by Lyla Payne
“Hey, strawberry.”
Recognition sparked in her ocean-colored eyes, followed quickly by wariness. Jax turned and met my gaze with a healthy dose of wariness of his own. We didn’t have a code about anything other than official girlfriends, so he wasn’t in the wrong here, but as a pledge he still had reason to worry.
“Hey, man. What’s up? Didn’t see you out tonight.”
“I was studying. Just came up for a beer.” I cut my eyes toward Kennedy. “How are you?”
“Fine. You know me, always having fun,” she slurred.
“Yeah, I know.” I dragged a hand through my hair, trying to figure out how to handle this situation without coming off like either a militant asshole or a stalker trying to lay claim to a girl that wasn’t his. “Can I talk to you for a sec, Jax?”
“What I am supposed to do, stand out here and play with my own tits?” Kennedy snapped. “What do you want, Wright?”
Her eyes lit with a challenge. I steeled my insides in order to meet it, knowing this was going to be ugly, but that I’d asked for it by coming up here. The sound of Trent screaming that he hated me while I dragged him across the floor of a flop house, punching my gut and my kidneys in an attempt to escape, forced me into taking a few deep breaths.
This was how it worked. I’d been verbally abused doing the right thing before, and I knew she was too drunk to know what she was agreeing to right now. I just didn’t know why it was my business, or why I cared, but after the moments that had passed between us on the porch the other night, I knew I did.
“Look, Jax. I know she’s acting normal and you feel like she’s wasted but not that wasted, but I’m telling you she is. Let me take her home.”
“Dude. Is there something going on between you? I mean, besides the formal? Because I swear, I didn’t think there was. I didn’t meant to, you know, encroach.” Sweat appeared on Jax’s upper lip and he swept his longish blond hair off his forehead, licking his mouth.
Poor kid. I hadn’t meant to scare him.
“Hey, fucking dickwipes. I’m standing right here, and I’m not anyone’s goddamn property—least of all Toby Wright’s. I came up here because I want to go to bed with Jax. He’s cute and easy to intimidate.” She rolled her eyes and shook a cigarette out of a full pack. “Obviously.”
“Well, he’s a pledge and that means I’m in charge of him, even his dick. So you’re out of luck, strawberry.”
She lost her balance and dropped her cigarette while making sure she didn’t fall, but shook off the steadying hand I offered. I lit a fresh cig for her even though it smelled disgusting. Jax mumbled an apology and escaped down the stairs, leaving Kennedy and I alone in silence.
“Well, you scared away my penis, Wright. You wouldn’t be my second casting choice, but you’re here and obviously obsessed with me.” She took one drag and tossed the cigarette on the floor, crushing it under the toe of her sandal.
“Not interested. I don’t sleep with girls who can’t remember it in the morning.”
“You’re so noble, Wright. It’s fucking with your sex life.”
“Maybe.” I had no idea how to get her out of here, but I suspected leaving her alone would result in more drinking or smoking or snorting or whatever she’d been doing tonight. Then an idea sparked. “Will you come down to my room for a minute?”
Her eyes narrowed—or at least they tried to, but the substances blocked normal pupil reaction. “Change your mind already, horn-dog?”
“Is that a yes?”
“Sure, why not? I don’t have any other plans, apparently.”
I led her down the back stairs, the ones that went past the kitchen. The basement was dark and quiet, and Kennedy’s hands on my ass made me jump out of my skin. I whirled around and she giggled.
“Hands off, strawberry. You’re not fooling me with your disturbingly convincing sober performance this time.”
We went into my room, and I wished I’d done laundry last weekend like I’d planned. Clothes were strewn across the floor and my blue and red plaid comforter, which I yanked back into place. I grabbed the underwear and shirts draped over the desk chair and stuffed them in the hamper, then motioned for her to sit.
“I’ll sit on the bed, thanks.”
Great. Her sitting cross-legged on my bed, tits spilling out of her top and those creamy legs dangling, was not helping with my willpower situation.
