Page 29
9
Jordan drops me off at Delta Sig house a little after ten, and the first thing I do is seek out Nicole. We need to talk about the weird shit happening around campus—from my sudden, unexplained popularity, to almost getting arrested, and even my run-ins with Jordan. No more withholding information.
But for the third night in a row, she doesn’t come home.
Almost twelve hours later, there’s still no sign of her. And thanks to Caleb, I left my phone at the aquatic center.
My stomach twists into knots. For all I know, Nicole’s been trying to reach me since last night. If I’m lucky, my bag—containing said phone and other personal effects—is still tucked under the bench in the women’s locker room. If not, the cops found it, and it’ll most likely be used against me in a court of law sometime in the very near future.
When I step out of the room I share with Nicole, and nearly trip over my duffel bag, I do a happy dance in the middle of the hallway.
Until I realize that I have no idea how it got there.
“Hello?” I look both ways down the hall as if my mysterious benefactor will suddenly make themselves known, but other than a TV playing somewhere down the hall, the house is silent.
I pluck out the half sheet of lined paper peeking from the side pouch and read the messy handwritten note scrawled across the front.
I figured I owed you one after making you walk around barefoot.
Jordan.
He didn’t sign the note. Not that he needed to.
I don’t know what to make of his selfless gesture. Or how he managed to get my bag inside the house without an accomplice. Jordan Keller is easily the most confounding creature I’ve ever met. One minute he hates me, and the next, he’s saving me from a jail cell and rescuing my belongings from a crime scene. I’m beginning to wonder if Nicole was wrong to exclude him from the list. Not that I have any intention of resuscitating the flawed plan. I have way bigger issues to deal with this morning.
After hugging my bag like a long-lost relative, I dig for my phone. Unsurprisingly, both my iPhone and my keys ended up at the bottom of the bag, but gravity doesn’t explain how my phone ended up in one shoe and my keys in the other. Or how the clothes I’d haphazardly tossed into the bag last night ended up neatly folded and stacked on top of them—with the ridiculously expensive underwear I’d tucked inside my jeans for safekeeping resting on top like the cherry on a sundae.
He went through my stuff? What the hell?
With a red haze clouding my vision, I pocket my phone and my keys and march out the door on a mission to confront one punk rock peeping Jordan. Halfway to the campus dining hall, a snarky voice stops me in my tracks.
“Something wrong, princess?”
I spin toward the sound and there he is—Jordan-freaking-Keller. The heavy eyeliner is back, and so is the green fishtail running the length of his scalp. He even upped his wardrobe game to a whole new level with a pair of black leather pants. I’m pretty sure I could take his pulse with nothing but a visual examination.
“Did . . .” I peel my eyes from his crotch, grit my teeth, and do my damnedest to keep my voice calm and steady. “Did you go through my bag?”
His dark hazel eyes sparkle, dancing over my loose cardigan and black leggings as he props up a lamppost with his shoulder. “Now why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?” I arch a brow and plant my hands on my hips. He’s not the only one who can cop an attitude.
The smug bastard folds his arms over another band tee—this one, vintage Stones—and grins like he just won tickets to Sid Vicious’s Back from the Dead tour. “I’m not saying I went through your bag, but if I had, it would’ve been solely in the name of research. Hypothetically speaking.”
“Research?” I stare blankly at him, dumbfounded.
He clears his throat. “‘If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.’ Sun Tzu. The Art of War.”
“The Art of—” A screech of epic proportions roars up my throat, and in my peripheral vision, I catch several heads turning toward the sound. Despite the crowd forming, I can’t seem to rein in my volume. “I’ve never done anything to you! We barely spoke before this week, so I have no idea why you decided to make it your mission to ruin my life.”
“No idea?” His arms fall to his sides, brows furrowed as he peels himself away from the lamppost. “You’re a real piece of work, Kennedy Beaman, you know that?”
“Me?” I shriek, in a glorious display of frustration. “What about you? Just when I think you might be a halfway decent guy, you remind me what a complete asshole you are.”
He leans closer, lowering his voice to a menacing growl. “That goes both ways, sweetheart.”
Before I have a chance to sling one of the many witty comebacks percolating in my brain, he turns and stalks toward the science department.
Another day, another total clusterfuck.
