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Raye couldn't bite back a smile as she watched her roommate bend to peer at the small, white placards pasted to each bookshelf. The university bookstore bustled at the beginning of every semester, but Raye would bet her pet finch that this was at least Amy's third visit to the store in the past 24 hours.

"Amy, how many times have you been here today?" Raye casually asked, as she flipped through her new history book on Greek civilization. Though she wasn't looking forward to the three midterms this "Ancient Civilizations" course had to offer, Raye had to admit that she couldn't wait to bury her nose in this historical essay collection.

Ami glanced up from her perusal long enough to reply, "Just once."

"Really?"The other girl looked like her eyes were ready to bug out.

"Oh, wait...did you mean how many times have I come alone or with a friend?"

"Er, total, Ames."

"Oh. In that case, um," here she began muttering to herself "—at 7:30 when it opened, after lab to get my manual, after biochem lecture to get a more updated manual..."

"Amy."

"Five. Er," her forehead scrunched in recollection, "six."

Raye laughed. "You have a problem. I don't know what the equivalent of AA is for bookworms, but we may need to take you there, pronto."

Ami took the ribbing good-naturedly, and gave Raye a sheepish smile. She then rose from the lower bookshelf with surprising grace, considering she was balancing two thick volumes of prose and a microbiology textbook in her arms. "Strange. That's the second time someone's mentioned AA to me today.

Her companion, who had been shaking her head at Amy's load of books, stopped short. "Seriously?" She studied her shy, petite friend in interest. "Are you a closet alcoholic or something?"

Amy shook her dark bangs out of her eyes as they walked to the cash register. "My lab TA made a quip about how my initials are AA and I should stay away from the ethanol." In spite of herself, Amy smiled.

She was met with a confused stare from Raye.

"Ethanol is alcohol, Raye."

Raye only shook her head. "You and your science lingo. Give me history or a novel any day." She glanced back at Amy's books. "Though it looks like you're exploring English, too, huh?" she said, indicating the short story collections Amy had perched on top of her stack. Amy was a biology-chemistry double major, and Raye had yet to see any books on her desk that didn't rave about things like "electron transfer" and "superior vena cava."

The shorter girl shrugged nonchalantly (a difficult feat given her book load). "I thought I'd try this fiction class...med schools require a year of English, anyway."

Her friend looked skeptical. "Uh-huh. Don't think I haven't seen you curled up in bed with Whitman and Tolstoy. You might just be coming over to my side after all."

After paying for their books, the girls began to make their way back to the dorms. This involved walking past the rows of Crown's fraternity and sorority houses, monumental-looking buildings with pillars and red brick galore. A few had large wooden benches outside them, painted with the fraternity or sorority's Greek letters. The day was warm and bright, and a group of frat boys tossed a football outside one of the houses, while their brothers sat on a bench drinking beer and laughing loudly.

"Hey!" one of them–looking like he was already tipsy, though it was five in the afternoon—yelled.

Amy and Raye continued walking as if they hadn't heard. "Hey girls, come have a beer with us!"

"I can't believe Serena likes their company," Raye said in some disgust as they hurried away, leaving behind obnoxious laughs and yells. "I'm pretty sure they have a lower IQ than my grandpa's dog."

Amy glanced at her friend without saying anything. She knew Raye wasn't the biggest fan of men, particularly frat guys, but she had never learned why. She'd always supposed Raye had had bad run-ins with them freshman year. Amy hadn't known her until they were randomly paired up as roommates this year, so she couldn't say for sure.

Recalling the Greek letters on her TA's T-shirt, Amy heard herself saying, "I don't think they're all dumb, though. My biochemistry TA's in a fraternity."

As she balanced her plastic bag of books to swipe her card into the dorm, Raye eyed Amy curiously. That was the second time she had mentioned her biochem TA. Raye looked like she was about to prod her friend further, but thought better of it. "I guess..."

"Plus, Darien's in a fraternity."

"Alright, I get your point; Darien is halfway decent, I guess," Raye laughed. Darien, Raye, and Serena all hailed from the same California town a few miles from Crown, and had known one another for years. Raye lived with her grandfather back home, a man who, though verging on 70, deemed Raye the one with the "old soul." When Serena and Darien began dating her senior year, Raye felt like the odd person out and dove into history and archaeology. She had always had a penchant for digging into the past, as it were, and had spent the previous summer on an archaeology dig in Jordan. Besides, the college social scene didn't hold the appeal for her she'd thought it might, especially her first year. Everyone else was more interested in their next hook-up than anything else, and those parties—they were all sweaty and reeked with old alcohol. No, Raye looked elsewhere for entertainment, and preferred her group of friends to Greek life.

