by Anna Bloom
His eyes were bloodshot fireballs of red.
“Jack?” I gasped his name. “What are you doing here?”
He smirked, picking up the glass and tilting it to his mouth, slopping the liquid down his dark-blue shirt.
“Trying to forget you.”
My stomach tightened.
He didn’t even wipe at the liquid shimmering on his chin.
“Jack, come on, I can try and get you home.”
He shook his head. “Bet you always knew I’d be like my dad.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it,” I snapped.
I reached for his arm and tried to pull him up. Somehow, he stood, leaning his weight on my shoulders.
“Lyra, you okay?” Evan called across the empty bar.
“Sure.”
I tried to encourage Jack to his feet, but of course he was six-foot two of what felt like solid muscle. Evan approached.
“Your Uber is here, Lyra. What’s going on?”
I looked down at Jack, not really sure what to say. I went for as close to the truth as I could. “I know him. Know him from way back. I need to help him.”
Evan’s brow creased with concern and I could see he clearly wasn’t happy about the situation.
“I’ll deal with him,” Evan said.
“No, please, it’s okay. I can make sure he gets home,” I pleaded.
Evan huffed. “I’ll help you get him in the car and you keep in contact with me until I know you’re safely home.”
I nodded and then tried again to get Jack to stand.
“Come on, Jack, for fuck’s sake.”
“Shhh, language, Lyra Bird.”
I almost tripped up as he used my old nickname. He remembered? But he hated me now.
Evan stepped up to help move him and that seemed to spur Jack into getting up.
“I can walk,” he snarled.
Thanking Evan, I followed Jack outside. I pushed him into the car and told the driver to go to campus. I had no idea where Jack lived, and why would I? Apparently, we were strangers these days.
Campus was wrapped in dark shadows, with no one about. Good, maybe I could leave him somewhere to sleep it off.
No, I couldn’t do that. He’d freeze to death.
Instead, and knowing I danced across a very clear line, I pulled him toward Hamilton and coaxed him up the stairs. Fuck, he weighed a ton.
I managed to, as quietly as I could, open the door to the dorm and push him in, angling him for my bed by the window.
He fell down, his hands reaching and grasping around my face. “I told you not to go to Blue’s bar.”
Quickly, I checked Eva slept on her bed. She did, with her mouth wide open.
“Yeah, well you ain’t the boss of me.” I pushed him over and he rolled onto his back, his arm coming up and crossing his face.
Shaking my head, I went to the bathroom and after letting Evan know I’d got home safely, I got changed, quickly scrubbing my toothbrush over my teeth and splashing water on my face.
Back out in the room, his heavy breathing created a symphony that tightened my chest. I slipped into bed next to him, unable to stop myself from snuggling into his side.
We were both here.
Surely that meant we’d been given a chance to see if what once had almost been, could ever really be.
I snorted to myself. ‘Little Miss Green’, I deserved that nickname. Paint me sage and call me naive.
I didn’t know this version of Blue. Didn’t even know if I truly wanted to.
A tear slipped down my cheek as his arm stretched across my stomach and pulled me tight into his side.
I’d found Blue.
A different shade of blue perhaps, but blue all the same.
Chapter Fourteen
Jack
A bird chirped a painful tune, grating a cadence of notes that made my brain want to escape out of my eyeballs.
Groaning, I blinked into pre-dawn shadows, trying to place the evening before. Any memory would be good.
A stir of air pressed along my side, warm skin pushing into my chest, a heavy weight across my legs.
That’s how I knew I couldn’t be at home.
Miriam would never snuggle.
A strand of bronze zoned into my blurred vision. Oh God, no.
Tilting my head, ignoring the splitting pain above my right temple, I glanced down.
Shit, fuck and shit.
Lyra wrapped herself around me like a pretzel. What the actual fuck?
Rubbing my hand over my splintered forehead, I stared up at the ceiling, trying to piece together any memories from the night before.
