Or whoever the person that invented calculus was.

University was going to kill him, unless his parents massacred him first, when they found out his probable grades.

Slowly, his head sunk to the table. Notes crinkled under his forehead. Blindly, he reached out for the only thing he could draw strength from in such a trying time.

The last piece of cold, leftover pizza from the night before.

Unless it was from the day before that.

Bacon, beef, pepperoni, olives, peppers, shrimp, sausage, three kinds of cheese . . .

He frowned.

Nothing.

Erik opened his eyes and grabbed the cold pizza box.

It was empty, save for a few scraps of cheese clinging to the cardboard. He picked at them forlornly. There had definitely been a piece left when he’d taken the box out of the fridge, which could only mean one thing.

Ray.

How Ray could have gotten to the pizza without attracting attention was beyond Erik’s comprehension. He blamed calculus. The only alternative, after all, would be giving credit to Ray’s stupid claims of ninja-ness.

He stared resentfully at the bathroom door. Ray was showering, but Erik tried the door anyway.

It was locked.

Clearly, exams were making Ray unhealthily paranoid.

Prevented from storming into the bathroom to get revenge for his loss of pizza, Erik slunk to the kitchenette. He opened the fridge door and stared hopelessly into it, willing it to be filling with something edible.

Two half-empty bottles of pop stared back at him.

He peered behind them, but not a single crumb was found hiding behind the bottles.

Having exhausted the possibilities of the fridge, the sensible thing to do would have been shutting the door and calling for takeout, or simply leaving the apartment and using some of his meagre savings to buy a pita or a burger or something along those lines. But that would mean eventually confronting the horrors of calculus again when he came back.

He remained hunched down before the open fridge, staring stubbornly into it until there was a knock on the door.

Erik frowned and straightened, shutting the fridge door reluctantly. Psychic pizza delivery services? Ray couldn’t have called for food without Erik noticing – he wasn’t that dead to the world just yet. He hoped. If it was the beginning of someone’s idea of a practical joke, like that fuckwit who’d pulled the King Place fire alarm at three in the morning before the first day of finals, Erik was sure any actions he took would be classified as justifiable homicide.

On the other hand, it was just a door, and opening it wouldn’t mean he was unleashing the Armageddon. What it would mean was putting another minute or two between himself and his return to calculus.

He opened the door and peered out.

No signs of evil, chaos, or general weirdness.

He looked down.

There was a girl there.

Which definitely fell into the weirdness category. Something he was more than willing to overlook, because the girl also fell into the really cute category. Erik had seen her around the building, getting on and off the elevator, picking up her mail, hauling garbage, scrawling frustrated complaints on the maintenance sheet, and doing her laundry. All of which was accompanied by a look of intense concentration. Not frustration, though. There was rarely any anger or malice on her face while she was conducting whatever tedious or annoying affairs people who lived in King Place had to conduct; it was merely the intentness of someone who was focussing all her attention on the task at hand and so couldn’t spare a glance for anything else around her.

She had brown hair that went sort of curly at the ends, a bit past her shoulders, and eyes that were . . . Well, he wasn’t sure what colour her eyes were, but he knew she definitely had two of them, and they were probably very nice eyes, as far as eyes went. She was on the skinny side and what padding there appeared to be did little to suggest a figure, but she had small, perky breasts that were really cute, and a rather attractive way of pushing her hair out of her uncertainly coloured eyes with one hand while she had her arms full.

She was also a very even five feet tall. That alone, even if she hadn’t been frustratingly cute, was enough to make Erik feel too clumsy and tall to say a word to her when they passed each other.

Unfortunately, she was standing in the doorway, her arms full, a bag over one shoulder, and with Ray in the shower there was no way to avoid making an idiot out of himself. She did the hair thing. He blushed. He had to say something. She was looking at him expectantly . . .

Her eyes were green.

Wow.

“Uh, hi?” he managed to squeak out uncertainly. He felt like he was choking, like he was going through puberty all over again in one short, intense, painful instant.

She was so fucking cute he felt like he was about to explode. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and tried to shift unobtrusively to a more comfortable position.

“Hi,” she said, and smiled up at him. “You must be Thor.”