Back in their room finally, the girls dropped their heavy bags with sighs of relief. Amy, being Amy, immediately began to organize and shelve her textbooks while Raye hopped onto her bed and got out her laptop.

As she browsed through Facebook, the chat window opened up.

Serena: Heya! I saw you on the way to class talking to a guy I know! Jed?

Jed? Oh, the blonde guy who'd tried to hit on her. Figured Serena would know him. Ten to one he was a frat guy from ATG or something.

Raye: I don't know him.

Serena: Ok, but please tell me you were flirting :p

Raye: Gross. The kid was a little creepy.

Serena: He's my cousin...

Oops.

Raye: Sorry, meant to write "sleepy," haha..I didn't know your cousin went here?

Serena: Well, second cousin. He's from out-of-state so I didn't see him much before college.
You sure you didn't like him? I could introduce you properly :)

Raye: I'm good.

Serena: Lol, don't worry, I know that's Raye-speak for no way in hell.
Dinner tonight?

Raye: Sure. 8?

Serena: K; tell Amy, too. I'm headed to the library, so I'll see ya.

Raye: Ew, Serena. Mina told me what that means.

Zane entered the bedroom he shared with Ken with something like a pout on his face. The senior raised his eyes to peer at Zane over his thin-rimmed reading glasses. He watched silently as the golden-haired sophomore dropped his backpack to the floor and threw himself onto his bed, staring at the ceiling. A long, dramatic sigh escaped him.

Ken just turned back to his reading as if nothing had happened.

"Nice pants," was all he said.

Zane's arms remained sprawled out across his comforter, but he snapped his head to shoot Ken a dirty look. "Asshole."

Ken couldn't help releasing a chuckle. "Okay, drama queen, tell me what terrible thing is gnawing away at you. Did you set a biochem student on fire? Or did a professor just give you an A- on your summer essay?"

"Neither! Or, well, my poetry professor gave me a check on my in-class assignment. A check!"

"I'm guessing he gives that to everybody, Zane. Check means pass, minus means fail?"

Zane rose so he was kneeling dramatically on his bed as he explained. "That poem would have brought you to tears, Ken. It would have made you walk out into the world determined to find your muse, your Mona Lisa, your Josephine, your-"

"Alright, alright, spare me, Emily Bronte. Is this all because of the poem?"

Zane looked hesitant to continue. Ken was not very sympathetic when it came to girl problems. Not that this was really a problem, but...

"Well, it's about-"

"-a girl," Ken finished without missing a beat.

Zane rushed to get it out before Ken, annoyingly omniscient as he was, could interrupt. He told him about the cute girl-genius in his lab and how her first impression of him, probably burned into her mind forever, would be the flustered kid in frog-printed pajama pants.

Ken was spared a play-by-play when Jed entered, also looking concerned about something. Ken looked up expectantly. "Is something wrong, Jed?"

"Yeah, there is," he said solemnly, and real concern flitted across his friends' faces. Jed then held up a single white sock. "Have you guys seen my other sock? I lost it again!" he wailed.

Zane made a funny sound that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a cough. Ken only rolled his eyes. "Try the toaster? Or maybe the blender."

Instead of taking offense, Jed nodded. "Good idea." His eyes rested on Zane's frog-covered legs. "Haha, how'd lab go Zane? Did you sweep your students off your feet with your fashion statement?"

His only answer was a groan from beneath the pillow Zane had promptly smashed onto his face. Ken shook his head.

"Touchy subject, I see." Jed took the seat at Zane's desk. "How 'bout you Ken? You probably had a pretty embarrassment-free day."

He was correct, considering Ken—towering at over six feet, with his serious, and usually unsmiling face—was about as easy to laugh at as an avalanche. Ken and Jed idly talked about their first day of classes while Zane listened in, still hidden by his white pillow. It was comfortable for Ken, though, being here in the house with his brothers, and for a moment he felt a pang. To think this was his last semester at Crown.

No such anxieties were on Jed's mind since, as Ken mentioned Mina's visit in passing, he promptly said, "Mina, huh? That girl is hot."

Ken appeared unfazed, but inwardly felt himself bristle. "I suppose."

"You suppose? Ken, are you blind?"

"No, I just don't eat, drink, and sleep (emphasis on sleep) girls like you all do," he countered, almost with a snap.

Jed slumped back into his chair. "That reminds me: today I met THE most...gorgeous girl I've ever seen on campus."

