she knew then what she did now, all she would have bought
Raye was a HiLiter and her own damn toothpaste.
A muscle in her back wrenched painfully. Dammit! That
bastard Malachite could pack a mean punch. She would pick him
over Tyson any day. Ever since those g-damn Dark Generals
appeared, they had been getting their ass handed to them on
a regular basis. If Jupiter hadn't thrown that rock, (a
friggin' ROCK, for chrissakes!) she would have been toast.
She almost laughed through the pain at the memory of Malachite's
face when Jupiter's hunk of granite made contact with the back
of his head.
"Line drive to center field, asshole!" Jupiter had
screamed, dancing around deliriously. They had been worried
that Jedite's blast had knocked the wits out of her, but like
alcohol, Lita had slept it off. Lita could sleep a bottle of
SoCo off and be baking brownies the next morning. Serena was
not so lucky. Amy, of course, never drank. Maybe that's why
she was passing.
The Generals were posing a problem, though. Under
Beryl's direct orders, they launched youma attacks weekly,
usually at high-energy concentrations, which were almost
always good parties. The Senshi wasted the youma easily, but
the Generals liked to stick around and beat on them before
Beryl chickened out and called them back to the Negaverse.
The Senshi thought they had one weekend free of Nega-trash
until the Fab Four decided to crash the APD mixer on Sunday
night. Malachite especially liked to target Amy, the sadist,
and had been gunning for her the second he appeared. Mina,
enraged, had thrown a lime jello shot in his hair and tried to
crescent beam his face off. Amy had been kicked down by Nephlite
anyway, the stupid APD boy whose hide she had been saving
whined that she was wasting alcohol, and on top of that, she
got a wallop on her back for all her trouble. Zoycite had
roughed up Mars after she hit him with a table and he stood
up, completely unaffected. The deck was stacked in the
Negaverse's favor until Jupiter's Randy Johnson fastball almost
put Malachite in a coma, and all four of them vanished. And
THEN Tuxedo Mask appeared, extremely late, spouting flowery
nonsense verses and thornless roses. Since there was not much
he could say about the virtues of underage drinking, he
congratulated the senshi on their teamwork and disappeared in
a swirl of his cape, leaving Sailor Moon with hearts in her
eyes and Jedite-induced bruises on her legs. Venus had been
laying on the sticky linoleum floor at this point, Miller
Genuine Draft soaking her hair and a bruise spreading across
her back like an oil spill.
Luna and Artemis were working nonstop trying to find
the Generals' weaknesses, coming up with Jack Daniels in
Nephlite's case, but not much else. Those bastards were
practically invincible. Not only had they brushed off
the respective attacks like they were gentle breezes instead
of powerful bursts of elemental energy, but had survived
being hit with (in order): a mailbox, a fire extinguisher,
an incredibly heavy solid oak beer pong table, about a hundred
metal folding chairs, a calculus book (which would have been
lethal to the regular layman), a big chunk of curb, a computer
desk, an empty keg, a floor fan, a park bench, a FEDERAL
mailbox, an abandoned old mattress, and a metal dumpster.
And that was just what Mina had whipped at them using her
Love Chain. Lita even hit them with her car once. Nothing,
NOTHING took them down. Nephlite even laughed after he
took a faceful of Ford Focus bumper. Mina honestly didn't
know how much longer she could put up with these regular
ass beatings. They would think that she was moonlighting
as a bouncer if she showed up to her photo shoots with those
bruises.
Mina's eyes drifted off the stack of books and her
guy-radar started searching through the aisles for potentials.
Ugh, it just wasn't fair that Serena and Darien were so
sickeningly cute together, and the only guys she had gotten
to know on a less-clothed level were absolute pricks. Not
that she had done anything that she would have regretted,
of course. They didn't call her Sailor V for nothing.
She wanted what Serena had: someone to think about her
24/7 and care about her. Someone that would skip class
and lay in bed with her all day. Someone who would look
at her like she was the reason that person was put on earth.
Someone who would sneak in Goshin and spend the night in
her room. She wanted someone who would give her a reason
to hang a scrunchie on the doorknob, the universal
go-away-roommate signal.
I need a man. Ooh, there's one.
