Damn Chad. I needed dirt now. I wanted to know the secret scandals of Harry Potter.
“If I guess, will you tell me?”
“Maybe. Are you turning the DVD on or do I need to take control of the remote?”
I pushed the button but my mind was on pumping Chad for information. He had to tell me something or, when I told Jayne and Tristan this, they’d be sorely disappointed. I was doing this for all the right reasons. Unselfish reasons at that.
“Is it something to do with an unhealthy fixation on owls? Because I totally picked that from the films.”
Beside me, Chad’s body shook. It jiggled the sofa and made me queasy. What was going on with him? Was he feeling himself up under the blanket because that would be gross? Then I realised he was shaking with silent laughter.
“What? What?”
“You are so gullible, Lucy. I just say something and you believe it.”
I bashed him with a cushion.
“You are evil. Of course, I believe you. But I won’t next time. Now that I know you are a dirty liar.”
“Shut up and watch the movie.”
I grabbed the bowl of popcorn. I would not be sharing that with Chad. He could go junk food-less forever.
We’d just got to the part where Harry and Draco Malfoy had intense sexual tension going on when Chad’s phone beeped.
“Ignore it.”
But Chad got up. I’d been so comfy snuggled beside him too. You’d think all that muscle would be hard and uncomfortable but it was quite nice.
Chad paced the room, reading the message. He ran his fingers through his hair and didn’t look at me.
“I left something at the gym,” he said. “I’ve got to go back and get it.”
He ran out before I could protest but he’d really seemed dodgy about it. I bet it was some chick. Damn her. I hated her.
***
“Lucy, don’t you think you should go back to class?”
Chad’s concern had a fair bit of nagging mixed in with it. It hadn’t taken him long to go from being my Monopoly-playing, movie-watching buddy to a total nagfest. I pulled the blanket up under my chin. I didn’t like nagging. I had a feeling this wasn’t going to be ignorable nagging like about not doing the dishes. This was going to be big issue nagging. I don’t know why. He’d been the one encouraging me to rest up a few days ago.
“I’m fine. Really. Let’s stay at home today and watch Harry Potter. You like Harry Potter. It’s much better than going to class.” I smiled, hoping I could side-track him.
Chad sighed.
“I liked Harry Potter the first time we watched it. You can’t spend all your time sitting here, watching movies. You have to leave the house. The doctor said you should rest for a day or two, not the rest of your life.”
He tried to pull the blanket off me but I held it tighter. I needed the blanket. Chad had given me this comfort zone and now he wanted to take it from me. Leaving the house was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. Inside the house was safe and warm and comforting. I had Chad to look over me and I had my blanket. The only thing I didn’t have was snack foods.
“I’ll leave the house to get snack foods. That will help me transition.”
“Lucy,” Chad said. “We need to talk.”
I shook my head. When someone says we need to talk, why the hell would I want to talk? I’d taken all the things he wanted to talk about and hidden them away in a hole in the dark bit of my mind then I’d put a big, heavy thing over it so no one would ever find it. That’s exactly what I wanted. I didn’t want Chad digging around in my secret dark corners.
“You are the one who said I should take things gradually, that I needed to look after myself.”
“I didn’t mean for you to meld yourself into the sofa. I know you are embarrassed to go out with that boot on.”
The doctor had given me this big, ugly boot thing to wear if I needed to walk around. It was ugly. I mean seriously ugly.
“You need to socialise.”
“I have you.” Not that I talked to Chad but it made me feel better having him around.
Chad sighed again.
“I work for your grandmother. Remember that. I’m here to see you keep to the agreement. If you keep going like this, you’ll be kicked out of class and there will be no trip to Italy so I’d be taking money under false pretences.”
My guts lurched. Chad had been so comforting for the past few weeks, I’d kinda forgotten why he was there. I wondered how much of the cup of tea making and back rubbing he’d considered part of his job. He wasn’t my friend. I’d been totally fooled by his kindness. I grabbed my blanket and headed back to my room.
