by Linda Kage
I totally wasn’t expecting that. With a blink, I slowly shook my confused head. “Really?”
“Yep. You’ll have to come with us when we hang out at the club some night.”
By club, I knew she meant Forbidden. Just thinking about the place where Quinn worked got my blood pumping faster. He hadn’t come by the apartment to pick up Cora for a date since the night he’d helped me acclimate myself to biology. But I still saw him in art class. Still sat by him in art class. Still had an unrelenting crush on him in and out of art class.
We didn’t have assigned seats, but since day one, our group had continued to sit in the exact same spots every day with Reese in the middle, Caroline to her left, me to her right and Ten and Quinn taking up the ends.
“Since Eva’s engaged to the owner, we can get in free,” Reese nudged her elbow into mine and winked, “and underage without any hassle.”
“Hey, guys,” Caroline greeted as she trudged up the steps to our desks. Smiling warmly at me, she squealed happily when she saw Reese. “Noel told me about Eva and Pick! That’s so exciting. Are you guys going to have a double wedding?”
“God, no.” Reese rolled her eyes. “Mason and I are being slowpokes and waiting until we graduate. Pick and Eva need to hurry their nuptials along to help with the adoption process for Julian.”
Eva and her boyfriend took care of two children: Eva’s daughter Skylar, and Pick’s stepson Julian. They’d been working toward permission to adopt Julian for a few months.
“Oh, can they finally adopt him? That’s great.” Caroline gasped happily as she started to sit. But when she glanced down at her chair before lowering herself, she frowned. “What’s this?”
She picked up a sheet of paper that had been in her chair and flipped it over. As her mouth fell open, she looked up at us. Her face was wreathed in awe.
“Oh, wow, you guys. Check this out.”
When she turned the sheet around to show us the drawing that had been sitting there, my mouth fell open. “Wow,” was all I could think to say. It was a pencil sketch, like an exact replica of Caroline. And not just her face, but her entire body.
“Oh my God, that’s you.” Reese leaned forward to examine every perfect detail. She looked up at Caroline’s face and then back at the picture. “I mean, that’s really you.”
“I know. Isn’t it amazing?” Caroline looked shocked speechless. Her gaze was dazed as she met my stare.
“Do...do you think I have a secret admirer or something?” She stepped closer to us and glanced suspiciously around the room, lowering her voice. “I don’t know if that’s creepy or flattering.
“Well, he put clothes on you, so...I’m going to go with flattering.” Reese snagged the sheet out of Caroline’s hand and made a giddy sound as she studied the picture some more. “You have a secret admirer! This is so wicked awesome. I want someone to draw me like this.”
“Wait? How do we know the artist is a he?” I asked, frowning slightly.
Reese and Caroline looked at me as if I’d just spoken a foreign language. “What?” I asked, clueless and feeling really stupid.
Turning the page to show me the picture again, Reese lifted an eyebrow. “Someone drew her barefoot in a dress and curled up on the grass, sleeping under a tree.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, totally not catching on.
“Seriously,” Reese cried jabbing her finger into the page. “Don’t you feel how sensual it is from the way the wind is blowing stray pieces of hair into her face, how the skirt of her dress is riding just the slightest bit high on her thigh. I mean, damn, I look at this and even I want her a little bit right now.”
Caroline snorted out a laugh and covered her face. “I cannot believe you just said that.”
“Well, really.” Reese shrugged. “Can’t you tell that whoever drew it likes her? Like, likes her.” She sang out the last two words for emphasis.
“Oh.” I said, finally getting it. It made perfect sense when Reese explained it that way. Then I tipped my face to the side. “Unless it was drawn by a lesbian.”
Both Reese and Caroline burst out laughing. I started to grin, tickled that I’d managed to entertain them, but Caroline immediately sobered and ripped the sheet out of Reese’s hand.
“Damn, I hope it’s a guy and not a lesbian who likes me. I like beard scruff, six-pack abs, tight buns of steel, and that bulge in the pants way too much to go gay right now.”
