It was amazing how you could have five people in an apartment, only three of whom were residents, and yet the one who felt out of place actually lived there.

This was the main reason for Cara's less than chipper mood, but it wasn't helped by the fact there was more than one way in which the apartment seemed too small for the amount of occupants. The heat that day had been absolutely relentless - the first such day of the summer - and as a result the small apartment was stuffy to begin with. Cramming five overheated bodies into an already overheated room without air conditioning was not helping the matter, and the only escape Cara had from the situation was offering to play chef.

This had got her out of the awkward 'odd one out' situation, but the price she paid was slaving over a hot stove and having her blood boil in her veins; she did have an electric fan chugging away in the corner, but at this point all it was doing was circulating humid air. She felt sweaty and disgusting, and she was constantly wiping her forehead and running her arms under the cold faucet both in a vain attempt to cool down and to allay her fears she was going to contaminate the food.

"Hey, can I help at all?"

And as if she hadn't felt awkward enough, Stacey had just walked into the room. If it had been Kia this wouldn't have been a problem but Stacey she could barely make it past the pleasantries with. It wasn't that she hated her; she just had nothing to say to her either.

"Umm…" She cast an eye over the food. She was making a Thai dish (more impressive than it sounded, she just stir fried some meat and vegetables and then poured sauce on it), and pretty much all she was doing was stirring or watching pots. "At this point there's not a lot left to do: though if you feel like attacking the dishes I wouldn't tell you not to."

"Sure." Stacey said with more enthusiasm than she actually felt.

Contrary to the impression Cara's not-quite-listening ears had given her, there had not been a cosy double date going on in her absence. Sure, Stacey had been okay enough listening to Justin, Tom and Kia having a raucous discussion of their Slip Night (the night the bank behind the chemistry building found itself turned into a giant water slide). She hadn't been able to participate however because it was a sophomore tradition (originally created in protest of the fact that freshmen and seniors seemed to have all the traditions) and naturally as a freshman she had nothing to input to the conversation. It wasn't like she'd felt pushed out, it was just that there weren't a lot of opportunities for her to contribute and it got a little dull listening to other people talk after a while.

And then she had thought of Cara: Cara who she was desperate to get to know a little better and Cara who was all on her own in the next room. She'd almost smiled at Cara's dishevelled state as she'd entered; fashion plate no more, she was clad in a cropped exercise shirt and shorts and flip flops, hair scraped back from her continually reddening face. It was almost reassuring to see her looking so frazzled. It was less reassuring comparing Cara's flat stomach and curvy hips to her own practically non-existent ones, but she was trying not to dwell on such things after landing herself in a sorority full of girls who had similarly good if not better physiques.

"So…" Stacey struggled to start the ball rolling, nervously pushing a strand of hair back into her Alice band. "Gossip is you dumped Max Carlton."

"Really?" Cara snorted. "Says who?"

"Oh, uhh…" The blonde winced. Strike one - she'd forgotten Cara's crowd was not fond of the Pi Betas and admitting they gossiped about them was not a good idea. "Not that people are talking about you, just something I vaguely heard somewhere or other."

She felt entirely ridiculous when Cara chuckled at her. "Relax, I'm not going to shoot the messenger because your friends were talking about me. But you can tell the nosy broads that there was no dumping to be done because we were never together. He just asked me out and I said no."

"Oh I knew he asked you out, Janine Chrysler's been bitching about it non-stop." It was okay to snitch on that particular sister as far as she was concerned because she really didn't like her.

"Is she the chick with the bad three colour hair who dresses under the delusion she's Jackie O?"

"That's a good way to put it, yeah."

"Well, she's welcome to him." Cara crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue, making Stacey giggle.

"But it's no fun knowing she's second choice."

"Oh we've all been there, she'll get over it." Cara declined to mention that it was technically third choice since she herself had been passed over once before Max had decided to do a u-turn. It had felt really gratifying to turn him down, actually - he'd left it too late and she was over him already.

"Speaking of my sorority sisters… can I ask you a question?"

"Okay…" She replied slowly as she took a quick peek at the rice to see how it was doing.

"Well… it's just… me and the other freshmen were wondering what this whole big war is about because all we know is that the older girls hate you guys and you hate them and it's this whole big bitchy thing that nobody wants to talk about how it started."

She didn't expect Cara to burst out laughing the way she did, but it was very unsettling and somewhat panic-making. Had she just made a complete fool of herself? She must have sounded so naïve.