He couldn’t just dump me in the middle of everything. I’d show him. I’d get dressed and head to class if it killed me. I only had Art History anyway. I could breeze through that. Once the class finished, I could come home and continue my wallowing in peace.
“Fine, Chad. You win. Get ready to leave the house,” I called.
Even if he wasn’t my friend, he could still do useful things like drive me to class.
***
“I say leopard print,” said Tristan, pursing his lips. “Go leopard or go home.”
We were discussing how to make my foot boot less ugly. Of course Tristan said leopard print. He always said leopard print. He was known for doing everything in leopard.
“You could paint it red with polka dots,” Jayne said. “Or maybe checkerboard. That would be awesome.”
“We are not painting this boot anything. I had to pay a hefty deposit for it and I don’t get it back if it isn’t in pristine condition.”
Tristan looked at Jayne and shook his head. “But Lucy, it’d be in better condition. No one wants an ugly boot.”
Across the cafe, I knew that Rebecca Forsythe and her cronies were laughing at me. Well, screw her and her evil little sniggers. My boot would come off soon but her ugly face was forever. That might be childish but I wasn’t capable of adult thought at that moment.
“Lucy, I really am sorry,” said Jayne for the hundredth time. “If I’d known you’d end up like this, I’d have come and picked you up when you called. It’s just that I thought you were being a drama queen.”
“Huh? Why would I do that? I was in urgent need. I was robbed. By an evil child. And, as soon as I get back on my feet, I’ll go back and find that evil mongrel and make him pay.”
I drained the last drops out of my coffee.
“You wouldn’t!” Tristan looked horrified. “It’s not safe around there. You could’ve been sold into white slavery or something. Just leave it. You’ve cancelled your cards and got a new phone. And it’s not like you can’t buy a new One Direction keychain.”
My mouth dropped. That had been my dirty secret. I’d not even used the key chain, just secreted it away at the bottom of my bag as a good luck charm. And it was an irreplaceable limited edition one.
“Close your mouth, Lucy. We all know about it.”
It was time to go back to class. I snapped my fingers to call Chad over. He could help me get to class since I couldn’t really figure out how to use the crutches properly.
“As much as he annoys me, it’s a good thing you have the big lug around. He does come in handy.” That’s about as good as Jayne would say about Chad. “Has he been parading men in front of you to get you to lose the agreement?”
I shrugged. To be honest, he’d done nothing to try to make me lose apart from trying to psych me out the other day. I guess I wasn’t really in my finest form.
I leaned on Chad and hobbled to class. I had a ton of work to catch up on. Luckily, with Jayne feeling all guilty about being a crap friend, she was more than willing to help out.
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone anyway?” Tristan asked. “I’ve had major gossip to discuss with you. I met someone. He’s super cute and I’m in love and have absolutely needed someone to obsess over him with. Like I have literally hours of minor details about every aspect o
f his life to discuss with you.”
I couldn’t help but grin. It wasn’t like it was anything out of the ordinary for Tristan. He fell in love at least once a month and out of love just as easily. Luckily, I hadn’t answered my phone. I’d have been a sitting duck for his love talk.
“I thought Chad had kidnapped you and done something weird. Every time I called, he said you didn’t want to talk.”
I’d told Chad to tell people I was sick and I’d lost my voice. Otherwise it’d look weird that I’d completely stopped leaving the house. Also, I didn’t want anyone trying to talk to me. Mainly, I didn’t want anyone knowing I’d done stupid things like letting myself get robbed when I’d broken down and that I’d had to crawl over the footpath to get back to my car.
“I’m so far behind on class work, I’ll be working like crazy for the rest of the month.”
I had to go to the office to justify my absence and lay out how I planned to meet my end of semester deadlines. That wasn’t so bad. I mean, it’s not like I’d have stuck that ugly boot on my foot just for shits and giggles and the office ladies gave me heaps of sympathy.