You are stronger than your penis.
I repeated that a few times and grabbed my accounting textbook and my notes, sitting beside her but careful not to touch. My efforts did the barest amount of good, since she scooted over and pressed her thigh against mine. When she leaned over to get a better look at the book, her soft hair fell on my forearm, tickling in an erotic way that had me shifting to cover my boner. Her scent, that fresh skin and shampoo, made everything harder—me included.
“You want me to help with your homework?”
“I, well…I sucked at my midterm and thought you could look at the test and teach me where I went wrong.”
“Let me get this straight,” she breathed onto my neck. “You think I’m too drunk to fuck, but you trust me with your accounting grade?”
Her lips landed on my neck, tongue flicking out to lick the soft spot below my ear. I bit back a groan as she worked her way to my earlobe, but blocked her hand when she tried to slip it under my shirt.
“Kennedy.”
“Ooh, this must be too serious for nicknames.”
“I didn’t come after you and Jax because I was jealous, or because I think it’s any of my business who you screw.”
She sat back, leaving me feeling abandoned and relieved all at once. Her cheeks flushed pink. “Why did you come after me then? It wasn’t to help you with your homework.”
There was no denying my attraction to her, or the fact that tossing her onto her back and having my way wasn’t far more appealing than studying, but we’d done that.
“You’re wasted and making bad decisions, and for some reason it hurts me to watch.”
“Too nice for your own good.” She paused, and the light disappeared from her eyes. “Just because that stupid group session made me feel like sharing for five minutes and you happened to be the one around to listen doesn’t mean you know me.”
Her words stung. She’d meant them to. Even though I knew it, the insinuation that I spent far more time considering her than she spent thinking about me burned.
“I know that. I don’t know you, but I’m trying to. Trying to be your friend.” I swallowed. “I was there, too, remember? Maybe I need a friend who gets it, too.”
“We’re not friends, Wright. We’ve been over this. Pinky fingers not hands, remember?”
“I want to help you, strawberry. That’s all.”
The expression on her face went dark, then disappeared. Anger hardened her eyes and her little body went rigid before she stood up, knocking my book off my lap in the process.
She vibrated with rage; it spread out from her body like sound waves with the ability to turn my organs to mush. I’d never seen so much emotion from her and it stunned me—even scared me—but excited me, too. Even the other night, she’d been more hesitant than anything.
Any kind of honest reaction had to be good.
“Let’s get one thing straight, Wright. You and me? We’re. Not. Friends. We fucked one night, and then we got all feely and I lost my shit for five minutes, so you think that changes things. You feel like I’m some poor, broken orphan who just needs love. That’s not me. You lost your brother—big fucking deal. That’s nothing. You can’t understand this.”
Shock thickened my tongue, made it hard to form a reply. The thrumming anger entered my chest and sped my heart into a jackhammering rate. “I don’t think I understand you, and you sure as hell don’t understand me, but at Harbor House, we started down that road. But believe me, I’m the last person alive who believes love fixes a goddamn thing. Why does it piss you off so much that someone wants to help yo
u? We all need help sometimes, strawberry.”
“Don’t fucking call me that. I’m not cute or sweet, and you’re full of shit. Nobody wants to help me—nobody even wants me around.”
“I do.”
“Really? Is that why you called after the dance? Oh, right. You didn’t. Because deep down, you know you can’t handle me. Walk away. No one fucking blames you.”
“I…” I ran a hand through my hair, aware now how my staying away looked to her—and that I should have stuck to that plan if I didn’t want to get involved. “Look, you’re not the only one with issues here. I’m trying.”
“You obviously have issues, or you wouldn’t have looked twice at me. Like calls to like. Fucked up calls to fucked up. But I don’t need any goddamned help. I’m fine.”