"You mean they just teach the freshmen to hate us and don't tell them why?" Cara was struggling for air at this point and her stomach was killing her, but it was the best thing she'd heard all year. She couldn't wait to tell Eva.

"Well…" Now Cara put it like that, it did sound kind of dumb.

"Okay…" She took a gulp of water to try and calm herself down before she told Stacey the story - and there she had been thinking they'd find nothing to talk about. "I won't name names, but one of your sisters and one of our crowd had been like bestest best friends since they were in diapers, Pi Beta invited them both to join but our girl turned them down because she thinks the whole Greek system is elitist and snobby."

Stacey wisely decided not to mention her view that not only was that an unfair stereotype but that there were few amongst Cara's crowd who weren't just as elitist.

"Anyway, long story short, the claim is that Pi Beta were a little pissed and decided the best revenge would be making her best friend the pledge that had to pull off the big dare, and the big dare was seducing the girl who turned them down's boyfriend."

Stacey's mouth dropped open. "Seriously?" It was true enough that every year one pledge got singled out to perform a dare of either the highly embarrassing or highly challenging kind, but of all the past dares she'd heard discussed this had never been among them.

"That's what they say." Cara shrugged. "There's a ton of like sub-theories going around, that this was all a big scam, that the boyfriend lied about who he cheated with, that the girl lied about Pi Beta making her do it, whatever, but bottom line either Pi Beta did set her up and they're bitches for that, or they're bitches for the way they treated her when she tried to find out. They could have just said no it wasn't them but they trashed her. Cue lots of arguing and fights and now nobody likes anybody. Of course when I say Pi Beta are bitches I exclude you and your poor unwitting classmates who are being taught to blindly hate us."

Cara said that without even a tiny sense of her hypocrisy - in talking to her now, she had handily forgotten that she'd objected to Stacey's dating Justin on grounds of her belonging to the offending sorority, and she had handily forgotten that said sorority had it's own side of the tale to tell in which her friends were by no means innocent slander victims.

"God. No wonder y'all hate each other." Stacey replied thoughtfully as she rinsed the last utensil (or at least the last one for now).

The more time she spent around Cara the less she understood her. She wanted to because the older woman was a huge deal in Justin world and dating Justin required dealing with her, but thus far she was failing miserably. At times she seemed really elegant and sophisticated and calm, Justin always talked about how warm and funny she was, and yet there were moments where she seemed stand-offish or cold or -like this one - bitchy.

"I know Justin and Tom have this smug 'stupid girls don't even know why they're fighting' theory, but believe me when I say nobody's forgotten what started this whole thing off, but there was definitely a start and it wasn't pretty." Cara responded idly as she took great pleasure in finally turning off the stove.

Before Stacey could think up a response, the door had opened and Justin's curly head stuck itself through the crack. "Hey, serving wenches, when's grub up?"

***

"So…"

"So." Came the echo.

Cara and Justin had found themselves revisiting that awkward place where Tom's sex life was getting a little too loud and they were forced to seek refuge in her room. They were especially ill at ease because the room was the stuffiest in the apartment and also because of the minor sex incident that had occurred the last time this had happened. Thankfully now the sun had gone down the night was a little cooler than the afternoon had been, and Cara had opened her window wide and set up the portable fan there to try and air out the room.

"I noticed you and Stacey spent a while talking in the kitchen… what do you think of her?" Justin asked as he settled back with a hand behind his head.

When she wasn't sure what to say, Cara had a tendency to fiddle with her hair. At this precise moment, the chocolate strands were being constantly pulled out of their ponytail and then rapidly replaced. There was no reason for this whatsoever, but she kept doing it anyway. Another good tactic was staring at her lava lamp which was providing the only light in the room, but she would have to answer him sometime.

She wasn't really sure of the answer, but she hazarded a guess anyway.

"She seems sweet. I don't know… it was hard to get a read of her. She was asking about me so much I didn't get a chance really."

"But on the bright side that means she's not self obsessed or anything, right?" Justin sounded so unsure that Cara was almost tempted to pinch his cheeks like a granny. He was cute when he got like this.

"Tick in the plus column, yep."

"But you don't hate her even though she's a freshman and a dreaded PB?"

"I don't hate her." She had to grudgingly admit - almost wished she did, but the girl seemed pretty harmless - that said, she wouldn't be putting any money on her sticking around too long. Stacey seemed a little on edge much of the time, and she got a feeling that she was intimidated by Justin's friend - seemed a little too eager to be accepted. "You could certainly do worse JT. Certainly have, if I recall."

"Don't even start that shit with your love life supposedly running smoother than mine. Does the name David Cross mean anything to you, bunny boiler?"