Erik tried not to stare. She knew his name! Wait, scratch that. She knew the annoying nickname Ray had saddled him with on the instant of their first meeting. “That’s right,” he said, and ventured a smile. Even if Ray’s stupidity had gotten to her first, she knew who he was. Now the question was – why was she standing in the doorway looking maddeningly cute and desirable? “And you, um . . .”

“Sarah Montgomery,” she said, and blushed a little. “I’m sorry to just drop in like this. You were probably studying – ”

“It’s no big deal,” Erik assured her quickly. “Honest.” He stared at the container that was weighing her down. Plain, opaque, and microwave safe, on top of being utterly mysterious. “Can I take that for you?” he offered belatedly, much to his embarrassment. He should have done that as soon as he’d opened the door, after noticing how full her arms were. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

“What?” She – Sarah – blinked in momentary confusion, then smiled. “Oh, sure. Thanks, Thor.” She handed the container to him, finally freeing her hands to properly push her hair back.

Erik couldn’t help but feel a bit ridiculous when he found out the container wasn’t heavy at all – just big and bulky.

“If you could put it in the kitchen, that’d be great.” Impatient shoving of hair finished, Sarah entered the apartment. Erik gently kneed the door shut before taking the container in to the kitchen. He wondered, as he often did, what the hell was going on.

“Ray . . . didn’t tell you I was coming by, did he?” Sarah asked. She sounded a bit upset.

Ray? Ray! Damn Ray! “Uh, no, he didn’t mention it but, uh, he’s been kind of busy today.” Busy in the running in and out of the apartment with various textbooks, swearing and muttering in Italian, and in the wasting water with half-a-dozen showers sense of the word.

“I’m sorry,” Sarah said, as though Ray being a self-involved asshole was somehow her fault. “I just sort of assumed Ray would mention it, or something.”

Erik grit his teeth and stared at the mystery container. Was it a date? Would Ray really organize a date with a cute girl like Sarah? And if it was a date, why would she be getting Ray instead of Ray going out and getting her? Why the mystery container?

Who the fuck would go on a date during finals?

Before Sarah could explain anything, the bathroom door opened. A cloud of steam poured out, and Ray followed a few seconds after, with the sort of timing that had Erik convinced that his roommate was in the habit of crouching with his ear to the door, listening and waiting for the perfect cue to enter.

Erik stood half-in, half-out of the kitchen. One foot on the vinyl, gritty with dust and crumbs, the other on the cold, hard carpet. He leaned against the outcrop of the wall, the corner digging painfully between his shoulder blades, and stared pointedly at Ray. The other boy was still damp from his shower, black hair clinging wet to his scalp and forehead. He was freshly shaven, though, and was wearing a dry red T-shirt, tan cargo pants, and actual socks. He looked nothing like the frazzled guy Erik had been stuck with since finals began.

Erik hated him.

“Hey, Sarah,” Ray said. He smiled easily, hands in his pockets, and wandered over. His head shook once, fiercely, to propel a few strands of damp hair out of his eyes. “Hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

“Of course not. I only just came over.”

Ray grinned. “Good. Couldn’t hear anyone at the door over the shower.”

Bullshit, thought Erik.

“And I see you’ve met Thor,” Ray continued cheerfully, placing himself at Sarah’s side. He flung a damp, friendly arm around her shoulders.

“Yeah,” Erik said, staring intently at Ray. He hoped that if he concentrated, he’d acquire the ability to vaporize his roommate with a single glare.

“I couldn’t have got in otherwise, Ray,” Sarah said gently. She was giving the hand draped over her shoulder an uncertain look which Erik found only microscopically encouraging under the circumstances.

“Of course!” Ray flashed a grin in Erik’s direction, a wide, glinting grin with emotions behind it that Erik couldn’t fathom. “I think you’re wasting your time here, missing your true calling, Thor my boy. You’d be a fabulous butler.”

Sarah shook her head, hair falling over her face again. It partially hid her expression, but what Erik could pick out suggested the reaction that a lot of people had to half of the things that came out of Ray’s confusion: confusion, pure and simple. His own response to Ray’s comment was therefore confined to a roll of his eyes, although he could feel his face growing hot of its own accord. Even if Sarah wasn’t the kind to appreciate Ray’s comments, whatever their source, it was still embarrassing.

