ARIEL

I hated him.

I didn’t just dislike him. I didn’t just find him irritating in that way you find a buzzing fly in your room.

No, I loathed Easton Maverick with every single fiber of my being, right down to my marrow.

He was the real definition of a proud, pompous show-off — the kind of guy who walked into a room and acted like he’d personally invented the oxygen everyone else was breathing.

Easton was the "golden boy" of our university.

And of course, he had the kind of looks that belonged on a billboard in Times Square—jawline sharp enough to draw blood, messy dark hair that always...