He received a resounding smack in the mouth with a pillow.

"If your love life was running so smoothly why are you here instead of getting laid? Haven't managed to get into her panties yet, Casanova?"

It had only been a joke, but she immediately knew she'd struck a nerve. Apart from the fact she could read his facial expressions better than just about anybody, he was obviously uncomfortable. His lip had twitched, his cobalt eyes had got just a tiny bit wider and he was now fidgeting in a way usually more attributable to Cara.

"Spit it out, Justin. What's your issue?"

"What, there's no issue."

"Bullshit, Timberlake, that sweat just broke out on your forehead's not down to the temperature. What gives? I thought you'd told Tom you'd already got to third base with her?"

"I take it back, there's no issue except you being crude yet again."

"Justin, I know you know and you know I know you know, so out with it!" She whined as she flipped onto her stomach and kicked her legs in the air, making circles with her feet.

"You know I know I… what? I can't even follow that shit."

"I will kick you."

"Okay…" He gave in, rubbing his face with his spare hand and closing his eyes, as if not looking at her would somehow dull the impact of what he had to say. "We did actually sleep together a couple nights ago but…"

"But…" She pressed him to continue.

"Turns out she… uhh… hadn't really…"

Cara's eyes widened, filling in the blank. "You popped the cherry, didn't you?"

He winced and nodded. "Little bit."

She arched a quizzical eyebrow at him, taking in that piece of information. She was majorly surprised that Stacey had managed to get through so much of her freshman year and so many Greek parties with that intact. She also realised that the young blonde's thing for Justin had to be a little potent than she'd first realised.

"So what's the problem? It happens… and hey, isn't that like every guy's thing, wanting to sleep with a virgin?"

Cara dearly wanted to make a joke about him being Stacey's Mrs Robinson, but she'd known Justin too long to be so stupid. Once you knew his signals, Justin was a very readable person, and he had 'not in the mood to be made fun of' written across him in bold neon. He was normally pretty good humoured, but now was not the time and she wasn't going to cause a tantrum - apart from anything else, it was too hot for such exertion.

"It's just she didn't tell me beforehand, I felt a little weird about it when she did tell me and…"

"Spit it out…"

"You are not encouraging, you know that?" He sniped.

"Justin…" she growled.

"It… sucked. I mean, in the 'it was bad' sense and not the literal mouth sucking." Justin stumbled once he'd realised that she might think he was referring to something altogether different.

"Thank you, I worked that out all by myself without you giving me that nasty mental image. So, it sucked?" Cara pressed. "Do you mean that you sucked, she sucked or you both sucked?"

"She sucked. Which, I now realise is down to being a beginner and all, but bad sex is bad sex and it doesn't really give you much enthusiasm for a second run, you know? I like her and I don't want to be shallow and all about the sex but, you know, bad sex is bad."

A slight twinge began in Cara's stomach. She and Justin talked about their sex lives all the time - she probably talked to him even more than she did Eva about it. It was incredibly useful having a platonic opposite sex perspective on the whole game; a little bit of male insight had saved her from a few horrific blunders and much embarrassment over the past three years. However, that didn't stop it from being occasionally uncomfortable and given her lack of feeling -good or bad - towards Stacey, this was definitely one of those times.

It wouldn't normally be a problem, except she was all too aware that Justin took on her advice as much as she did his; she had to confess, she hadn't always been the most helpful she could be when she'd been less than fond of the girlfriend of the day. But since Justin so willingly took what he heard on board an unscrupulous person could do some serious manipulation with that, and sometimes she did get tempted.

"You, as per usual, are being a drama queen. You have every guy's dream in your hand - a girl who has absolutely no experience to measure your performance by, and who hasn't learned any bad habits yet. The first couple times won't be so great but teach her and it'll get a whole lot better, you can like tailor make your perfect sex bunny. Why you complaining?"

There - she'd been good and honest and she thoroughly deserved a cookie.

"That's actually a pretty good point."

"I know. I make lots of 'em but you're never listening."

"Aww, I'm sorry, I'm such an ungrateful ass who's always giving you a ride and picking up assignments for you and doing your share of the grocery shopping… I'm such a bad roommate. Thank you Cara…" He got another pillow to the face but Justin still planted a sloppy kiss on her cheek. "So, can I return the favour? Need love advice?"

"Nope. I have no love life at the moment, unless you count the fact Ed Taylor won't quit. Was he this persistent in high school too?"

"Yep." Justin replied as his stomach sank to his knees.