“Amen,” Reese murmured with a dreamy sigh.
Suddenly, Caroline cleared her throat and turned away, tucking the sheet into her art book. I glanced over my shoulder to see what had caused her to hide the drawing so quickly. Quinn and Ten were absorbed in whatever they were discussing as they entered class. They paid us no attention, but we couldn’t stop staring at them.
Both Reese and Caroline were right. Slight beard scruff, six-pack abs, tight buns of steel and that bulge really were powerful enhancements to the masculine race. They were definitely helping to keep me straight!
I wondered when Quinn would come by the house to pick Cora up for a date again. I kind of craved another biology lesson with him...which made me hope he never came by again, and Cora just kept going out to meet him as she claimed she’d been doing the last few nights, because I so very badly needed to nip this crush I had in the bud. The less contact with him, the better. Right?
He and Ten looked up at the same time to catch all three of us girls ogling them.
“What?” Ten demanded with an instantly suspicious frown.
“Nothing,” Reese, Caroline and I answered in unison. When we abruptly became interested in our own things, Ten snorted.
“That was definitely something,” he told Quinn. Falling into his seat next to Caroline, he sighed and stretched. “I bet it was about sex.”
I flushed because that word...yeah, it wasn’t something I’d discussed with anyone. Ever. Especially out in the open in a classroom where just anyone could hear.
Reese wasn’t so scandalized, though. She snorted. “I know it’s shocking, but unlike men, we women can actually think and talk about other topics.”
“Hey, guys can too. Ham and I were just discussing football, thank you very much. How I used my football image to score a chick last night.”
I finally dared to glance over at Quinn for the first time since he’d sat beside me. He looked a little hurt that we hadn’t told him what we’d been discussing. I already felt bad enough that I had to keep Cora’s secret from him, so while Reese and Ten bickered back and forth across Caroline’s desk, I picked up my pen, opened my notebook and wrote, “Caroline just found a drawing in her chair. Someone made a picture of her and left it there for her to find.”
I tipped it his way to get his attention. When he finally noticed, he paused, looking up at my face, then went back to reading. His eyebrows lifted as he opened his own notebook.
“And she doesn’t want Ten to know?” he wrote.
I grinned. “Exactly.”
“Don’t blame her. Do you think it’s a secret admirer?”
“That’s the general consensus.”
Quinn shook his head. “Wow.”
“I know. I wonder who—” My cell phone dinged from my book bag, making me jump.
I didn’t realize class had already started until everyone, including the professor, stopped to stare at me.
“Cell phones off, please.” The teacher sent me an irritated glower before he went right back to lecturing.
Sinking lower in my chair, I cringed. “Sorry.”
Fumbling to retrieve my phone and set it to silent, I checked the message first. It had to be from Cora. She was the only person who even knew I had a phone, much less what my number was.
Meet me in front of the library after this hour, was all she wrote.
I typed in a quick response, only to find Reese wiggling her fingers at me. “Ooh. I want your number,” she whispered, snagging my phone from my hand.
I didn’t get my phone back for the r
est of art class. When Reese realized I only had one number in my address book, she and Caroline made it their mission to enter every number they thought I should have. They even confiscated Ten and Quinn’s phones to make sure we all had everyone’s numbers.
When I got it back at the end of the hour, I had a number for Reese, her boyfriend Mason, plus her cousin and cousin’s new fiancé, not to mention Caroline, her brother Noel, his girlfriend Aspen, and Ten and Quinn. They also thought it fitting that I have the number for the bar where every guy in their group worked.
In the span of an hour, I went from having one contact to having eleven. I felt good—accepted and even liked—as I skipped toward the library after class, hoping Cora didn’t make me late to biology with whatever she wanted to discuss.
Cora was already waiting for me, impatiently tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest. “What took you so long?”
I slowed my pace, my smile dropping. “Sorry. I just got out of class.”
She let out a disgusted sigh and rubbed the center of her forehead, before thrusting a folder at me. “Whatever. Here, just take this.”
