When Alex came back out of the bathroom, her brief ride of happiness hit a pothole. Two of them, actually - the number of girls who were talking to Justin. She assessed them instantly.
The first target of Alex's assessment was the girl Justin was speaking to at the moment. Medium height, slightly plump - but still with a figure - and with mousy brown hair in a ponytail. Round-eyed glasses, no makeup, third generation hippie clothes. Threat level: unknown.
Her eyes slid over to the second girl, then narrowed. Slightly taller, thin, bottle-blonde. Must've just done it, since her roots look okay. Pretty face, light makeup, tank top, jeans. Knows she's pretty, if she's wearing that. Probably smart in spite of that hair, since she's here in the honors dorm. Threat level: high.
All this went through Alex's head in the moment it took Justin to look, see that it was her who had come out, and start to open his mouth. "Oh, hey. This is my -"
"Girlfriend," Alex said, cutting Justin off. She slid through the space between the girls and latched onto Justin with one arm, kissed him on the cheek. "I'm Alexandra, but everybody calls me Alex. And I see you've already met my big Justin-bear here." Justin-bear? Where did I get that from? Harper? Ah well... as long as they know he's mine...
"Oh," the blonde put in. "Nice to meet you. I'm Beth, and this is Gina. Are you both in this dorm?" She smiled, and her teeth were perfectly white, even, and sparkling in a way that made a bolt of pure hatred go through Alex.
"Alex isn't -"
"in this dorm," Alex said, again cutting Justin off. "We got our applications in a little later, and didn't get the same dorm. But you'll be seeing a lot of me, since Justin is here."
"Oh?" Gina frowned a little. "Justin was just telling us about how he got his application in early, and was able to get a single."
"Oh, yeah... that was Justin. Mine was the late one, really. I just said 'we' because we're, you know, a couple. Isn't that right?" She turned to Justin and gave him a bright smile. Not as bright as Miss-Perfect-Teeth over there, maybe, but bright. That's right. We are sending no signals to anyone that say that you might be available, or that I'm still in high school. And most especially not that I am your sister.
"That's right," Justin said - not that Alex had left him any choice, really.
Beth gave the two of them an obviously doubtful look. "Really? What's your major, Alex?"
"Fashion design," Alex said, just as Justin said "She's undecided."
"No, Justin, I changed it last week, remember?" She gave him a playful nudge, slightly harder than necessary. Well, actually, a lot harder than necessary.
"Fashion design? I didn't know there was a fashion design department here." Gina frowned, looking at Alex.
"Oh, no, he said fashion design. I said social work." I'm sure I saw that in the brochure Justin was looking at. Alex smiled easily, while Justin did his best to smile as well, with far less success.
"Oh, I'm in social work too!" Beth said, bouncing slightly. It caused parts of her to move about, which in turn caused Alex to revise her opinion of how thin Beth was, and hate her more. "Maybe we'll have some classes together!"
"Yeaaaaahh... no. I just changed to it, so I'm not in any of the classes for it this semester." Are they on semesters? Please be on semesters. "I'm just doing general requirements classes."
"Oh, well, that's too bad. Anyway, it was nice meeting you both. I'm in 521. Drop by any time!" Beth gave another too-perfect smile.
"Sure, we'll do that," Alex replied with a smile. Right about the same time we play hockey in Hell. Beth turned to go, and Alex turned her attention to Gina. One down, one to go.
"Gina's majoring in math, and it looks like we're going to have Calculus together. Isn't that cool?" Justin smiled down at Alex as if that were actually something to be happy about.
"I was thinking about starting a study group," the hippie-girl said. "There should be a lot of people in this dorm who are in it. What's your email address?" she asked, taking out a pad of paper and pen from a pocket. "I'm going to let everyone know once I know when and where we can meet."
"Justin, your parents are going to be looking for us in a minute. We ought to get back to your room." Alex tugged lightly on his arm, then harder when he didn't move.
"Alex, just a second. Here, I'll write it down for you, that'll be faster." He took the pad and pen from Gina's hand, wrote quickly, then handed it back to the girl, who was smiling up at him in a way that made Alex's eyes narrow. Geek girl crush, great, just what I need. Can this day get any worse?
Half a minute later, in the stairwell, Justin gave Alex a look she knew well - his 'what kind of trouble are you trying to start now' look. "Okay... what was that all about?"
"That was me marking my territory. I'm not about to let any of these girls try to sink their hooks into you."
Justin gave her a smile Alex couldn't quite read. "Sure you don't just want to use a branding iron? Give me the rocking-A? I'll bet Mr. Laritate has an iron somewhere..." He had to duck then, as Alex smacked him. Unfortunately, she allowed for it, and Justin got a thump on the ear.
"Okay, just kidding!" He grabbed her arms before she could hit him again, and looked down into her eyes, which were narrowed at him. "Alex... I love you. You can trust me. I'm not going to go looking for anybody else."
"I know I can trust you - it's them I don't trust. I'll bet half the girls here have never been to this city before - which means they don't have a boyfriend, which means they'll all be lost and helpless and be looking for some really nice, cute guy who can show them around, and -"
"Alex? Justin?" Their dad's voice came echoing up from the floor below, and Justin immediately released Alex's arms and looked down. He wasn't in view yet, so he couldn't see them, which was a relief - but how much had he heard?
"Yeah, Dad... we're coming." Justin started down the stairs. Alex followed, fuming silently. Justin didn't seem to be taking this seriously enough, and there was a lot more she wanted to say... and when was she going to get to say it? I don't know yet... but he's going to hear it.