“So,” he asked, clearing his throat and trying not to stare at Sarah, “you guys going out?”

Ray laughed. “Christ, Thor, do you think I’m an idiot? I have a bloody programming final tomorrow!”

Erik stared, first at Ray, then at Sarah, then back at his disturbingly chipper roommate. Ray couldn’t possibly be thinking –

“Sarah’s a compsci major in the same programming class as me. We figured since we’re so close and all, it’d be worth a try to see if that old adage about two heads is true.”

Erik relaxed, minutely. Ray wasn’t going to appropriate the bedroom so he could take advantage of a really cute, sweet looking girl, leaving Erik out in the main room to sleep on the couch and be haunted by horrible mental images of his roommate having sex with the girl he was crushing on. A small bit of mercy to be found in the world of Erik Thorbiornsen, at long last.

“I live next door,” Sarah explained, sounding quite apologetic as she pushed her hair back and looked at Erik. “Usually we’d study there, but my roommate – ”

A few terrified thoughts connected and lit up synapses in Erik’s brain. “305?”

“No, 307. Why?”

Erik wasn’t sure which was worse. “Well, Ray and I’ve had some, er, encounters with your roommate.”

Ray tried to make frantic shushing gestures with the hand behind Sarah.

“She does like to voice her opinions rather loudly – ”

Understatement, thought Erik.

“– and I know they don’t really make her popular on campus – ”

Almost certainly an understatement, Erik thought, although he was far from familiar with the ideologies of his fellow students. That didn’t matter. What Sarah said sounded believable and that was good enough for him.

“– but she’s very responsible as far as roommates go. We may not have the same views on a lot fo things, but she’s really very nice, as long as you don’t stray on to one of her hot topics. She’s usually very quiet, and not at all disruptive, so it’s usually easy to get work done.”

Erik found his head nodding of its own accord in full-hearted agreement with Sarah’s every word. A quick look at Ray showed that his roommate was starting to get impatient. Not to mention fidgety. Hi left hand was out of his pocket and his fingers were drumming something on the outside of his leg. It would definitely be nice to have a quiet, nondestructive roommate, even if that roommate happened to think he was gay and a sinner and going to some eternal torment or other. At least she wouldn’t try and get them both evicted, arrested, or killed.

Probably.

“So,” Ray said, beginning to propel Sarah toward the couch, “we figured we’d study here, and give the charming Susan some peace and quiet to get her own work done.” He looked over his shoulder and met Erik’s eyes. “You’ll probably want to go somewhere quiet to study your calculus, Thor. You need to concentrate. The final’s worth a lot, isn’t it?”

Erik scowled.

“Actually, I brought over something to eat,” Sarah said as she sat down on the couch, opening her backpack. “I was kind of busy making printouts of everything, so I didn’t really have time to eat . . . There’s lots. If Thor hasn’t had a chance to eat, he’s welcome to share. It’s, um, in that blue and white container I had . . .”

Ray shrugged, opening a dog-eared text. “Can’t study on an empty stomach, I guess.” He pulled out a pen and began circling things in his book, not looking at Erik as he spoke. “Heat that up, would you? And put some coffee on or something. All things related to programming require coffee. There’s a law.”

Erik resisted the impulse to stalk over to the couch and shut the textbook, slamming Ray’s face between the covers. Sarah was spreading her notes out, on the couch and on the floor, and shot him a look so friendly and hopeful that he found himself reaching before the container before he realized it.

He turned the container over his head, blocking out the sound of Ray and Sarah talking about . . . something. Something computery, hopefully. It was in a microwave safe container. Therefore it seemed logical that it was meant to go in the microwave. He could use the microwave without blowing anything up, right?

He pried the blue lid off the container curiously.

Macaroni and cheese.

That was it. Just plain, ordinary macaroni and cheese, dietary staple of students everywhere (who didn’t order out at every available opportunity by virtue of rich roommates, at least). He absently filled the coffee maker with water, shoved in the basket with the grounds, and plugged it in while poking at the macaroni and cheese.

