George snorted. Great, another snorter in the club. I looked at him and he shook his head, then winked at me. “Nice try, Boo.”

When Lydia, Josh, and I left the dining hall, I found George waiting for me in the Prescott College Common Room, legs slung over the armrest of a leather love seat. He waved, and I latched on to any excuse to depart from the company of the lovebirds.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Is that any way to greet your brother?” He feigned hurt.

“No doubt the way you would prefer I greet you isn’t very sisterly, either.”

He nodded and moved over on the seat. “That’s true. Sit down and talk to me.”

“Where were you last night?” I sat down, but at the farthest edge. There was a recommended minimum safety distance when it came to tête-à-têtes with George Harrison Prescott. Also, I preferred an immovable barrier between us, like a table, or a mountain. Otherwise, I could muster little resistance to getting horizontal, even in a place as public as the Prescott College Common Room at brunch time.

“Would you believe me if I said studying?” He watched me shake my head. “But I was. I was studying. All the time spent in the tomb has been taking a real toll on my working hours. I had a paper due last week and I got an extension until Monday because of our Thursday meeting. But we have another meeting tonight. Last night was the only time I had to work on it.”

“What was the name of your paper?” I asked. “Sarah? Mandy? Amber?”

He clutched his fist to his heart. “I find your lack of faith disturbing. It was called ‘The East German Uprising of 1953, and Its Effects on the USSR and Other Nations of Eastern Europe.’ And you, dear Boo,” he added, leaning forward, “should not be acting jealous.”

“Oh?” I crossed my arms. “You get the exclusive on that?”

He waved his hand back at the dining hall. “Tiny lapse in judgment.” Apparently, hundreds of thousands of years of male evolution are tough for even George to overcome. “But my point is, I have always been…available to you, for whatever. You’re the one who’s not interested in what I have to offer.” He leaned back. “You’re the one who left me standing outside your door last May.”

Silence spread between us in the wake of that remark, and I studied George carefully. Had Prescott College’s most popular player actually been hurt when I turned down the chance to stare at his much-observed ceiling? He’d acted with equanimity at the time, but maybe, like so much of the devil-may-care attitude George presented to the world, it was a show. After all, I was one of the few (I supposed) privy to his tale of woe about his parents and their traumatic ongoing affair. When he’d told me shortly after initiation, he’d intimated it was only our Digger connection that made him feel comfortable sharing the sordid details of his upbringing. But maybe I had broken down the barriers of the most gorgeous and eligible bachelor at Eli, and maybe I’d broken a little more than that when I’d rejected his offer.

“You shot me down,” he added, “to get, of all things, a boyfriend.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I figured it out. Your whole short, doomed relationship with that guy from Calvin College.” So George had been paying attention to my awkward exchange with Brandon and his new girl after all.

I raised my eyebrows.

“Clarissa told me.” Now he shook his head and laughed, swinging an arm around my shoulders. “Don’t you see, Boo? You’re not the girlfriend type. This is not a bad thing. You’re like me!”

“And that’s a good thing?” I snapped back. George and I might have been equally unable to deal with commitment, but there the similarity ended. Gorgeous, rich, charming George Harrison Prescott could have the women (and gay men) of the world at his feet with a crook of his finger. My face hadn’t exactly launched any ships recently.

“Would you really prefer that whole deal Josh has with your roommate?” he asked. “Lie to her for a few weeks or months, then cheat on her? Tell me you think it’s not headed in that direction.”

He had me there. “But there are good relationships, too.”

“I’m sure there are,” he said. “But I know I’m already one strike against a relationship. How does it have any chance with me involved? It’s doomed from the start. You’re the same way.”

“You think I doom relationships?”

“Ask me again after I hear your whole C.B.” He put a finger to my chin. “You know I’m dying to learn all about you.”

Crazy shivers spun through my system and I clamped my thighs together. “Why are you saying all this?”

“Why do you think?” He flung himself back to his side of the couch. “I like you. I’m interested in you. I’m pretty sure you feel the same way about me, and yet I think you’re playing hard-to-get because of some sort of outdated idea of what romantic relationships should look like. And,” he added, standing up, “I have a strong personal interest in making sure the thesis of your C.B. tonight makes you sound as desirable and sexy as possible, rather than reading like a laundry list of broken dreams.”

Now, if that wasn’t a promise, I don’t know what was. “If you had your way, my C.B. would suddenly acquire an extra entry,” I said to his retreating back.

“Say the word, babe.” And then he was gone.

Interesting. Laundry list of broken dreams, huh? And here I’d been laboring under the impression that George didn’t know me very well at all; that to him, I was another conquest.

Was I dismissing him unfairly? Had I bought into his player persona so fully that I didn’t recognize when he was actually trying to make a connection with me? I figured if I didn’t sleep with him, there were easily half a dozen others who would gladly take my place. I automatically assumed every time he ditched the Diggers for another event, it was because some pretty young thing had agreed to see his etchings. But maybe I’d pegged him all wrong.

I stood up and my gaze caught on one of the bookshelves lining the Common Room. A thick burgundy volume stuck out from the shelf, and on its spine in silver lettering was embossed:

The East German Uprising of 1953:

Its Effects on the USSR and Other Nations

of Eastern Europe

Or maybe not.

I hereby confess:

They’ll get our respect

when they deserve it.

It’s more complicated than you might think to choose an outfit in which to publicly report on your sexual experiences. You have to veer away from anything that screams “slutty” or, at the opposite end of the spectrum, “frumpy,” and Persephone help you if the ensemble bears any resemblance to something worn in any of the following fetish-fantasy situations: schoolgirl, librarian, secretary, or Lara Croft. A white T-shirt makes you look like a candidate for Girls Gone Wild: Cancùn, and low-rise jeans are out, for fear there might be any peeks at a thong. I finally settled on a pair of sleek brown pants and a cardigan over a not-low-cut sleeveless top, and boots (ankle, not dominatrixy) with a low heel. There. Not too conservative, not too outlandish.

Kind of like my love life, come to think of it.

At precisely five past six (VI in Diggers-time, which always runs five minutes off the rest of the world) I filed into the tomb with the others. First, we ate. Tonight, Hale had made us Cornish hens stuffed with wild rice and tarragon. Would it be awful of me to admit that so far, my favorite part about being a Digger was escaping dining hall food a couple nights a week?

“Nervous?” Angel asked. She was at my right, carefully dissecting the poultry on her plate with a skill indicating just how much time she’d spent in debutante class. My family was more of a chicken tenders type. “Don’t be. We’ll love you no matter who you’ve fucked.”