I did, asking, “What is it?”
“It’s a half-assed schedule and checklist of everything you’ll need to do before the...” She paused and glanced around before leaning in closer and muttering, “the operation.”
I nodded and started to open it, but she slapped it back closed. “For God’s sake, don’t open it here.”
Holding in a sigh, I slipped it into my backpack. “Why didn’t you just wait to give it to me at home, then?”
“Because I won’t be home tonight. Or the rest of the weekend. Quinn and I are going away someplace special together.” She smiled saucily and wiggled her eyebrows. “I got it yesterday at my...treatment and forgot to get it to you last night before I went out, but your first test starts Monday, so...you need it now.”
I nodded, ignoring the pang in my chest at thinking of her and Quinn someplace alone and romantic together...all weekend—
“Wait.” I shook my head, confused. “What about your Saturday dialysis treatment?”
Cora gritted her teeth at me, probably upset that I’d said that word aloud in public, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her to miss an appointment because she was going to be with someone who didn’t know what was happening to her.
“Will you relax? I can get away for a couple hours for shopping and a spa or something.”
Four or five hours was way longer than a few. I didn’t see how she could hide something like that from him all weekend long. I wondered if she even planned on attending the treatment.
Missing them had to be dangerous. They cleaned out her kidneys. If her kidneys stopped working, she’d die.
I remembered the call I’d overheard her making with her dad last night before she left for the evening. When she’d assured him the nurse he’d hired to help her out was still doing a fine job, I’d turned from the supper I was making at the stove and watched her tell Mr. Wilder she loved him before hanging up.
“What nurse?” I asked, taking the grilled salmon off the skillet and sliding it onto a plate.
“The nurse I paid to tell my dad she was keeping an eye on me.” She snagged the plate I’d just filled and moved to the table to start eating. “Seriously, you don’t think my parents let me live here alone with failing kidneys without making sure someone was looking out for me, did you?”
“But...” I filled my own plate. “Why don’t you just let the nurse do her job, then?”
“Because she annoyed the shit out of me.” Cora hummed in pleasure deep in her throat as she took her first bite. “Fantastic,” she told me with her mouth full.
I smiled vaguely and sat across from her. I had stopped telling her which foods were healthiest for her to eat in her condition. Instead, I just fixed them, without saying anything, and let her dig in. As long as something tasted good, she didn’t care how good it was for her.
Staring at her now, I wondered who’d watch her diet all weekend long. Maybe there was a way to tell Quinn what to make sure she ate without telling him why. More misery filled me as I realized he hadn’t once mentioned his plans with her this weekend in class.
“Hey, guys.” A male voice from behind us made me jump and spin around.
Noel Gamble gave us a friendly smile as he bounded down the steps of the library with his thumbs tucked into the straps of his book bag he had slung over his shoulders.
“How’s it going?”
“Oh, it’s you.” Cora lifted her nose and turned slightly away from him. “Hello again.” Ever since she’d learned he was dating his ex-teacher, she’d been very anti-Noel Gamble.
He nodded to her and turned to me. “Zoey. You should come by the house sometime and hang out with Caroline. She talks about you all the time.”
Flattered by the invitation, I opened my mouth to thank him, but Cora sniffed, interrupting me. Both Noel and I glanced at her, then he returned his attention to me.
“So, anyway. I was wondering...” He glanced at Cora again, before sending me a big smile. “You don’t happen to know the name of that baseball player who had the picture of my girlfriend on his phone, do you?”
My eyes widened, and my heartbeat echoed through my ears. Oh, man. But I never thought he’d try to pry that name out of me. I knew my eyes were big with fear and my face frozen with shock as I shook my head slowly, but I couldn’t help it. I hated outright lying to people.
He narrowed his eyes slightly, and I knew he knew that I knew.
“You mean Cain Belcher?” Cora asked, turning back to us with interest.
Noel swung to her. “Cain Belcher?” he repeated.
I closed my eyes, wishing I could gag my roommate right about then. Didn’t she know Quinn did not want Noel getting that name?