And there was one. Two, actually. The tall
one in the gray fleece jacket caught her attention, and
she unabashedly stared at his back. Oh wow, I'm liking
the guy and I haven't even seen his face yet, she thought.
She had the brief daydream of running her hand down his
back and feeling all the tight muscles underneath. Of
course, the gray jacket wouldn't be there, and neither
would whatever was under that…
The object of her affection bent down and pulled
a chemistry book from the bottom shelf, turning slightly
to show his friend, allowing Mina to see his profile.
For a fraction of an iota of a second, she went
completely numb. Then she sucked her breath in, feeling
rational thought drain out of her as if someone pulled a
plug. Her trembling hand dropped Raye's HiLiters, and her
arms constricted around her books in a death grip. Somehow
her senshi mind defensively kept her from dropping her
books and drawing attention to herself. Her heart hammered.
Move, MOVE! Her mind screamed, and her body obeyed, albeit
slowly. She took a single step to her right, obscuring the
guy's sight of her behind a shelf. To the casual observer,
it seemed that she might have spotted an ex-boyfriend, or a
crush she was too shy to talk to. In reality, Mina was
panicking.
Oh God, what if he does something here? she
thought feverishly. I can't transform! The bookstore
was swarming with people; he could have his pick of any
number of victims. And the dumb fools, they didn't even know
that they were potential victims! Two girls were standing
within five feet of him, making themselves the proverbial
fish in a barrel.
Mina mentally screamed at them. Get out of there!
Get OUT OF THERE!! HE'S EVIL!!! HE'LL KILL YOU!!! RUN!!!
She bit her lower lip, the image of Malachite striking like
a cobra and attacking the curly-haired girl replayed over
and over in her mind. She clumsily shoved the books on a
nearby shelf and was fumbling for her communicator when
Malachite's companion turned and her worst fears were confirmed.
The shorter man was Jedite, and he seemed to be in deep
onversation with Malachite. Probably plotting when and
where to release the youma.
Mina crouched behind the shelf of binders and flipped
open her communicator, which looked almost exactly like a
Motorola cellular phone. It could be used as one, too, and
it frequently was used as such in non-emergencies. Under
the black plastic, it was the original senshi communicator,
bestowed by Luna and modified by Amy. The old communicators
had been much too obvious, especially when a group of
well-meaning RA's cornered Serena and asked her if she was
homesick, if she took drugs, ect., after they discovered her
talking to her calculator in the lounge. Amy had also
rebuilt her mini-computer to look like a Palm Pilot when
they were in normal form.
Mina pressed the pound sign twice, and immediately
the other senshi communicator-phones rang their special ring.
Raye had been sound asleep back in the room when her
cell phone blared. Groggily, she flipped it opened, and
three squares with digital images of Serena, Amy, and Lita
blinked on. Raye could see pillow around Lita's head,
and knew she had been sleeping, too. Luna was forcing
her head under Serena's chin. Mina's square was black,
meaning that she had the phone up to her ear. "What's
going on," Raye snapped, alerted. Mina's black box meant
she was in public, and probably in trouble.
"I'm at the bookstore," Mina's whisper was almost
drowned out by background noise. "Malachite and Jedite
are here."
Serena's jaw dropped. "Ok, we'll be right there!
Let's go guys!"
"Hold on Serena," Amy interjected, coolly logical.
"Mina, are they attacking anyone? I don't hear much of a
fight."
"No, they're not," Mina said. She snuck another
look at the pair. "They're…I don't know, you guys. It
looks like they're buying books or something. Dammit,
Jedite got the last used Chem II!"
Lita yawned, giving the other girls a great view
of her fillings. "Aw, man, I needed that one, too!"
"Mina, it's probably a trap! Beryl probably gave
them a refresher course in how to act normal and then
they're going to take out the bookstore!" Raye hissed.
There was a pause. "Did you get my HiLiters?"
"Raye!" Amy gasped.
"Yes, jerk! Um, and.."
"And?" Raye echoed. "And what?"
"They're different," Mina continued. "They're
a lot younger. And not as evil looking. They're, uh,
harmless looking? What's the word, Ames?"
"Benign?" Amy offered.
