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“How’d you get to be so smart?” I ask.
He chuckles, then glances to his side in thought.
“Maybe because our dad wasn’t around much during my formative years. Less for him to corrupt?” He shrugs and I do the same. I think we both got the same amount of damage, only in different ways.
I scoot across the console and throw an arm around his neck as he does the same. I love my brother, and I’m grateful for him.
“I’ll see him when I know I can be an adult about it. I promise,” I say before kissing his cheek. He nods to me, clearly glad to hear me say that, and I grab my workload and slide out of the Tahoe.
Braden drives away, leaving me alone at the front of the school, steps from the Fuentes’ truck. I indulge in staring at it for a few seconds, remembering everything James and I did in that cab. I blush a little at the thought, but heartache creeps in quickly. I miss him.
My heart in my throat, I peel myself away from the parking lot and drag my heavy bag up to our dorm room. Music is playing on the other side of the door, and I pause for a second to steel myself. With a deep breath, I regroup my hold on my bag and push through the door to find my roommates sitting on their beds studying.
Lily’s hair is wet, which means she probably finished training recently. She pulls an earbud out as I enter and smiles.
“There you are! I just sent you a text, so feel free to ignore. We were worried about you,” she says, her smile forced. Lily is a bad liar; not that she’s lying aboutherbeing worried, but I think thatweshould have been a singular pronoun.
“I got caught up on a project. I’m really enjoying the PR stuff,” I say, twisting to glance to Brooklyn. Her face planted in an open textbook on her lap, she doesn’t even look up as I talk. Her earbuds are in, but I know she can hear me. That girl never likes to block out full sound. It makes her nervous not being able to hear.
I wasn’t very nice to her at lunch yesterday. I was bitter, and a lot of that had to do with James. After sending me an essay of an apology, he showed up to the cafeteria during our lunch hour but instead of sitting with us—with me—he took a seat alone across the room. He crammed his food down his throat and left without a word, and it pushed my pain to the surface. It’s possible I retrained all of my indignation onto Brooklyn and Cameron. I said some awful things, and I didn’t mean them.
I tap Brooklyn’s shoe to force her attention. She glances up and pulls one earbud out, giving me half of her attention. All right. I accept that.
“Yes?” Her tone is flat, mouth soured.
“Nothing. Just wanted to say I’m home.” I shrug, my spine pricking up with that familiar fire.
She scans the room before bringing her eyes back to mine.
“Yeah, I see,” she says, putting her earbud back in and dropping her gaze to the text-heavy pages in her lap.
I work my jaw side-to-side before breathing out a short laugh and muttering, “Okay.” I drop my work on my bed and kick off my slide shoes before sitting down to pull off my tights. I feel to the side to brace myself as I pull one leg free, and my hand lands on a hard plastic something. I grip it and inspect it once I’m sitting straight again, and the sight of my ID badge brings an odd wave of relief over my body.
“Oh, my God! Where did this come from?” I shout, holding the ID up.
Lily looks at me and shrugs.
“Did you leave it in bed or something? I’ve done that,” she says. She’s been at the pool all evening, and I haven’t told anyone I misplaced my badge so I nod as if she could be right. I know that’s not the case, however. It’s been missing for days, and the odds that it’s been chilling out on top of my comforter throughout nights of tossing and turning are basically nil.
I glance toward Brooklyn and decide my curiosity is worth braving her ire . . . again. I wave my hand emphatically until she looks up from her book and pulls her earbud free . . . again.
“Yes?” she grumbles.
My stomach sinks. I’ve really fucked things up here.
I hold up my badge and lift an eyebrow.
“James dropped it off,” she says, moving to put her earphone back in. I wave my hand again quickly, stopping her.
“James was here? He dropped this off?”
“Uh, yeah. That’s what I said,” she grumps, holding a palm out as if to add in a littleWTF.
“And he didn’t say anything? Did he ask me to call him? Did he wait around for a while?” I stare into her eyes, feeling my emotions give and force them to drop at the corners with the weight of hope. She blinks a single time.
“No. He said, ‘Give this to Morgan,’ and then left. And now you have it, so . . . job done.” She doesn’t smile a single time, and when she pushes her earbud back in this time I don’t stop her.
I want to throw my heavy bag at her and make her engage, but that would only be because I want someone to fight with—someone who isn’t James because I don’t want to fight with him.