“You really don’t have much time, Lucy, and you have to keep up your grade average if you want to go on this exchange. I’d hate to have to take it off you.” Mr Smothers tried one of those reassuring smiles.
“No problems, Mr Smothers. I’ve got a plan to get back on track.
I got through the rest of the day without any disasters. I just had to lean on Chad, literally. Which meant a lot of touching of Chad that made me feel a bit ick after our discussion about him not being my friend.
After class, Jayne wanted to go out for drinks. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
“You should go,” Chad said. “It’ll do you good.”
I gave him a strange look. Now that I was back on my feet, did he want me to pick up so he could get his hands on that money of my grandmother’s?
“I can’t. I have a ton of work to catch up on since I’m so far behind. I need to pass this semester or I’ll be screwed. That’s what the Dean told me.”
“Well, you have to go to work tomorrow.”
That was the one thing I didn’t want to do. I needed the money to survive and I’d missed enough time there already but the thought of driving home alone made me freak out.
“I guess.”
Chad gave my arm a squeeze.
“It’s okay. I’ll drop you off and pick you up, if you like.”
For a second, our eyes locked. I could see the concern, genuine concern for me. It made me feel smishy inside. A better smishy than the horrible feeling I had about going to work. My whole insides grew warm and fuzzy. And that scared me in a whole other way.
I broke his gaze and searched through my bag for something. I wasn’t even sure what.
Before I even got home, I had a message from Jayne.
“What’s going on between you and Chad?”
“Huh?”
There was absolutely nothing going on with Chad. I didn’t want Jayne digging around in things either. We’d been friends for a while but she had a tendency to be a bit too opinionated and I really couldn’t handle her constant prodding about it.
There was CHEMISTRY! Pls tell me you didn’t have sex with him.
I put the phone down, not wanting to even answer that. Except no answer would be like a yes with Jayne.
“Are you on drugs?”
I had to nip it in the bud totally. Maybe I had been a bit too dependent on Chad, anyway. He’d been quick to remind me it was just a job for him and one day, he’d be gone. I didn’t even know where. In this life, you can only rely on yourself. I should remember that. I’d let myself get soft and needy.
I went straight to my room. No hanging around with Chad, watching movies. I got out my computer and made a colour-coded schedule to ensure I’d be on track to meet all my project deadlines then started work on some new designs. I didn’t want to just pass, I wanted to blow people’s minds with my work.
When Chad called out a while later to see if I wanted dinner, I told him I was fine, I’d fix my own, and waited until he was finished in the kitchen. I could do this. I could be tough. I had to be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
On Friday, I couldn’t avoid going out for drinks. It was Tristan’s birthday and he insisted.
“You’ve become boring lately, Lucy. You have to come out and be fun. It’s my birthday and I demand fun.”
I’d gotten too cosy sitting at home with Chad anyway. At least I’d started to get caught up on work. It’d been hard trying to do things without being able to stand. I’d never realised just how much time I spent on my feet during the day in the studio. But, good news, the doctor said I could go out without the ugly boot.
I figured it’d do me good to actually socialise with other people. Depending on Chad had made me forget he was the enemy, even if being in a bar full of hot guys might weaken my resolve. And he’d be sure to be hovering over me.
When we got to the bar, it was already getting crowded. I had my crutches, and Jayne bowled up to a table of guys, forcing them to give us the table.
“You should keep those crutches. They totally come in handy.”
I gave her a half-smile. I was not going to go around looking like an idiot just to get a seat in the bar. Music blared through the room, mixing with the buzz of conversation. It’d definitely been too long since I’d been out. I noticed a few guys turn their heads in my direction. I grinned at them. I could not wait for the deal to be over. Now that my foot was nearly recovered, I realised how much I’d missed that horizontal recreation.
Jayne went to the bar and got a bottle of champagne for us to share. She poured three glasses, studiously ignoring Chad.
