Chapter 53: Move-In Day
New York CityColumbia University
Saying goodbye to Harry and Sally had taken about thirty seconds.
Sally said goodbye to Adam, confirmed she'd come visit Columbia sometime, and walked away without acknowledging Harry's expectant expression.
Harry watched her go, assessed the situation with the pragmatism of someone who had already calculated his next move before the current one finished, said a crisp goodbye to the group, and left in the opposite direction.
Adam watched him go with a certain professional appreciation. Whatever Harry's flaws, he had no illusions about himself, which was its own kind of efficiency.
Juno drove the last stretch through Manhattan to the Columbia campus, found a spot, and the three of them walked through the gates.
"They have money," Lauren said, looking around.
She wasn't wrong. Columbia occupied a significant portion of one of the most expensive pieces of real estate on earth, and the campus communicated this fact without particular modesty. Everything was built to last and looked it.
They walked the grounds for a while, then said their goodbyes at the car.
Juno gave him a look that communicated several things in efficient silence — stay out of trouble, write the next installment, don't be an idiot — and got behind the wheel. Lauren was already in the passenger seat, smiling at him through the window with an expression he'd learned not to try to interpret too precisely.
The car pulled out.
Adam stood on the sidewalk and watched it go.
Four years. More than four years, actually, counting from that graduation ceremony in Galveston when Juno had materialized beside him in a red hoodie and he'd spent the next several hours trying to figure out what she wanted.
He'd never entirely figured it out. That was probably fine.
He picked up his bags and went to find his dormitory.
A senior student named Amanda met him at the building entrance and walked him in with the cheerful authority of someone who enjoyed having relevant information.
"Are the dorms co-ed?" Adam asked, watching a mix of students moving through the hallway.
"Of course," Amanda said. "You're all adults."
Adam looked at a closed door with a necktie hanging on the doorknob and said nothing. It was the first afternoon of move-in day.
"You're going to love it here," Amanda said, with the specific confidence of someone who had already reached her conclusions.
She was probably right, for various reasons.
Room 111 was small and straightforward — bunk beds, a wardrobe, a desk that ran the length of one wall, two chairs. His roommate hadn't arrived. Adam took the bottom bunk as a matter of principle, unpacked the essentials, put his two manuscript copies carefully in the desk drawer, and shouldered his bag.
He had a publisher to visit.
From the room next door came a sound that was difficult to categorize — a kind of enthusiastic, sustained laughter that Adam's brain initially filed in the wrong category before he listened more carefully and recalibrated.
Someone was eating something that was apparently deeply satisfying.
Then a second voice: "Put it away, someone's coming."
Scrambling sounds.
A third voice, older, entering the room: "Good afternoon."
The first voice again, now considerably more composed: "Good afternoon, sir. I'm Matthew."
A pause from the third voice. Then: "Just call me Ted."
Adam stopped.
He stood in his doorway for a moment, listening to the voice from next door — young, friendly, the particular warmth of someone who genuinely meant it when they said just call me Ted.
His expression went through a quick sequence.
Recognition.
Excitement.
Reconsideration.
He thought about what he knew about the person that voice most likely belonged to, the full picture, including the parts that came later.
His expression settled somewhere between amused and resigned.
His next-door neighbor was probably going to be a lot.
He adjusted his bag, walked down the hallway, and headed for the elevator.
New York was going to be interesting.
End of Chapter 53
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