Real macaroni and cheese. Not the crappy stuff you could buy in a box for twenty-five cents that involved powdered anti-cheese and a lot of water, but real stuff made with actual cheese that had no resemblance to a powder. Made with milk, not water.

It was the first thing Collin had learned to cook.

Twelve-year-old Erik had thought it was gross.

Eighteen-year-old Erik still thought it was gross.

But it was food, real food, made by a real girl who was really sitting on his couch.

He shoved it in the microwave, hoped Ray hadn’t removed any integral parts from it in a recent fit of Ray-ness, and hoped. A monkey could probably successfully microwave macaroni and cheese. He watched the container spin around once, squinting against the light, then turned and leaned against the counter to watch the coffee percolate. Out of the corner of his eye, Ray and Sarah were pouring over a printout, with Sarah wielding her pen decisively and Ray chewing on his. Their heads were close together. It was cozy, in a geeky kind of way. He glared intently at the coffee maker for a minute, watching it bubble and become more coffee-like, then went to the table and began gathering his notes into a disorganized pile.

The last thing Erik wanted was to be kicked out of the apartment to find somewhere else to study. Walking to campus would involve going outside, and outside was cold. He’d hardly be welcome in the Mackenzie, O’Hara, and McCloud dorm room when Dustin wasn’t there, and that would also involve going outside. And he certainly wasn’t enough of a social animal to have gotten pally with any of the other guys living in King Place. But . . . the other last thing Erik wanted was to be stuck in the apartment watching Ray and Sarah getting all cuddly over computer geek stuff.

Annoyed, he picked up his textbook and dropped it heavily on top of his notes, just as the microwave beeped violently. He jumped, and Ray and Sarah both looked up, Ray looking less than pleased. He was no more used to the sound the microwave made than Erik was.

“That was the microwave, right?” Ray asked in disbelief.

Erik slanted a look toward the kitchenette. “Yeah.”

“It’s evil,” Ray said, as though coming to some important conclusion. “We should sell it.”

“You can’t sell it, Ray,” Sarah said, in such a quiet voice that Erik found it hard to believe Ray could hear her. Ray hardly ever heard Erik, even when he was shouting. “It’s part of the apartment.”

Erik paused in the act of taking the macaroni and cheese out of the microwave and stared at Sarah. She was sensible. Rational, even. Sane. Completely and perfectly sane, aside from the part where she was willing to spend time with Ray. He was in love.

“An evil part of the apartment.”

“Ray . . .” Sarah shook her head and got up. She patted his head gently, messing the still-damp hair. “You’re nuts.”

The pen in Ray’s mouth moved from one corner to the other, twisting slightly on the way. “What’re you doing?”

“I was going to get food. From the microwave. For eating. That’s what it’s there for.”

“That’s what Thor’s there for,” Ray said. The pen shifted again and he turned his attention back to the notes.

Torn between muttering something obscene at Ray and assuring Sarah that it was no problem to bring her something, really, Erik ended up just standing in the kitchenette with the container of hot macaroni and cheese in his hands. A bit of the cheese was bubbling in a manner that made Ray’s insistence on the evils of the microwave seem disconcertingly rational. Carefully, Sarah took the hot container from Erik and squeezed past him to hunt for dishes and cutlery, as well as possibly wage an assault on the coffee port. As she went, her leg brushed against Erik’s.

Erik squirmed and tried to lean casually against the counter. He stared intently at the coffee pot, as though it were the most important, and the most fascinating, thing in the world.

“Thanks, Thor,” Sarah said. She turned her head slightly, smiling up at him as she opened a cupboard. She leaned forward to peer inside, balancing on her toes.

“Uh, no problem,” Erik mumbled as his eyes wandered. After a minute, he snapped back to attention. “Um, here, lemme help you with that. I think all the dishes and stuff are on the top shelf. Not, uh, that you’re short or anything, just, uh . . .”

Sarah was staring up at him. She had put the macaroni down on the counter and her hands were braced on the edged of the sink to help her balance.

Idiot.

“We practically never use them so, uh, we keep them really out of the way. Practically forget we have them. They’re totally unnoticeable, really.” Feeling progressively more uncomfortable with every syllable that passed his lips, he thrust a hand into the cupboard. Questing fingers encountered a bug trap, Ray’s stacks of video games, a textbook, a mountain of empty pop cans . . .

