In Too Deep Read Online Free Page A

And maybe just a dash of I kissed the Olsen twins last night—both of them . Just from looking at him, Drew wasn’t sure if he wanted to hate him or if he wanted to be him. Maybe it was both.
    “Just look at all of you,” he said, instantly killing the chattering flowing back and forth around the room—even the Madison-ites of the room broke away from their iPhones and nail polish and looked forward, falling instantly silent. “A bunch of overprivileged, Upper East Side, cashmere-wearing sweater monkeys,” Paxil sneered, the corners of his lips curling in disdain. “Well, we’re going to fix all that,” Paxil went on, waving a hand in the air and pacing back and forth unsteadily at the front of the room, the soles of his black Converse high-tops squeaking as he moved. “This semester you’re going to grow something called a social conscience—and you’re going to do it by making a thought-provoking, politically informed, short documentary film, exploring the subject of your choice.”
    Jenna Baumgarden, a petite brunette who made it a point to always sit in the first row of every class she attended in order to ask as many questions as she could possibly squeeze in during a sixty-minute class, raised one hand tentatively in the air while shaking back her mane of artfully streaked bronzed hair. Paxil nodded curtly in her direction. “Yes?” he snapped. “You have something you’d like to add?”
    “Well,” Jenna began, smiling weakly, “I’m not really political by nature. In fact I don’t really think that—”
    “It sounds like you don’t really think—period,” Paxil snapped, sitting down on the edge of the desk with a sigh and wearily crossing one black-denim-clad leg over the other. Jenna opened her mouth then closed it again like a guppy in a fishbowl, then rolled her eyes at Maria Chase across the aisle, who mouthed the word “asshole,” her cherry-red lip gloss glinting in the light. “What I’m trying to do this semester, folks,” Paxil continued, oblivious to the dissension that was forming in the room with every word he spoke, “is to get you to see beyond the boundaries of this suffocating little world you’ve created for yourselves.”
    Yeah, right . Drew thought, fighting back the urge to laugh out loud. Who did this guy think he was? Everyone knew that Paxil had grown up on Ninety-sixth and Park, and now lived in a humongous loft in Chelsea—he wasn’t exactly living on food stamps or pawning his iPod for cash. He was making big-budget Hollywood movies and wasting millions of dollars in the process. The situation was so ridiculous that the laugh Drew had been stifling suddenly burst from his lips. As soon as it happened, Drew knew it was a mistake and tried to disguise the fact that he’d just laughed in Paul Paxil’s face by coughing loudly, but it was way too late.
    “Yes?” Paxil glared at him. “In the back—you, there.” Drew exhaled as the whole room turned around to face him. “Is there something you’d like to add?”
    “Not really,” Drew mumbled, staring down at the smooth wooden surface of his desk.
    “Am I so amusing that you feel the need to burst into hysterics during my class?” Paxil walked up the aisle and stood in front of Drew’s chair, his eyes behind the high-concept glasses narrowing slightly.
    “Kind of,” Drew said quietly, as the room broke into a series of loud giggles and whispers.
    Paxil leaned over and stared Drew down. He was so close that Drew imagined he could see every individual hair of the dark stubble on Paxil’s jaw, so close that he now knew that Paxil smelled like coffee, chalk, and Issey Miyake cologne. “Your name is?” Paxil barked, straightening up.
    “Drew Van Allen,” Drew said tentatively, wondering what fresh hell awaited him now that Paxil possessed this all-encompassing information. Drew watched as Paxil spun on his heel and walked back up to the front of the room, sitting back down on the edge of the desk,