We gave a birthday toast to Tristan.
“So, is the mystery man turning up tonight?” I asked. I’d well and truly been filled in about the new man in Tristan’s life.
Tristan sighed and flopped in his seat as though the life had drained from his body.
“Don’t even talk to me about that pig. It is over. Over.”
I grinned at Jayne.
“Don’t grin. I thought this was the real thing but he’s an evil man. I haven’t heard from him in two days. He’s breaking my heart. What is he thinking? He could have me. Look at me. Why would you pass this up?”
Chad rolled his eyes. He’d been around Tristan long enough to know this whole drill.
“Don’t laugh,” Tristan repeated. “It’s my birthday and I’m allowed to be a melodramatic queen if I want to be.”
I tried to look serious.
“Really, Tristan, you should try to hold back a bit until you’ve been going out with someone for at least a week or so. Get to know them slowly.” I was so good at love advice.
“That’s easy for you to say. I have a fragile heart.”
Chad definitely sniggered that time.
I thought I should try to change the subject before Tristan noticed Chad’s amusement and it caused trouble, so I asked Jayne about her work on the final project. I knew Tristan would have done little towards it then would rush something up at the last moment but Jayne had been working away in secret.
“You know I can’t tell you,” she said. “I don’t want anyone knowing until I reveal it.”
“Well, I know what you are planning because I saw your sketches.”
She waggled her eyebrow in a way that I could only envy. “Or do you?”
Man, that infuriated me. She should so tell me. I totally told her everything. Of course, I had been pretty dependant on her that week so it wasn’t like I could hide anything anyway.
Tristan topped up my glass. I shot him a look to let him know that was enough.
After a while, Tristan and Jayne decided to play pool.
“You can’t. You can’t leave me here alone. And I can’t stand.”
“You have Chad to entertain you. We’ll just have a quick game,” said Tristan.
“No you won’t. Once y
ou get on that table, you’ll be there forever.”
Actually, I think it was an excuse for Tristan to cruise the room for a new boyfriend. There’s only so much checking out you can do sitting at a table. I couldn’t blame them for ditching me to check out men. I’d do the same to me if I was them.
“So, Chad, how are things?” Since I had no one else to talk to, I might as well engage Chad in conversation.
But the Chadster didn’t want to talk. He had an empty beer glass and he was headed to the bar. I’d been totally deserted. Tristan was deep in conversation with a cute Hispanic guy near the pool table and Jayne looked like she was separating some poor guy from his cash. They wouldn’t be back in a hurry.
“Is this seat taken?”
I looked up only to drown in the most liquid brown eyes, if that was at all possible. He was all man. Tall, dark haired with a sexy amount of stubble going on. He was older than the usual crowd there but not too much older. His well-cut suit implied that he was not a student either.
“It is now,” I said, cringing at the lameness of my reply.
He took a seat and smiled at me, a smile that crinkled his eyes and made me smile back without even thinking about it. This guy was on the make, that’s for sure. His eyes sparkled with naughty sex. He probably liked it a bit kinky too.
The fingers wrapped around his beer glass were long and showed a strength that I found really hot. I couldn’t help but stare at them, imagining what he’d be able to do to me with those fingers.
“So, what’s a pretty lady like you doing sitting alone?” It seemed like neither of us was snappy with the dialogue but who needed to be original and witty when your body did all the talking. It’d been a while since I’d met a guy who stirred me up like that. The stirring of possible casual sex.
“I’m not too mobile at the moment,” I replied, nodding at my foot propped up on a chair.
“That’s not good. But it means you can’t get away.” Again he smiled.
He told me a bit about himself. His name, Luke. What he did for a job, his hobbies. Something like that. I didn’t really pay much attention. I was too busy watching his hand flex and unflex around that glass. It was really hot. I twirled a strand of hair around my finger.
Hands Off! The 100 Day Agreement Page 7