I’d been in the bar, the bourbon slipping down a well-worn path, buzzing in my veins until I’d forgotten all about little Lyra Lennox and the pain she’d put me through all week.
How I ended up with her wedged around my side like a spoon tight in a drawer I couldn’t recall.
The bitter taste of whiskey lingered on my tastebuds and for a moment I froze into place, breathing the same air as Lyra Bird.
She murmured, little mumbled nothings and her hand fisted into my shirt. “Blue, I knew I’d find you.”
My blood raced fast and hard, my head throbbing.
Get up and move.
God, send me to hell, I couldn’t.
I dropped my lips to the top of her hair, pressing them gently against the curls. Until a snore from someone else other than the girl in my arms pulled me back.
Her roommate.
Shit.
Chancing a glance across the room, the small girl—Eva I think her name was—stirred, pulling her comforter up over her head.
Without a moment’s pause, I slipped out of Lyra’s bed. I still even had my shoes on. How on earth had she got me up four flights of stairs?
I stole through the predawn shadows, down the empty stairs and out into the chilled autumn morning. I’d have to get a cab. Patting my pockets, I checked for my wallet and phone, finding everything where it should be, but a bruise on my hip where I must have slept on my phone.
Fuck my head. It pounded with every step.
“Jack.”
Unwillingly, I turned. Lyra stood at the bottom of the steps, shivering in shorts and a tank, her arms folded across her chest.
“Lyra.”
“You were just going to leave?”
“Shh.” I scowled, which made a splintering pain lance through my head. I took a step closer, noticing the goose bumps on her skin. “Teachers aren’t supposed to wake up in their student’s bedrooms.”
Her skin warmed with a blush of peony pink. “It wasn’t like that. I just didn’t know where else to take you. I don’t know where you live.”
“You should have left me where you found me.”
This reminded me. First stop today would be to the bar to rip Evan a new one.
“I just wanted to help you.”
“By getting me fired?”
“No.” Her mouth worked but no more words came out.
I curled my lip, brushing a gaze across her bare and puckered flesh. “Disappointed in me, Lyra?”
Her brows pulled together in a frown. “No. Why are you being like this?”
I stepped into her space, stopping myself before my fingers made contact with her skin. “You don’t know me. I keep trying to tell you.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve known you my whole life. I said your name before I said my own brother’s. You wouldn’t get fired if we told the truth. We are just old friends, right?” Her voice wobbled over friends.
I placed my hands on her shoulders, gripping her tight. “Stay away from me, Lyra. We were never friends.”
She licked her lips. “How can I stay away from you when I have to see you in class?”
Her body trembled, but whether from the cold or from me I’d never know. “Go inside before you catch your death.”
“No.”
This isn’t a game, Lyra. You’ve no idea what I’ve done to make this my life for the last
four years.”
“Yeah, because you won’t tell me. Won’t even acknowledge I exist or did exist.”
I grabbed her arm, pulling her close, my brain so close to exploding from my eyeball I wanted to stab it out. “Because you’re nothing to me.” The flash of hurt in her pale-blue gaze cut me deep inside. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” She shifted into my space and I staggered back, clutching onto the spike of anger in my veins.
“Like you’re some poor wounded animal. A puppy I’ve kicked.”
The confusion on her face cleared like a cloud freeing the sun from a dark shadow and she huffed a laugh. “Go fuck yourself, Jack Cross.”
Unable to say anything else, I turned on my heel and stalked away, banging on the porter’s cabin and waking Tom up. They needed to take him off the night shift.
At the gates I turned, only to find Lyra still stood in the freezing cold, watching me.
Fuck.
Just fuck.
I flagged a cab and directed it into the city ending up stood outside a blue door, hammering my knuckles on the wood.
“Evan!” I shouted, not needing to worry about waking the neighbors this end of town.
A drunk slumped in a doorway two doors along lifted his head before groaning and then collapsing back down again. I know buddy, my head hurts too.
