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“Safe, man. You’re safe.” Wolf kept repeating, and eventually, I heard whispers again, Dorian.
“Where’s Bow?” I heard him ask the others, and it was Wells who responded.
“She’s at the library with the kid,” Wells stated. The kid was Sloane and Wolf’s brother Bru. “They’ll probably be gone for a while. You know how they study.”
They were whiz kids, the both of them. I didn’t do bad myself, but I was more into the tech stuff, coding and hacking.
It made sense Dorian would wonder about the location of my sister. Rainbow (we called her “Bow”) may live at the dorms, but she was always over at our house.
“Good,” I heard Dorian say, and he wasn’t bothering to keep his voice down. I mean, we were all here in this tiny fucking bathroom, so what was the point? Dorian squeezed my arm. “Good. He wouldn’t want her to see him like this.”
My friends knew me so well, and out of everyone, my sister couldn’t see me like this. I was her big brother, and I had to be strong. Especially right now and what we were both dealing with back at home.
The music…
I let myself be weak in the bathroom. I didn’t have a choice. I let myself be broken.
I did until I didn’t.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
Aspen
Me: Hey, it’s me. Are you okay?
Me: Me again. Thatcher, what happened was really scary. You also left me at that motel and… yeah. Just get back to me, okay?
Me: I’m not angry. I should be, but I’m more so freaked out. You didn’t look good that night. Are you okay?
Me: So, I’ve left a few texts. I obviously haven’t called, but it wasn’t cool how things were the other night. Like I said, I’m not angry. Just get back to me. I’ll give you space.
I stared at my phone on a Monday morning, days after what had happened with Thatcher the previous week. I stared at unanswered texts, and I should be fucking pissed about what happened.
I should be…
Like I’d told Thatcher, I wasn’t angry. I was just concerned. He didn’t look well when we’d been together, and I’d gotten the hell out of there after the shock had worn off. That guy had been threatening to call the cops, and I didn’t need the bad press. The guy gratefully hadn’t recognized me, but considering that motel had been in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, I was sure I wouldn’t be seeing any classical music fans who enjoyed fusion with hip-hop. I mean, it was possible but yeah. Far-fetched. My music was pretty niche.
My thumb hovered over my message thread with Thatcher. I hadn’t heard from him since he left, and again, he hadn’t looked good. It was like he’d been entranced. Like someone else had infiltrated his body, and he raged all over that guy’s room. He obviously hadn’t liked the music, and it had been loud.
Just text me back.
It was like a silent plea, and crazy considering I really wasn’t Thatcher Reed’s biggest fan. I mean, I fucked the guy. Well, he fucked me. He fucked me damn good, and I couldn’t get him out of my head.
I wished that was the reason why I’d been in a constantly flustered state. That I wished my booty call would text me back so I could yell at him, and not that I was pretty frickin’ concerned about him. He’d turned into someone else when he’d woken up.
Fuck this.
I wasn’t paying attention to my history class, so there was no point in me being here. I got up in my lecture hall, very aware when someone got up with me on the other side of the room. The ex-Navy SEAL had been hired for me by Thatcher’s dad’s company. I’d gotten security like Thatcher said.
Wetting my lips, I kept my head down and tried not to feel some kind of way that a grown-ass man was following me out of class. Mr. Reed’s guy was discreet. He made himself look like a college student with baggy jeans and an oversize hoodie, but he looked more like a dude casing the place than he did a college student.
These people around me were none the wiser, though, and I didn’t let my thoughts linger on my security. I just let him follow me out of class.
“Everything all right, Miss Davis?” he asked me once he noticed I lingered outside the lecture’s double doors. Unlike Franklin, this guy wasn’t an actor and was nearly as big as Thatcher freakin’ Reed.
Thatcher…