“Here, cups!” Erik pulled his hand out of the cupboard, managing to clutch the handles of three chipped coffee cups simultaneously and hold them out to a surprised-looking Sarah.

“Thanks, Thor,” Sarah said after a moment of hesitation, taking the cups and turning to the coffee pot. Erik watched her for a minute before turning back to the cupboard in an attempt to find macaroni-compatible dishes.

“D’you guys take anything with your coffee?” Sarah asked as she poured, the smell of too-strong, very cheap coffee filling the cramped kitchenette.

Ray made a vague, negative noise from his position on the couch, followed by the sound of hard plastic being snapped in two.

Erik hoped Ray hadn’t been using one of his pens. He finally produced a trio of plates from the depths of the cupboard, blew the thin layer of dust off the top one, and moved to open a drawer and find the elusive fork when he realized Sarah was about to open the fridge. “Um?” he queried.

Looking up and over her shoulder, Sarah blinked in surprise. “What?”

“Why are you opening the fridge?” asked Erik, knowing he sounded like a complete idiot and hating himself for it because it was just a fridge, after all. He’d had it open himself until very recently.

“I was going to get some milk. For my coffee. The fridge doesn’t have a bomb inside, does it? Is a face sucking alien going to leap out at me the minute I open the door?” Her lips were twitching in amusement. It would have been really cute, the sort of cute little almost-smile that would make Erik feel all warm and stupid inside, and want to smile back in a really dopey way, except that her lips were twitching because he was a moron.

Such. An. Idiot. “Well, y’see, it’s, uh, sorta gross in there. And by sorta, I mean really. And by really I mean, well, see usually we’d have tossed everything in there by now, but, uh, with exams and all, y’know . . .”

“Ah.” Looking a trifle disgusted, Sarah released the handle of the fridge door.

“We, uh, don’t have any milk anyway. We’ve found it’s a bad idea. A, uh, really bad idea.” Erik had bought milk all of once since moving to Saskatoon. The thick, homogenized stuff his dad always bought. Just a small carton, figuring it would be enough for two guys. Erik had opened it one day and ended up with a cup full of milk lumps. Ray hadn’t drunk a single drop; milk, apparently, was “gross”. “Very, very bad,” he reiterated hopelessly.

“I’ll bet.” Sarah looked distinctly green as she turned her attention to the cooling macaroni.

Erik wondered if he’d ever felt as stupid as he did at that very moment. Unsympathetic as always, his brain reminded him of the time with the puck, which had not only been stupid and embarrassing, but painful as well. Somehow, he didn’t feel any better.

Red-faced, -eared, and possibly every other body part, he snagged a cup of coffee and two plates of macaroni and cheese, offering Sarah a smile that was partially apologetic but mostly just awkward and stupid as he squeezed out of the kitchenette. Silently, he dropped one of the plates, followed by a fork, on the cushion next to Ray.

Ray slanted a disinterested glance at the plate before turning his attention back to a printout. “Thanks, Thor,” he said in a preoccupied manner. There was a blot of dark ink on his chin, some smeared on his lower lip, and a smudge on his nose, but the cracked pen was still being methodically chewed.

Erik really hoped it wasn’t one of his pens.

Taking a large gulp of coffee, he fell back and perched on the arm of the couch to eat. When Sarah came out of the kitchenette with her macaroni and a cup of coffee which she put next to Ray’s plate before sitting down, carefully, on the edge of a cushion. Coffee slopped over the edge of the cup, just before Ray’s hand darted out to lift it to his lips, drinking slowly as he red, the pen still in his mouth. As Sarah bent her head over the printout Ray was pouring over, Erik decided he had best eat quickly. He wasn’t sure how much of Sarah and Ray’s intimate computer geekiness he could sit through.

He wolfed down the macaroni and cheese, tasting nothing. Not, he knew, that he was missing much. Not even a culinary genius could make macaroni and cheese taste good. It was impressive if it tasted like food. Swallowing the last bite, he could hear Sarah saying something, full of incomprehensible computer words, to Ray and Ray mumbling some kind of reply through a mouthful of food.