I couldn’t process waking in Lyra’s bed. Every fantasy I’d ever had and it had to happen now. I couldn’t go near her, not only because her brother would kill me outright with no hesitation or flicker of regret, but also because by some cruel twist of fate she relied on the scholarship that had kept me at Berklee this whole time.
Life played a cruel twisted game.
But there were things I could deal with, one of them being Evan and his sense of humor.
The door lock clicked followed by the rattle of chains: top, bottom and middle; yeah, bad end of town.
“You are at least half an hour after I expected you. Evan stood in his boxers, rubbing a sleepy hand though his messy hair that had seen far too much pillow and not enough comb.
“You fucking bastard.” I had him around the neck and pushed him up against the wall of the entrance.
“Whoa, Jack.” He held his hands up in surrender.
“You knew, you knew it was her.”
“Buddy, calm down.” He pushed my hands off him with relative ease. “Come in, I’ll make you some coffee. You look like shit.”
I rubbed at the stubble on my jaw but didn’t answer.
Of course I’d go in. I owned the damn bar. He turned and walked through the cavernous space, scratching his ass. Nice.
My head thudded again. The smell of stale alcohol and the sweat from last night’s crowd making me want to hurl.
I slid onto a stool while Evan pulled a shirt on over his head.
“Do you have to make me coffee in your jocks?” I grouched.
“Do you have to wake me up like the devil having a toddler tantrum? How did you know I’d sleep here anyway?”
“Friday,” I muttered, dropping my head onto the bar, pleased to note it shone with a clean shine. Not that I would have had the strength to keep my head off it either way.
When the rich roast of coffee wafted near my nose, I opened my eyes. “I can’t believe you gave her a job.”
“Jack, I didn’t even know, I swear.” Evan’s face blinked with innocence. I didn’t believe an inch of it.
“Really?”
“Yeah, she came in, looked like she’d walked around the whole damn town. I asked her what she played, she told me. Then she said she could sing, so I offered her a job. She looked kind of desperate, and Selena called in sick again. I didn’t have enough staff.”
“Well now you can sack her.”
Evan shook his head, a tick clenching his jaw. “No. She’s a good kid, who looks like she needs a break.”
Kid. God, I wished I still saw her like that, but I hadn’t, not since she was thirteen and seemed to transform in front of my eyes.
I rubbed at my head. In the space of one week everything had unraveled.
“You must have known; otherwise you wouldn’t have let her leave with me.”
Evan had morals, surprisingly.
“The moment she said her name, it clicked.”
He leaned over the bar, turning the handle of the mug toward me so I’d take a sip.
“Everything is fucked.”
He nodded, biting down on his lower lip. He didn’t speak, just waited for me to.
“She’s the Collins Scholarship kid.”
Evan’s skin blanched under the strip lighting. “She’s the recipient of the Collins award?”
“That’s what I said.” I sipped the coffee, the strong tar-like liquid burning away the taste of bourbon.
“So your girlfriend’s daddy, the man who paid for all this,” he waved his hand around the bar, “and got you the job with Greene, is also paying for her scholarship?” Evan’s eyes were so wide they must have stung.
“In a nutshell.”
“No wonder you’ve had the black mood of death all week.”
I sneered and took another sip. “So now you see why you have to sack her.”
He cocked his head. “Nope, not really.”
“Evan.”
“Just leave your job at college and break up with Miriam, wasn’t that always the plan?”
I winced. Any plan had been fragmented at best and definitely based on a collection of terrible ideas.
“And when someone finds out and she gets dropped and blacklisted, her entire future rewritten because of me?”
“And then of course there’s the fact her brother will kill you.”
“Yes. That.” I sniffed my shirt. I needed to get home and changed.
“So, easy. You stay away from her. Do what you need to do at work, keep her safe from the bloody Collins family, and just let her be.”