"I guess." She examined them closer. Malachite's
hair was much shorter, and he was less sinewy then when s
he had last seen him. He was much younger, and the angles
in his face were softer than the sharp ones she was used
to. One of the girls dropped a book, and he reached down
and picked it up for her. Jedite also looked much
younger and healthier too. He was swinging a set of keys
from a Bryce key chain with a bottle opener on it. He
said something, and Malachite smiled softly, like was
embarrassed. Jedite grinned, a full-on grin with no
trace of evil. Something about them was different;
their facial features were not dead-on, their builds
were different, and they looked so completely normal
Mina would have mistaken them for college students if
she hadn't been getting the crap kicked out of her by
them for the last two months.
"Maybe you guys better come down here and see f
or yourself," Mina suggested.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"She wants you, man," Jay Melman grinned crazily
at his friend.
"Who?" Kevin Belles ran his fingers through his
platinum hair, a clear sign that he was nervous. Jay really
knew what nerves to hit, but that was the price to pay for
having a friend since the sixth grade. Jay could read the
smallest expression to a T, and nothing was sacred in his realm.
"The blond that dropped her HiLiters and ran. She's
hiding behind a shelf and staring at you."
Kevin took a quick glance and whipped back around so
fast Jay thought he'd broken his neck. His face was scarlet.
There was a blond girl staring at him, and in the minute
instant that he actually laid eyes on her, he noticed that
she was beautiful.
"Shut up," he muttered, not knowing what else to
say. Kevin's shyness was the one feature that both attracted
and repelled the female gender. After receiving an overbearing
double dose of Matt and Jay in their face, and Zach's biting
wit waiting behind in the wings to back them up, girls were
drawn to the "cute, quiet one" who lingered in the back. It
didn't help that Kevin, with his stormy gray eyes and
football player build, was irresistible. But after repeated
efforts to get him to talk had failed, they gravitated into
the more than welcome arms of his friends. "We are taking
you everywhere, man!" Matt had proclaimed when two freshly
rejected sorority girls suggested that he walk them back to
their house.
Now, standing there in the bookstore, eyes to the
floor and hands jammed in pockets, Kevin prayed that an
iota of Jay's mojo would rub off on him. Jay had a gift,
the gift of being able to charm the panties off of any
female, any age, at any time, with almost no effort. He
remembered how Jay had gotten free meals for a year from
old Ms. Petroski, their high school cafeteria lady. The
mojo had side effects, though. Two girls, who the guys
had dubbed Crazy Kristen and Typhoon Lagoon, (real names,
Kristen Hayes and Stacy Mayeski) persistently called Jay
at least twice a day, both convinced that he was still in
love with her. The effects of the mojo had not worn off
on them.
"Dude, I am telling you, that girl is so digging
your flat ass! She is checking you out! Hey man, she's
got knockers!" Every other word was emphasized.
"Would you shut up?"
"Oh Hey-Zeus H. Christmas, you are shitting me!
She's wicked hot, man, go for it. Look! LOOK! She's got
her cell phone out and she's calling her friends! Aw, man,
would you check out her tits?"
Kevin snuck another glance at her face instead.
Chapter 1
This is a kick in the wallet.
Mina thought fondly of the meager wad of cash stuffed in her
purse and how, in a few short minutes, she would be supporting
the already-rich heirs of Mssrs. Barnes and Noble. There were
no clean clothes or takeout in the foreseeable future; she would
have to make do with substituting Febreeze for laundry detergent and
"borrowing" money off Raye for frat parties. She thought briefly
of selling her plasma, which Lita suggested while she checked
all of the lounge couches in Goshin Hall for change to buy Pop
Tarts.
No I hate needles. Disgusted, she crammed the hated
book list in her pocket and pulled open the glass door of the
campus bookstore. She groaned. Every student and their
respective siblings were packing the aisles, each with a stack
of books piled up to their chins and a Mastercard tucked in
their fist.
The used book were undoubtedly gone by now. She would pay
through the nose for the shiny shrink-wrapped ones that cost
an arm and a leg.
Damn Raye for buying her books early. Mina had waited
until classes actually started before she plunked down any
dinero. She and Raye had roomed together, and the arrangements
had worked out quite nicely for both parties. Mina's laziness
was cancelled out by Raye's ambition, and in turn, she got
Raye to chill once in awhile and play with the Dreamcast.
