Tom Jiangsu groaned as he collapsed in a heap on the couch. With the stresses of starting a new semester and a new job rolled into one week, by the time he made his way home at nearly midnight on Friday he was practically a dead man walking. He wanted to crawl to his bed, curl up into a tired ball, and sleep there until classes started again Monday.

Any hope of that plan coming to fruition was dashed against the rocks when his roommates Adam and Min burst through the door. They each carried a cheap pizza and bottle of soda, excitedly jabbering over each other at a volume that was positively murder on Tom's tired ears.

"What's going on?" Tom asked, unsuccessfully trying to rub the burning sensation from behind his eyelids.

Adam exchanged a sly glance with Min. "Oh, nothing," he answered with a shark-like grin. "We just happened to meet our future wives."

Tom sighed, rubbing his eyes even harder. Adam and Min tended to meet their 'future wives' at least once a week. "So nothing out of the ordinary, then," he said, rising to his feet and heading in the direction of his room.

Min jumped forward, shoving himself between Tom and his beloved bed. "You know the girls from across the hall?" he asked excitedly, though he pressed on without waiting to let Tom answer. "Well we met one of them, Kat. But she's dating some Junior - Cameron? Caver?" he asked himself, eyes drifting to the ceiling as he tried to remember. "I don't remember," he finally admitted. "Anyway, she said that all three of her roommates are single."

"Great," Tom grumbled, trying to step around his friend, "That means that when you strike out the first time, one of you will get a second chance to make a fool of yourself."

Just as Tom pushed his way around Min and was about to make a straight run for his bedroom, Adam materialized before him. "No no no," he said, taking Tom by the shoulders and forcefully turning him around. "The beauty of this arrangement is that there are three of them, and three of us. That includes you."

Tom was too tired to fight, so he allowed himself to be pushed back to the couch. "Fine," he grumbled. "If I consent to fruitlessly chasing after our neighbors with you two degenerates until it becomes unbearably awkward to walk down our own hallway, will you please let me go to bed?"

"No," Adam answered smugly, "because they're coming over."

Tom was back on his feet in an instant. He jabbed a finger into his friend's chest and had just opened his mouth to release a flood of reasons why that was a terrible idea when he heard a knock at the door.

Adam McCoy was Tom's best friend, and had been since their first class together on campus. He was strong, brave, and loyal to a fault. In truth, Adam felt more like a brother to Tom than a friend.

At this moment, Tom was ready to murder Adam McCoy.

Min opened the door with a flourish and ushered three young women inside. Tom turned a skeptical eye in Adam's direction as the first two passed the doorway, waiting to be told which one he was supposed to approach. The other man winked, tilting nodding at the door as the third girl came through.

Adam whispered introductions as Min invited the girls in. "Number one is Rosie," he breathed as the first girl came through. "Min has an elective with her this semester, and the boy is crushing hard."

In spite of his righteous indignation, Tom shared a bemused glance with Adam when Min turned just enough for them to catch him blushing after the aforementioned Rosie hugged him when she came in.

"Number two is Neveah, who is here on a volleyball scholarship. I'm pretty sure she's the girl of my dreams," Adam continued dreamily as the second woman entered their apartment. He stepped away from Tom, but stayed close enough to whisper, "And number three I don't believe requires any introduction."

With an infuriating cocky wink, Adam was off to flirt with the girl that Tom was already convinced was too good for him. The young man didn't have much time to dwell on his annoyance, though, because he was immediately distracted by their third visitor.

He felt his heart begin to beat erratically in his chest when he recognized her. She stood barely over five feet tall, with short dark hair and wide brown eyes that glowed golden when the sun caught them. She had taken the same class that Tom was in when he met Adam his first semester, and the poor boy was immediately smitten with her. He was too chicken to ever speak to her, though, and never even learned her name.

Tom paused long enough to glare daggers at his best friend, but the effect was entirely wasted when Adam ignored him entirely, opting instead to hang on every word that left Neveah's mouth. It took him several seconds, but he finally worked up enough courage to step forward and speak to the mystery girl he had been daydreaming about for the past year.

"Hi," he said in what he hoped was a cool, casual tone, "I'm Tom."

The girl smiled warmly and shook his outstretched hand, but instead of introducing herself she simply pointed at her throat and then shook her head. At his lingering look of confusion, she pointed at her ear and then gave him a thumb's up, then pointed at her throat again and held her thumb downard.

Finally the realization hit Tom. Belatedly, he realized that throughout the entire semester they had shared a class, he didn't see her raise her hand once.

Taking a moment to be grateful for the extra courses in ASL that his mother had made him sign up for, Tom lifted both hands in the air at chest-level. He made a loose fist with each hand, then pinched his first fingers and thumbs, pressing the united fingers of each hand together at a central point and then separating his hands horizontally.

Sign language?

The girl's eyes somehow seemed to sparkle even more as she nodded eagerly. She then pointed at her chest before making a quick series of signs that Tom barely managed to follow.

"I love that name," he said with a grin.

Early the next morning - after pizza, a movie, and an excursion to sneak the girls across their hall back to their apartment - Tom finally collapsed atop his beloved bed. When he felt his phone buzz, he fell asleep at least three times in the minute that it took him to fish the small device from his pocket.

Get some rest, he read when he finally managed to focus his eyes. He was almost annoyed at the irony of being woken up by the admonition to sleep, but the name of the new contact the message had come from was enough to keep his annoyance at bay.

You too, he typed out, though with a shockingly high number of spelling errors. Talk to you tomorrow, Lucy.