Zane perked up at this. "Not 'hot?' Or 'smokin'?"

"Or 'I'd tap that' material?"

This gave Jed pause, but he slowly shook his head. "Naw, she was just...really beautiful."

Ken and Zane met each other's looks. This was new for Jed. Normally he'd be rating her hotness on a scale of 1 to 10 by now.

"She wasn't super friendly, though." Ah. This, his brothers knew, meant she'd rejected him flat. "I dunno, man, I think she might be gay."

That would be a first for Jed. A pretty girl so impervious to his charms she'd be considered unattainable.

Zane was the first to crack up. "Sorry, man, but that totally beats my pajama problem!"

Ken was more serious about it. "Just because she doesn't like you, doesn't mean she's gay, Jed. Just smart."

"Har har, thanks a lot, Ken. Well, whatever, I'll try again next class. Now I'm off to find my sock; wish me luck!"

The door swung shut him. "I'm seriously starting to think our kitchen's a biohazard," Zane muttered as he rolled around on his bed. "God, I don't even want to eat. Except that I'm really, really hungry."

Ken nudged his roommate to get him off his bed. "Let's get some dinner from off-campus, then, genius."

"Okay. I think Nevan's out, but should we ask Darien?"

Ken gave a cough. "Darien is...otherwise occupied."

"Library with Serena again? So scandalous," Zane said with a wicked grin.

Darien blamed Serena for the idea. He, after all, was an upstanding college student—pre-med, neuroscience major, and hopefully graduating magna cum laude at this rate. He would never in a hundred years have thought this shenanigan up. What if he got caught?

But Serena...well, Serena was hard to resist. "It's an unofficial graduation requirement," she reminded him. The little temptress in her came out then, causing him to gulp as she said, "And I know how you like fulfilling requirements."

It was true that this was an unofficial graduation requirement (as was sex in the Crown president's office, but that was going a little too far...). Maybe his university expected this of him?

The "temptress's" small nose bumped against his as she leaned up to give him a soft kiss. Serena then rested her head against the shelf that housed the unabridged collection of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Told you no one comes down to the reference section."

"This early in the year," Darien corrected, though he slipped his arm around his girlfriend to pull her closer into his body heat. He also pulled the down blanket they'd brought more tightly around them, as if that would make the scene less indecent, should someone happen upon them in this corner of the library. "Can't believe we did this," he said.

Serena giggled. "Don't tell me you regret it?"

Her boyfriend looked down at her, with her long, blonde hair a little disheveled and blue eyes lit up from the exertion. "This is the second time we've done this. Clearly, I enjoyed something about the first."

He sighed, and rested his head on hers, not wanting to get up, though that would certainly have to happen. The library security guard passed by here every three hours, after all.

"Darien?"

"Mm?" he said drowsily.

"Have you ever thought that maybe our friends would be really good—"

"No."

"Darien!"

"I know what you're going to say, Sere, and-"

"So you have thought about it!" she cried.

"Only from spending so much time with you and Mina, aka Matchmakers'R'Us."

"Ooh, that's catchy."

"Oh, God."

"Seriously, though, our friends would be perfect for each other and you know it."

"Exactly whom are you referring to? I have a lot of friends," he said loftily.

"Well, Nevan and Lita, of course-"

"Yeah, if Nevan weren't so blind-"

"Mina and Ken-"

"I don't know about th-"

"Oh, and how about Zane and that girl-genius that lives with Raye, Ami!"

"Serena, I'm sure they've seen each other around and I don't think any sparks flew."

"But has it been under the right circumstances?"

"What are the right circumstances?"

"I mean...it depends."

"So "right" is subjective? So some people might not think that the fact that we've spent pretty much every waking moment of our lives with each other-"

"-means that we're right for each other? What are you trying to say, Darien?" Serena's voice sounded dangerously low.

"That I...love you?"

"Aw, you're super sweet. And transparent. But don't you think-"

"Serena, don't start butting into people's lives. Life doesn't work like that; you can't force people to like each other."

"I would never d-"

"Serena. Promise you won't. I remember what happened last year, when you tried to set your lab partner up with your tutor?"

"Aw, how was I supposed to know they were related? But oh my god, I just remembered that I saw Raye with Jed earlier today—"

"Serena!"

"Fine, fine, I promise I won't do matchmaking. But you know what I will do—lay a wager with you."

"What?" He looked taken off-guard.

"I bet you that our friends will get together eventually, even without my help. That things will just...fall naturally into place. Fate."

"Oh I am so down for that bet. Name your stakes, milady and prepare to lose," Darien prompted with a cat-like grin.