They both liked to sleep with the windows open, and Raye would
do all of the ironing if Mina left her alone when she meditated.
They interchanged clothes on a regular basis, and to date
neither remembered who originally owned the gray J. Crew
sweatshirt. They both pledged Delta Zeta their first semester,
and the madness of Rush Week had strengthened the already tight bond
between the two friends.
Lita and Serena roomed together in Ramsey Hall, and Amy,
the lucky little squirt, scored a single in Bedford, so she
could concentrate fully on her studies without the nuisance
of a roommate watching "Days of our Lives," while she tackled
Genius Math 101. Lita speculated that Amy's mother had been
involved in a little string pulling, since freshman with singles
were as rare as icicles in Hawaii. Serena thought it had to
do more with Amy's "super humongous brain."
"Pick me up a pack of HiLiters," Mina mumbled as she
hefted a two-ton Spanish book off the top shelf, nearly breaking
her arm in the process. "Don't give me money or anything, Raye.
Of course I have tons to spend since I bought you guys all
awesome Christmas presents." The spirit of the holidays hit
her a little too hard, and all of the money she had earned
from the catalog spread and body wash ad was gone. She had
to practically grovel until her father loaned her money for books.
If she knew then what she did now, all she would have bought
Raye was a HiLiter and her own damn toothpaste.
A muscle in her back wrenched painfully. Dammit! That
bastard Malachite could pack a mean punch. She would pick him
over Tyson any day. Ever since those g-damn Dark Generals
appeared, they had been getting their ass handed to them on
a regular basis. If Jupiter hadn't thrown that rock, (a
friggin' ROCK, for chrissakes!) she would have been toast.
She almost laughed through the pain at the memory of Malachite's
face when Jupiter's hunk of granite made contact with the back
of his head.
"Line drive to center field, asshole!" Jupiter had
screamed, dancing around deliriously. They had been worried
that Jedite's blast had knocked the wits out of her, but like
alcohol, Lita had slept it off. Lita could sleep a bottle of
SoCo off and be baking brownies the next morning. Serena was
not so lucky. Amy, of course, never drank. Maybe that's why
she was passing.
The Generals were posing a problem, though. Under
Beryl's direct orders, they launched youma attacks weekly,
usually at high-energy concentrations, which were almost
always good parties. The Senshi wasted the youma easily, but
the Generals liked to stick around and beat on them before
Beryl chickened out and called them back to the Negaverse.
The Senshi thought they had one weekend free of Nega-trash
until the Fab Four decided to crash the APD mixer on Sunday
night. Malachite especially liked to target Amy, the sadist,
and had been gunning for her the second he appeared. Mina,
enraged, had thrown a lime jello shot in his hair and tried to
crescent beam his face off. Amy had been kicked down by Nephlite
anyway, the stupid APD boy whose hide she had been saving
whined that she was wasting alcohol, and on top of that, she
got a wallop on her back for all her trouble. Zoycite had
roughed up Mars after she hit him with a table and he stood
up, completely unaffected. The deck was stacked in the
Negaverse's favor until Jupiter's Randy Johnson fastball almost
put Malachite in a coma, and all four of them vanished. And
THEN Tuxedo Mask appeared, extremely late, spouting flowery
nonsense verses and thornless roses. Since there was not much
he could say about the virtues of underage drinking, he
congratulated the senshi on their teamwork and disappeared in
a swirl of his cape, leaving Sailor Moon with hearts in her
eyes and Jedite-induced bruises on her legs. Venus had been
laying on the sticky linoleum floor at this point, Miller
Genuine Draft soaking her hair and a bruise spreading across
her back like an oil spill.
Luna and Artemis were working nonstop trying to find
the Generals' weaknesses, coming up with Jack Daniels in
Nephlite's case, but not much else. Those bastards were
practically invincible. Not only had they brushed off
the respective attacks like they were gentle breezes instead
of powerful bursts of elemental energy, but had survived
being hit with (in order): a mailbox, a fire extinguisher,
an incredibly heavy solid oak beer pong table, about a hundred
metal folding chairs, a calculus book (which would have been
lethal to the regular layman), a big chunk of curb, a computer
desk, an empty keg, a floor fan, a park bench, a FEDERAL
mailbox, an abandoned old mattress, and a metal dumpster.