She whirled and stormed out, slamming my bedroom door behind her with so much force a picture of my pledge class fell off the wall. After everything she’d said, I couldn’t let her find her own way home. God knew there were more than an average amount of entitled assholes on this campus, and she wasn’t safe walking. The thought of her going back into the party and doing something stupid in her anger turned my stomach, pried my wounded ass off the bed.
I threw open the door and strode into the basement. “Kennedy, wait.”
She stood in the middle of the room in the dark, motionless but not crying. Her shoulders were straight but the pulsating anger had receded to a low hum.
“What do you want from me?” she whispered.
She was the first girl I’d ever met that made me want anything other than a fun couple of days. I wanted her to care about herself and her future enough to stop hurting herself. I wanted to be able to trust people, and for her to be whole, so maybe we could go on a date like normal fucking people. I wanted to spend days in bed with her, exploring every single way to get her off, hear her scream my name, let her earn the same out of me.
But that wasn’t reality. I had gotten really, really good at sticking to the possible. As hard as I clung to the hope that she would find her way, this was not the time to make an exception.
“I want to give you a ride home.” I stepped to her side, surprised she let me reach out and slide the ends of her hair through my fingers. “Will you let me do that?”
“Technically, that’s allowing you to help me.”
She didn’t have to tell me that taking the ride home amounted to a monumental surrender in her world.
I knew.
Chapter 11
I texted her twice a day, morning and night, for the next week but she never replied. Once she gave in, even that tiny bit, she moved into my heart. It meant I hadn’t been wrong at Harbor House—she wanted help, even if she couldn’t admit it yet. I couldn’t let her down again. I’d said I wanted to be there for her, and ignoring her now would only prove I was like everyone else.
This would end in a bad way. Trent had known I was there for him and it hadn’t changed anything, not in the end. Kennedy wouldn’t change, and I would feel as though I’d failed her. The entire thing played out in my mind a hundred times a day. It never ended happy, but all of the knowledge in the world didn’t change the way I felt.
People could be saved. I just had to keep her safe until she came to that conclusion on her own. If that meant being her friend, coaxing the reason for her substance abuse to the surface, then I would do it.
If I could get her to talk to me.
“Hey, Cole Stuart, right?”
I approached the impossibly broad-shouldered guy after our business ethics class, feeling dwarfed by the body mass he had on me. He looked even more solid up close, but he offered a friendly grin and a nod that immediately put me at ease.
“Aye. And you are?”
“Toby Wright.” I stuck out a hand and we shook.
“Oh, I believe my girlfriend has told me some stories about you.”
It took me a moment to decipher the thick brogue, but then my defenses rose. I had no idea who his girlfriend was, but hoped it wasn’t someone I’d boned. “Who’s your girlfriend?”
“Ruby Cotton. Adorable little ballbuster.”
I coughed, covering up the groan that tried to escape. Unlike Emilie, Ruby had not forgiven me for the part I’d played in setting Em up in Quinn’s game, even after I’d gotten my ass kicked trying to set things right. I admired her loyalty, but ballbuster was putting it lightly.
“Yeah. I hope Scots have reserves of patience, man.”
“We get on fine.” The smirk on his face said they got on more than fine. “What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if I could have your sister’s phone number—not to ask her out or anything. I want to see if I can talk to her about Kennedy Gilbert.”
“Kennedy Gilbert? I don’t think she and Audra are really friends. What do you want to know?”
My face felt hot, the air in the room uncomfortable in my lungs. I hated feeling like this—out of control. “I’m worried about her.”
He snorted. “You and everyone else that’s met her.”
“I was hoping to understand her a little better.” Frustration made me sigh. If not Audra, who knew Kennedy well enough to help me with that? Blair was too difficult.
Cole studied me with cool green eyes for several moments, his intensity making me suspect my skin had gone transparent. “Ruby knows her. Knew her as a kid, before the accident. Their parents were friends.”
“How do you know that?”
“She told me when we were utilizing an on-call room at the hospital.” He winked and chuckled. “You know, Gilbert Memorial Hospital?”