I stared into the cooling mug of coffee, remembering the feel of her curls resting across my skin, the sleepy squeeze of her arm around my waist. “Yeah.”
“I’ve got your back, Jack, you know that.”
I nodded. Best thing I ever did finding Evan my first year here. The clothes on my back had been my sole possession. I’d gravitated to Boston, because... well... I didn’t really know why.
Evan had been busking on the street. I’d stopped to listen and as he put away his guitar he’d asked if I played. I’d long forgotten I could until that night in a jazz club down on sixth street.
“I know. You have to sack her.”
“Or I help her?” He shrugged. “What are you going to do, Jack?”
I shrugged. I had no damn clue.
“Three years is a long time to wait until she’s graduated.”
I shook my head and gulped the rest of the coffee, slipping down off the stool. “Sack her.”
“No.”
“Okay. Cover for me. I crashed here on the sofa last night.”
Evan opened his mouth, but then thought better of whatever he had to say.
I stalked for the door, only feeling vaguely healed by the coffee.
“Oh, Jack.”
“Yep?”
“Don’t come to church tomorrow.”
My stomach plummeted. Just fucking great.
“Oh well looky here.” Miriam twisted from her perch at the breakfast bar, her fingers pausing from tapping on her phone, her lips pressed into a line. “Evan told me you crashed at the bar. I’m not sure I believe him.”
“Sorry.” I pressed my lips to her cheek, a half-hearted kiss. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.”
“Worry? Me? You forget, Jack. I always know where you are.” She arched a dark eyebrow. “Don’t forget you are playing golf with Daddy this afternoon.”
Just. Fucking. Shoot. Me.
“Sure. I’m going to jump in the shower.” She watched me walk to the bedroom, unbuttoning my shirt as I went. “What time is golf?”
“Three, baby.
” I cringed, my shoulders squaring. “And then we’ve got dinner with Alex and Mom.”
Without a backward glance, I kicked shut the bedroom door with my foot.
“How’s my baby getting on?” Francine Collins leaned across the white starched table, her visibly high tits, last year’s birthday present, on full display in her bodycon dress.
I glanced over at Alex who tilted his bottle of beer to his lips with a smirk.
“Fine.” I nodded.
“I’m just glad I’ve got Jack on my side,” Alex murmured, causing his family to all swivel in their seats.
“Oh?” Francine loved gossip, any gossip. So long as she didn’t have the starring role.
“Jack seems to have taken an instant dislike to Lyra.”
“Who’s Lyra?” Miriam sat up a little straighter and reached across to grasp my hand in hers.
With my remaining free hand, I took a sip of my mineral water. “The scholarship student.”
“Oh, what’s wrong with her?” Miriam looked genuinely interested, but I knew it only went surface deep. The Collins dynasty didn’t actually give a shit about anything other than their own preservation.
“Nothing’s wrong with her.” I gripped my glass tight, my fingers whitening with the pressure.
“She’s shy, I think.” Alex nodded and downed another mouthful of beer. I was sure he drank it that way just to torment me.
“No good being shy.” Jensen Collins, head honcho, grouched. “She’ll be playing at the charity dinner next week.”
I went to open my mouth to suggest that might not be their best idea, but he cut me off, oblivious to my intention to speak.
“If she doesn’t, well then there are lots more students who would love her place.” His perfectly groomed eyebrows lifted.
“I don’t think you can take away the funding in the first couple of weeks.”
His answering expression told me he’d do whatever the fuck he wanted. “The Collins family have...”
“Kept Berklee running for generations,” Alex mocked, tilting his beer bottle to his lips again.
“Cheeky.” Francine ruffled his hair.
“So, this Lyla.”
“Lyra,” I corrected Miriam.
“She’s not up to scratch?”
“She’s fine. She’ll be fine,” I said, and Alex stared at me until I dropped my gaze. “And if she’s not, then you can get rid of her.” My words sat uneasy on my stomach, twisting with lobster and champagne.