And that was just what Mina had whipped at them using her
Love Chain. Lita even hit them with her car once. Nothing,
NOTHING took them down. Nephlite even laughed after he
took a faceful of Ford Focus bumper. Mina honestly didn't
know how much longer she could put up with these regular
ass beatings. They would think that she was moonlighting
as a bouncer if she showed up to her photo shoots with those
bruises.
Mina's eyes drifted off the stack of books and her
guy-radar started searching through the aisles for potentials.
Ugh, it just wasn't fair that Serena and Darien were so
sickeningly cute together, and the only guys she had gotten
to know on a less-clothed level were absolute pricks. Not
that she had done anything that she would have regretted,
of course. They didn't call her Sailor V for nothing.
She wanted what Serena had: someone to think about her
24/7 and care about her. Someone that would skip class
and lay in bed with her all day. Someone who would look
at her like she was the reason that person was put on earth.
Someone who would sneak in Goshin and spend the night in
her room. She wanted someone who would give her a reason
to hang a scrunchie on the doorknob, the universal
go-away-roommate signal.
I need a man. Ooh, there's one.
And there was one. Two, actually. The tall
one in the gray fleece jacket caught her attention, and
she unabashedly stared at his back. Oh wow, I'm liking
the guy and I haven't even seen his face yet, she thought.
She had the brief daydream of running her hand down his
back and feeling all the tight muscles underneath. Of
course, the gray jacket wouldn't be there, and neither
would whatever was under that…
The object of her affection bent down and pulled
a chemistry book from the bottom shelf, turning slightly
to show his friend, allowing Mina to see his profile.
For a fraction of an iota of a second, she went
completely numb. Then she sucked her breath in, feeling
rational thought drain out of her as if someone pulled a
plug. Her trembling hand dropped Raye's HiLiters, and her
arms constricted around her books in a death grip. Somehow
her senshi mind defensively kept her from dropping her
books and drawing attention to herself. Her heart hammered.
Move, MOVE! Her mind screamed, and her body obeyed, albeit
slowly. She took a single step to her right, obscuring the
guy's sight of her behind a shelf. To the casual observer,
it seemed that she might have spotted an ex-boyfriend, or a
crush she was too shy to talk to. In reality, Mina was
panicking.
Oh God, what if he does something here? she
thought feverishly. I can't transform! The bookstore
was swarming with people; he could have his pick of any
number of victims. And the dumb fools, they didn't even know
that they were potential victims! Two girls were standing
within five feet of him, making themselves the proverbial
fish in a barrel.
Mina mentally screamed at them. Get out of there!
Get OUT OF THERE!! HE'S EVIL!!! HE'LL KILL YOU!!! RUN!!!
She bit her lower lip, the image of Malachite striking like
a cobra and attacking the curly-haired girl replayed over
and over in her mind. She clumsily shoved the books on a
nearby shelf and was fumbling for her communicator when
Malachite's companion turned and her worst fears were confirmed.
The shorter man was Jedite, and he seemed to be in deep
onversation with Malachite. Probably plotting when and
where to release the youma.
Mina crouched behind the shelf of binders and flipped
open her communicator, which looked almost exactly like a
Motorola cellular phone. It could be used as one, too, and
it frequently was used as such in non-emergencies. Under
the black plastic, it was the original senshi communicator,
bestowed by Luna and modified by Amy. The old communicators
had been much too obvious, especially when a group of
well-meaning RA's cornered Serena and asked her if she was
homesick, if she took drugs, ect., after they discovered her
talking to her calculator in the lounge. Amy had also
rebuilt her mini-computer to look like a Palm Pilot when
they were in normal form.
Mina pressed the pound sign twice, and immediately
the other senshi communicator-phones rang their special ring.
Raye had been sound asleep back in the room when her
cell phone blared. Groggily, she flipped it opened, and
three squares with digital images of Serena, Amy, and Lita
blinked on. Raye could see pillow around Lita's head,
and knew she had been sleeping, too. Luna was forcing
her head under Serena's chin. Mina's square was black,
meaning that she had the phone up to her ear. "What's
going on," Raye snapped, alerted. Mina's black box meant
she was in public, and probably in trouble.