When I opened my lashes, I found him studying me before he turned back to Cora. “Shorter, stocky, light-headed kid with the scar on his chin, right? That Cain Belcher?”
“Yeah,” Cora agreed. “That guy.”
“Right,” Noel murmured, his grin transforming into a fierce snarl. Then he stepped back and nodded to us. “Thank you, ladies.” And he was off, marching across the campus.
Crap. This was bad. This was so bad. He was going to beat up Belcher.
“Cora!” I hissed, grabbing her arm. “How could you tell him that?”
“What?” She scowled and jerked her arm out of my grip.
“Quinn didn’t want him to know that guy’s name.”
She shook her head and wrinkled her face. “Oh, whatever. Quinn never told me that. Why would he care anyway?”
“Because,” I started, only to stop myself. It’d take too long to explain right now anyway. “Never mind.” I hurried past her. “I gotta go.”
“Don’t forget your first session Monday,” she called after me.
I waved over my shoulder, letting her know I’d heard her, and took off after Noel in hot pursuit. I dug my cell phone from my pocket and tried to punch out an explanation SOS text to Caroline, all the while trying to keep up with her brother enough to know which direction he was headed.
Caroline didn’t respond. She probably had her phone turned off for her next class. Great.
Fingers shaking, I tried Quinn next. “Noel just found out about Belcher.”
After I pressed send, I looked up to keep track of my target, but he’d disappeared. “Oh, no.” My heart sank into my stomach and I yelped out my surprise when my phone rang in my hands. It was Quinn.
Spinning in a circle in the hopes of spotting Noel, I answered. “Hello?”
“How do you know?” he asked without a greeting. “What happened? Where is he now?”
I gulped. Oh, great. I couldn’t tell him Cora was the culprit. But then I spotted Noel. “Ooh. There. I’m following him across the main quad right now. He’s walking between the history and math building. I think he’s headed toward the ball diamond.” Which was a good mile from here, but from t
he way Noel was stalking, I don’t think he cared.
“Thank you. I’m in the history building right now. Be right there.”
Quinn hung up. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do, so I kept following Noel. I had to run for a while to get close enough, and then I still had to half jog to keep up with his determined stride. Afraid he might actually make it to Belcher before Quinn could intercept him, I called, “Noel?” as soon as we hit the beginning of a parking lot.
He jerked his attention to me and snorted out a hard laugh. “My sister got to you, didn’t she? Told you I wasn’t allowed to know. Like I didn’t have the right to defend my own girlfriend.”
I flinched and cowered back. He was mad, as mad as my father would get right before he’d take out his anger on me. Breathing heavily, I lifted my gaze even as I kept my chin lowered.
Instead of telling him that it had been Quinn, not Caroline, who’d informed me of anything, I said, “I...I was just trying to help protect you.”
“Protect me? Me?” With a snort, he stepped menacingly toward me. “I think its Belcher you’re trying to fucking protect.”
I cowered down even more, but refused to shift my feet even the slightest inch away. I’d been hurt by a man before; I could handle it again, especially if it was for a worthy enough cause to save his, his girlfriend’s, and maybe even Caroline’s future.
“What would happen if you went after him?” I asked in a small voice.
“I’d fucking defend my woman, that’s what would happen.”
He stepped even closer to me, and I held my breath, trying not to hyperventilate. If he charged, maybe I could duck behind a car and escape. Maybe he’d get so preoccupied with trying to catch me and hurt me that he’d forget all about Cain Belcher.
“But I thought it would hurt her more if you went after him.”
His face contorted with rage and hot, angry color. I closed my eyes and turned my head aside, bracing for a blow when someone shouted. “Hey!”
I barely heard the pounding of approaching feet before someone grabbed my arm and yanked me against a warm, solid mass. When I realized it was Quinn and he’d pulled me behind him to position his body between mine and Noel’s, I gratefully gripped the back of his shirt and buried my face into the warm cloth, right between his shoulder blades.