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“I feel like I knew that,” she said, smiling a little to herself. It was rare I saw her smile and definitely not because of me. It was so much different than her scowl, softer.
My stomach flipped again. I really hated this vulnerable shit. “I guess you pissed me off calling me crazy.” Honestly, it was completely valid for her to think that from the outside looking in. I probably had looked crazy, but it still hadn’t felt good.
She sat back in her chair, her grin wiry. I liked that too. She smirked. “I pissed you off? You pissed me off.”
I knew that as well, which was why I’d said what I had. We were tit for tat, the two of us.
“And I shouldn’t have said what I had either. You had pissed me off, but I shouldn’t have said it.” She was still holding my hand, but it changed suddenly. Aspen unlaced them, and the next thing I knew, she had her hand out for a shake.
“Friends?” she asked, her hand resting on the counter. “We could try being that instead of… well, being whatever we are.”
She laughed after that. I didn’t know what for, but I took it as nerves. I honest-to-fuck had no desire to be this girl’s friend, but whatever it was I think I wanted to be had me reaching for her hand. The handshake was easier, smarter.
Way smarter.
“Friends,” I said, and it was easier than being her enemy. We could at least be on the same campus together without wanting to come for the other’s throat. I let go. “And thanks again for bringing my gram home. You don’t know what that means…”
I was getting up in my head again, but Aspen saved me from it by breaking eye contact. She had her gaze over on my sister and Gram, the two still playing their game. “It was no problem. I’m glad she got here safe.”
I had no idea why Aspen was in town. She was a long way from Pembroke-U, and when I asked her, she shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Just needed a drive to clear my head,” she said, and I finally started pouring the cocoa into mugs. I handed her one, and she gripped it.
“Without your security?” I decided to call attention to that. This girl was being awful cavalier about the whole threat thing and had been from the jump since I first saw her. Her lack of concern about it all was dangerous. “Dad said you’re here hiding out on campus, but the world kind of knows about you being here now, don’t you think?”
That was something I found out recently from my dad. Her real reason for being here. Her being in hiding and no one knowing about that was the only reason in my mind she’d ever travel without her security, but she didn’t have the anonymity now that she’d had before.
Aspen’s head shot up before she chewed her lip. “I guess I was leaving quick. I…”
Her phone buzzed, and she pulled it out, glancing down. She pushed her loose locs out of her face. “Well, I guess my mom knows I left now. She says they told her.”
They I assumed meant her security. I started to come around the bar, but she backed away.
“Thanks for the cocoa,” she said. “But I should probably head back to campus before my mom sends the military after me.”
I recalled her mother back when we were kids, and she’d been scary but only in the ways a mom was when it came to protecting her kid. She had that mama bear energy, but that shit had been warranted. I mean, I had taken her daughter, and Aspen and her mom hadn’t had any pull back then. We were the Reeds against the Davises, so yeah, there hadn’t been any pull. “Can I take you back to campus?”
I didn’t want to leave, but my sister and Gram seemed to be doing okay. Actually, more than okay. My sister didn’t smile a lot lately when she was home. It was hard when Gram was either mentally not here or in the hospital. She got sick sometimes like older folks do, but her condition had her susceptible to pneumonia and stuff. She was basically sick all the time except for when she wasn’t, but today, she was good.
She was perfect.
I loved my gram, and I cherished every moment I had with her while she was here. Aspen caught me looking at the breakfast nook, at my sister and Gram. Aspen smiled a little. “No, I have a car. I left it at Jax’s.”
“So, I can run you over there?—”
She had her hand up right as I met her around the bar. She placed it on my stomach, and that shit burned through my shirt. Like hot fucking fire it scorched, and it took all I had not to brace my hand around hers and do something that definitely wasn’t friendly.
What are you doing to me, snowflake?
I didn’t care about girls unless they were my sister, and of course, my mom and Gram. My friends’ mothers were under that umbrella too since they were like second moms, but any other female connections were rare in my life. Women tended to be messy, but I made their shit look legendary. I gravitated toward drama. Not to mention I loved to fuck. Picking one girl meant I was missing out on a cornucopia of the rest.
But I didn’t think that with Aspen. Actually, other girls were the last thing I was thinking about when she was in my head.
“You should stay here,” she said, testing the boundaries of our new friendship when she allowed her digits to linger on my abs for just a smidgen too long. The muscles formed beneath my dark shirt when her fingers made the material go taut, stretched. She let go. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. I’ll see you on campus.”
She let me make her cocoa to go, and she used that time to say goodbye to my gram and sister. I supposed she could have just left and denied me again, the cocoa, but she didn’t. She sat with my family, and I watched her while I made her cup. I didn’t know why I felt so protective over that girl. Even when we were kids, she’d messed my shit up, but that would have been worse if she’d done anything remotely close to what she had for my grandmother today back then. Aspen had helped my gram out, a perfect stranger. Before today, I thought Aspen Davis was dangerous for me.
But apparently danger was only the beginning.