"I'm at the bookstore," Mina's whisper was almost
drowned out by background noise. "Malachite and Jedite
are here."
Serena's jaw dropped. "Ok, we'll be right there!
Let's go guys!"
"Hold on Serena," Amy interjected, coolly logical.
"Mina, are they attacking anyone? I don't hear much of a
fight."
"No, they're not," Mina said. She snuck another
look at the pair. "They're…I don't know, you guys. It
looks like they're buying books or something. Dammit,
Jedite got the last used Chem II!"
Lita yawned, giving the other girls a great view
of her fillings. "Aw, man, I needed that one, too!"
"Mina, it's probably a trap! Beryl probably gave
them a refresher course in how to act normal and then
they're going to take out the bookstore!" Raye hissed.
There was a pause. "Did you get my HiLiters?"
"Raye!" Amy gasped.
"Yes, jerk! Um, and.."
"And?" Raye echoed. "And what?"
"They're different," Mina continued. "They're
a lot younger. And not as evil looking. They're, uh,
harmless looking? What's the word, Ames?"
"Benign?" Amy offered.
"I guess." She examined them closer. Malachite's
hair was much shorter, and he was less sinewy then when s
he had last seen him. He was much younger, and the angles
in his face were softer than the sharp ones she was used
to. One of the girls dropped a book, and he reached down
and picked it up for her. Jedite also looked much
younger and healthier too. He was swinging a set of keys
from a Bryce key chain with a bottle opener on it. He
said something, and Malachite smiled softly, like was
embarrassed. Jedite grinned, a full-on grin with no
trace of evil. Something about them was different;
their facial features were not dead-on, their builds
were different, and they looked so completely normal
Mina would have mistaken them for college students if
she hadn't been getting the crap kicked out of her by
them for the last two months.
"Maybe you guys better come down here and see f
or yourself," Mina suggested.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
"She wants you, man," Jay Melman grinned crazily
at his friend.
"Who?" Kevin Belles ran his fingers through his
platinum hair, a clear sign that he was nervous. Jay really
knew what nerves to hit, but that was the price to pay for
having a friend since the sixth grade. Jay could read the
smallest expression to a T, and nothing was sacred in his realm.
"The blond that dropped her HiLiters and ran. She's
hiding behind a shelf and staring at you."
Kevin took a quick glance and whipped back around so
fast Jay thought he'd broken his neck. His face was scarlet.
There was a blond girl staring at him, and in the minute
instant that he actually laid eyes on her, he noticed that
she was beautiful.
"Shut up," he muttered, not knowing what else to
say. Kevin's shyness was the one feature that both attracted
and repelled the female gender. After receiving an overbearing
double dose of Matt and Jay in their face, and Zach's biting
wit waiting behind in the wings to back them up, girls were
drawn to the "cute, quiet one" who lingered in the back. It
didn't help that Kevin, with his stormy gray eyes and
football player build, was irresistible. But after repeated
efforts to get him to talk had failed, they gravitated into
the more than welcome arms of his friends. "We are taking
you everywhere, man!" Matt had proclaimed when two freshly
rejected sorority girls suggested that he walk them back to
their house.
Now, standing there in the bookstore, eyes to the
floor and hands jammed in pockets, Kevin prayed that an
iota of Jay's mojo would rub off on him. Jay had a gift,
the gift of being able to charm the panties off of any
female, any age, at any time, with almost no effort. He
remembered how Jay had gotten free meals for a year from
old Ms. Petroski, their high school cafeteria lady. The
mojo had side effects, though. Two girls, who the guys
had dubbed Crazy Kristen and Typhoon Lagoon, (real names,
Kristen Hayes and Stacy Mayeski) persistently called Jay
at least twice a day, both convinced that he was still in
love with her. The effects of the mojo had not worn off
on them.
"Dude, I am telling you, that girl is so digging
your flat ass! She is checking you out! Hey man, she's
got knockers!" Every other word was emphasized.
"Would you shut up?"
"Oh Hey-Zeus H. Christmas, you are shitting me!
She's wicked hot, man, go for it. Look! LOOK! She's got
her cell phone out and she's calling her friends! Aw, man,
would you check out her tits?"
Kevin snuck another glance at her face instead.