Chapter 5: Rumor

"You are going to this party," Dag said, "because I'm going, and I don't know anyone."

"You know everyone."

"I know everyone's grandmother. It's different."

Brock Coyle's house sat on the edge of campus with a porch couch and a keg.

A banner over the door said LUMBERJACKS HOCKEY: NO GIRLS, NO RULES.

Someone had crossed out NO GIRLS.

Linus walked in with a foil tray of Dag's cheese bars and stood in the hallway with his glasses fogging in the heat.

"Relax," Dag shouted over the music. "Nobody here has read a book."

"Is that supposed to help?"

"It helps me."

The living room was packed with red jackets and cups.

Linus found a corner by the bookshelf, which held no books, and watched.

He saw Brock holding court on the kitchen counter, laughing with his whole neck.

He saw the team's captain arm-wrestling a freshman.

And across the room, leaning on the wall under a dead plant, he saw Mattias.

He wore a black shirt and the Lumberjacks jacket.

A guy with a nose ring stood far too close, laughing at everything Mattias said.

Mattias was not laughing.

He had a cup in his hand and was not drinking from it, and his eyes kept going to the door.

They landed on Linus.

They stayed for a moment, and then Mattias turned his head and smiled at the nose ring guy with all his teeth.

Linus counted four more glances in the next ten minutes.

He told himself it was the glasses.

"He keeps looking at you," Dag said, passing with a plate of bars.

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