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Honestly, he’s a good kid.We were raised with the same morals, and I trust him.My only problem is, those working at the Scotia Gazette, the campus paper, have been out to get us.I have no idea what we did to piss them off.I only know one small mistake and my brother’s name and face will be all over the front page.
He gives me a grin that’s no doubt going to get him into trouble one of these days.“I’m good, bro.”
I nod and hold the wiggling girl in my arms tighter.I fight through the crowd and snatch my coat up off the sofa.“Where’s your coat?”I ask.Nova Scotia winters are fucking cold, and she’ll freeze to death in seconds.
“I…I don’t know.”
“Shit.”I scrub my face and sort through the pile of coats.“Any of these look familiar?”
“Nope.”I put mine over her shoulders.“Wear this.”
For a split second, as her gaze reaches mine, I think I see pure clarity there, and something that looks like disbelief.I angle my head, narrowing my gaze as I assess her.She stumbles a bit, and that drives home the point that she’s wasted.
“Here.”Pushing down my strange sense of suspicion—I’m not normally a distrustful kind of guy—I help her into my coat.Once I get her dressed, I guide her outside and the cold night air instantly chills me.I glance up and down the street, pissed that her friends would leave her like that.“Where do you live?”
“Not far.That way.”She points down the sidewalk, and I hug her to me and hurry our steps, needing to get inside before I get hypothermia.I should have grabbed Dane’s coat.At least she said she wasn’t far.After a few blocks, as we’re just about to pass by my buddy Ryan’s house, where I’ve been staying to get away from the frat house, I turn to her again.
My breath turns to fog in front of my face when I ask, “Are we close?”
“I…don’t know.”She pulls away from me, and turns in a wobbly circle.Her eyes cloud over, lost and confused.I curse under my breath, and reach into the pocket of my coat, which is dangling on her body.
“Whoa,” she says, flinching back as my hands connect with her waist.She blinks up at me and once again I question if she’s intoxicated, until she hiccups.When did I get so paranoid?Oh, probably when the team heard the paper was out to get them.
“Just getting my keys.”I nod toward Ryan’s place.“My buddy Ryan lives there.He’s away for the holidays and he lets me stay when I want.I need to get us both inside and warm as we figure out where you live.”
“Oh, okay.”
I hurry up to the house and unlock the door.She winces as I flick the lights on, and I guide her to the sofa.“Do you have a purse or anything with you?”
She glances at her waist.“I don’t see one.”
“Fuck.”
I need to get back to the party, to my brother and his friend, but there’s no way I can just leave her alone in my buddy’s house.What if she gets sick, or falls asleep and wakes up confused and tries to find her way home in the cold?That has disaster written all over it.
She grips the sides of her head.“The room is spinning.”
I help her up.“Yeah, I know.”I walk her toward the stairs.
“Where are you taking me?”she asks.
“To bed.”
2
Leeza
My heart thunders against my ribs, hard enough to reverberate in my ears as Cheddar carefully guides me up the stairs and I can’t help but think he can hear the pounding too.God, everything about this is wrong.I don’t want to be here, trying to get dirt on this guy or any other guy on the team.I can’t even believe Samantha, the chief editor at the Scotia Gazette put me up to this, threatening to replace me this semester and not give me the chief position next year when she leaves.
Sometimes it takes extreme measures to get to the truth.
That might be her philosophy, but as Cheddar pushes open a bedroom door and takes me inside, I can’t say it’s mine, or that I can keep my emotions out of a story.I stumble a bit, keeping up the ruse that I’m drunk.My phone is in my back pocket and Samantha has been tracking me all night, ready to run to my rescue and get pictures of Cheddar engaging in something sordid.Isn’t this called entrapment?
How did I ever find myself in the middle of this?
This is not who I am, not the kind of journalism I want to do.I turn to him, about to shut this whole thing down and tell him the truth.But the warm concerned look on his face as he lightly brushes my hair back from my face, steals the words from my throat.
“This is the room I sleep in when I’m here.The sheets are freshly washed.I did laundry today.”I almost snort out a laugh as I imagine the toughest guy on the hockey team home doing laundry.I actually kind of like the image…I actually kind of like him.“Why don’t you crawl in.I’m going to get a glass of water, and some meds and put them on the nightstand for you, okay?”He waits for me to nod, and continues with, “I’ll knock before I come back in.”