Erik rolled his eyes and put his plate on the floor. One long sweep of his arm across the table was all it took to gather up his notes, snagging the textbook as he neared the end and managing to keep the pencil jammed between the pages in place as he lifted it. After a minute of grappling with the crumpled pages of notes and his textbook, Erik jammed them securely under his arm so he could carry his coffee cup, which was still mostly full.

The noise of Erik wrestling with the paper was loud enough to make Sarah look up. “Thor?”

“Uh, gonna go up to the lounge and study there. Er, good luck on your test and everything tomorrow. Thanks, uh, for the food and everything. Um. Bye,” Erik said over his shoulder, opening the door and scrabbling out, letting it shut on his parting word before fleeing to the elevator.

Erik didn’t venture back to the apartment until 10.30. If Ray and Sarah were still studying, he’d kick them both out under the pretense of needing sleep. But when he opened the door of apartment 306, it was quiet. All the lights were off, except for the dim glow of the screen saver – a dancing image of something that may have been a very badly drawn dragon fiercely stomping on a burning something or other. With a yawn, and a brief look at the part of the couch Sarah had been sitting on, Erik turned the computer off. He dropped his balled up sweatshirt on the couch and made his way to the bathroom. He dragged his feet as he went, causing his socks to sag to the point where he could unsock one foot with the other while he brushed his teeth and washed his face.

With some hair dripping down his damp face and one ear, Erik entered the bedroom, pulling his T-shirt over his head as he slouched in. He let it fall on the floor to become better acquainted with the friendly majority that was several weeks’ worth of laundry.

Ray was in bed, lying on his back with his hands behind his head. He had been looking at the frost patterns on the window, but Erik could tell Ray’s attention had shifted when he walked in the room.

As Erik undid his jeans and began searching the mess that was his bed for his pajamas, Ray said, “All studied out?”

“Mm. You?” Erik found his old flannel shirt, the one with the frayed cuffs and half the buttons missing, and put it on. He dropped his jeans on the end of the bed and tossed his boxers in the direction of the abandoned T-shirt. Were his pajama pants under the pillow?

“Could be.” Ray sounded absolutely lethargic. With Sarah gone, he obviously saw no reason not to compete for the Most Depressing Person to Live with Award. “You think after all that calculus you’ll be able to put together a coherent sentence without stammering and stuttering like a total moron?”

If Ray had been in a normal mood, the words would have been heavy with sarcasm and mockery. As it was, they were just words. Three or four hours of nothing but calculus had made Erik feel slightly numb to the world, anyway. “Fuck you,” he said calmly. And there were his pants, tangled in a knot around a bit of flannel sheet. He unwound them and pulled the pants on, falling face first on the bed as soon as he was done.

“Seriously, Thor. You’d have been less awkward and obvious if you’d grown up in a bloody monastery. Where all the monks had taken vows of silence. And possibly spent the first seventeen years of your life with an impenetrable blindfold on.” Ray yawned and rolled over so he was facing the window.

Erik rolled over and yanked the blankets up to his chin. “So girls confuse me. Sue me.”

“Not yet,” Ray said, the second word becoming another yawn.

Erik twisted in bed for a minute, kicking the tangled blankets, before asking, “So, are you two, um . . . y’know?”

“Can’t say I do,” said Ray. It sounded like he had his pillow half in his mouth.

“Dating?” Erik ventured after a minute, on the basis that it was the least embarrassing possibility.

“Mm.” Ray yawned. “No. Computer chicks never seem interested. We just have the class together.” Another yawn. “Cute.”

“Huh.” Erik stared at the dark ceiling. “You ever – ”

“Christ, Thor,” said Ray, finally showing a bit of emotion, “what is this, Twenty Stupid Questions?”

In the darkness, Erik scowled. “I just wondered, that’s all.”

“Well, don’t.” Ray yawned and muttered something in irritated Italian. “Shut up and go to sleep.”

“Yeah. Night, Ray.” Erik rolled onto his stomach, ignoring the almost-certainly obscene bit of Italian Ray sleepily answered with. Face pressed to his pillow, he grinned, and forgot every bit of calculus he had ever known.