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Disappoint me and I’ll leave you to rot.
Until the moment that the gate agent swipes my credit card for my plane ticket back and the charge goes through, I wondered if he’d also cut me off financially just to prove a point. Stranding me in the middle of nowhere with no money and no phone would be a fitting punishment for embarrassing him in front of the alumni.
Makes you wonder why the simple act of tracking down an old classmate put me in so much trouble to begin with.
I push that thought from my head with an effort. It doesn’t matter how many questions I have about what really happened last year. No answer is worth the potential consequences. It’s time to move on, even in my own mind.
I had arrived at the airport it in just enough time to make the last departure of the night, but the hour-long flight gives me too much time with my own thoughts. Time that I don’t want or need. The trip is too short for inflight entertainment and I don’t have a phone to distract me. There isn’t even the sound of a crying baby or someone snoring next to me to overcome the silence in my head.
My only option is to sit in the cramped middle seat that was the last one available with my eyes closed and try to think of anything but what I know I shouldn’t be thinking about.
I have to strengthen my resolve as the darkness and quiet closes in on me.
Any questions I still have about the past will never be answered. I have to be okay with that, for all our sakes.
When my cab finally pulls up to campus around dinnertime, my first stop is Gigi’s dorm room.
Anya opens the door and pugnaciously refuses to step aside when I try to get past her. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I’d forgotten that as far as Anya knows, I broke up with her roommate in the most spectacularly hurtful way possible. “Where is Olivia?”
“None of your damn business.”
“Is she here?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. “I sincerely doubt she wants to see you.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Anya lets out a surprised shriek as I pick her up and move her to the side before striding into the suite. It takes a few minutes of searching and shouting before I’m convinced that Gigi really isn’t here. Anya trails after me, making idle threats about calling campus security.
I round on her so fast that she bumps into me and I have to catch her before she falls, which just seems to make her angrier.
“Do you know where Olivia is, or not?”
“I wouldn’t tell you even if I did, asshole.” She wrenches away, almost crashing onto the couch. “Since she’s not here, I’ll tell you to fuck off for her.”
“Just let her know I came looking for her.”
“I absolutely will not, you ass. Get out of here.”
Clearly, I’m not getting any information out of her. “Thanks for your help, Anya.”
“You’re welcome to get bent, Drake.”
She slams the door hard enough behind me that the force would have broken a limb if I hadn’t gotten out of the way fast enough.
Anya’s attitude is something I’ll have to deal with later. For now, I’m more concerned with the fact that it’s after dark and Gigi isn’t in her room. Where the fuck is she?
I don’t have better luck at Havoc House, not that I thought that I would. It would have been out of character in the extreme for her to voluntary spend time here unless she had to.
It’s late enough in the evening that the house is quiet. Our first rager won’t be until this weekend. People usually need a few days to get used to the idea of being back on campus before they’re ready to party. Waiting a week gives just enough time for anticipation to set in. Everyone is desperate to cut loose by the end of it.
I’m just happy that the house appears to be empty.
“Drake, man! You’re back.”
I let out a muffled curse when I see Cole sitting at the kitchen table, eating directly out of a tray of leftover pasta that was definitely stolen from the dining hall.