Shit. I hadn’t put that together. “But they’re not friends now?”
“No. Ruby didn’t even realize she was at Whitman until a couple of months ago, and when she reached out, Kennedy didn’t want to meet up.” He shrugged. “Ruby figured it was best not to push.”
Easier not to push, anyway. Maybe not best.
“Would Ruby talk to me?” The prospect of that felt dubious at best, along with the question of whether or not she’d trust me with any of Kennedy’s secrets, but it was worth a try.
“Well, that’s going to be the trick, ennit? All I can say is this, because I’m right and well feert of my teeny blond girlfriend—she’s at the library studying with Emilie right now. I’m supposed to meet her in half an hour.”
I grinned at his good-natured confession. “Thanks, man.”
“Anytime. I can’t wait to get there and see if you still have your balls.”
*
Whitman’s library housed an impressive selection, but sat empty or sparsely populated more often than not. For some reason it didn’t feel welcoming—the furniture was wooden and uncomfortable, it was always ten degrees too cold, and the school refused to let Starbucks open a stand in the lobby. Most students utilized the building when required by a professor or when searching for a specific piece of research that couldn’t be found online, and Ruby and Em were no different.
They were sharing a chair in front of a microfiche machine, something I could not believe existed in the digital world but was still the best way to look at back issues of smaller newspapers.
“What are you two doing stuffed in the library on a Friday afternoon?” I asked in a whisper from behind them.
They both jumped, Ruby almost falling out of the uncomfortable chair. The storm clouds on her Tinkerbell face said that wasn’t going to help my case.
Emilie recovered first, giving me a sleepy smile. “Hey! We’re working on a history of media thing for a communications class. What are you doing here?”
I ran a hand through my hair, partly to buy time and partly out of habit. “I’m looking for Ruby, actually.”
“How did you…ugh, Cole. I’m going to kill him.” Ruby squinched up her face and turned back to the microfiche machine.
“Don’t be mad at Cole. I pried it out of him, I swear.”
“I can see that. He’s so nice he doesn’t believe other people can be fake-as
s liars.”
“Ruby,” Emilie warned.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve never said this to your face, Ruby, so here goes—I feel terrible for the part I played in setting Em up a year ago. I tried to make it right, but if you don’t know Sebastian Blair as well as I do, count yourself lucky. It’s not an excuse. I should have just refused and taken my beating from the beginning.”
She turned around after thirty extra seconds, crossing her arms over her chest and pinning me with an impressive gaze. From what I’d heard, Ruby was an excellent actress—maybe she was just playing hardass at the moment.
One could hope.
“You did get your ass kicked. I saw you at the hospital.” She heaved a theatrical sigh. “I suppose it’s a waste of my time to torture you, no matter how fun it’s been. But we’re trying to finish this research tonight, so what the fuck do you want?”
“I want to know everything you know about Kennedy Gilbert.”
Confusion broke her aloof character. “What? Why do you care?”
“I just do.” It was a shitty answer and we all knew it.
The look I felt coming from Emilie curled my hands into fists, but she kept her mouth shut about our conversation the other night. It was obvious I’d moved beyond watching out for Kennedy when she was in my line of vision. My interest had expanded with each tiny but significant moment of trust that passed between us.
Ruby sat back in the chair, the hardness of her keen blue eyes turning curious. “I don’t know much about her that everyone doesn’t know. She and I were friends as kids—not the kind of friends you made on the playground, the kind you hung out with because your parents were friends—but after her parents died, we didn’t see her again.”
“Where did she go when her parents died?”
Ruby shrugged. “No idea. They had family, I assume, because I’m sure she didn’t go into the system. My mother would have taken her in before letting that happen.”
“What was she like then?”
“We were fucking eight years old, Toby. We played dress up and put on plays for our parents, made forts in the living room when they left us home with a sitter. She was happy, I don’t know. We had fun together. I looked forward to the weeks our moms got together—they were sorority sisters at Tulane.”
