“I’m gonna—” I jerked a thumb toward the hallway and had to double check to be certain it was actually in the direction of my room. This place could be a real maze sometimes, at least to me.
“Okay.” Grant gave me another quick, friendly hug and then went back outside to join the others. Part of me wanted to follow him. Instead, I dragged myself along a couple of hallways to where I was staying.
Back at my room, I picked my phone up from the bedside table. I had missed two calls from King last night, three this morning, and two more this afternoon. Guilt stabbed at me. He was my president. Jester had said I would be voted in. Pissed as I was about the way King had dropped a bomb on me and then acted like it was confetti, he hadn’t ruined my try for membership. Not getting in would all be on me now, how I ended up acting from here on out. King was a bastard when he was upset, and I doubted anyone at the clubhouse appreciated me causing that. I didn’t want the blame.
Sighing, I wondered if this would count against me if I just ignored it. Something trembled inside me, maybe not guilt, exactly. Was I wrong here? Was this King trying? What if I kept this up and finally won, and he stopped calling? That idea felt bad too. Wrong. I’d wanted a family for so long, and Forrest was here. Grant was here. King hadsentGrant.
I dialed his number.
“Are you okay?” King’s gruff voice carried over the line to me, and fucked-up or not, I still loved hearing it.
“Yeah.”
Silence stretched between us before he cleared his throat, and even me, who would probably get nicknamed Awkward Panda whenever the Kings finally voted me in, could hear the unbearable silence building between us.
“Why are you calling? I can’t be your fetch-it bitch here.” I bit my lip until it ached.
There was a long sigh from his end and a clink that sounded like solid glass on wood. I could imagine him, maybe at his desk, drinking straight out of a bottle. “You don’t do anything fucking easy, do you?”
“No.”
He laughed and at least sounded amused.
“Areyouokay, King?”
He coughed. Maybe I’d caught him midswig because there was a clatter and the phone was gone from him for a second as a clear string of profanity carried to me, and then, “Fuck, I’m fine, kid. Behave and be careful.”
“I will.”
“Gotta go.” The line between us cut off.
I frowned at my phone and then tossed it on the bed.
Somehow, while I was gone, more of Forrest’s clothes had migrated into my room. How that could be when he’d been outside with me, I didn’t know, and I just wasn’t sure about the choices. My jeans and T-shirt were mysteriously missing from the floor of the bathroom where I’d dumped them earlier. I went to the bed and picked up a goldenrod-yellow shirt. The fabric was soft, and when I tugged the top over my head, it clung to my damp body, not in an annoying way, but it was definitely made to show off every muscle I owned. The sleeves were halfway down my forearms like a baseball shirt.
Shrugging, I stripped off my wet trunks, dried myself, and then snagged the pair of pants. They were slightly loose when I pulled them on, but had no belt loops, and they weren’t exactly brown; they were the same color as a fawn in the woods. I zipped and buttoned them and they fit okay. Random zippers caught my attention on the thighs. I tried one and it opened, but there was no pocket underneath, just my skin. I gulped and zipped it closed again. When I straightened and went to look in the mirror, the waistband got hooked on my hip bones and didn’t fall. The clothes definitely showed off a strip of my stomach below the hem of the shirt. Were they supposed to do that? I swallowed down a lump in my throat.
Thump.The noise from the hallway made me stop contemplating the weirdness of the cool air on my stomach. Carefully I crept to my door and pulled it open a crack. Jamie was out there, leaned against the door to his room, trying to get the key into the lock. He was covered in dirt and… blood. But I wasn’t sure if most of it was his or not. His curls were matted on one side with something dark. I yanked the door open the rest of the way and rushed out.
Jamie swung around toward me with a gun raised and I recoiled. It seemed to take him a second to recognize me because his eyes bled from dead to wide and relieved. He gritted his teeth and lowered the gun to point at the floor like his arm was made of lead. My heart dropped out of my throat. He sagged against the door, hitting it hard enough with his shoulder that he let out a hiss, and I hurried forward to wrap an arm around his waist.
“Where’s Corbin?”
“Round. Feck, you’re a beautiful sight for sore eyes.”
He let me take the key from his fumbling fingers. I opened the door and walked him inside, kicking it shut behind us with my foot. I went to put him on the bed, but he swung his body weight away from it toward the bathroom.
“You’re not steady on your feet.”
“Don’t fuckin’ care,” he grumbled.
I took him in and sat him on a low leather bench next to the sink. He frowned at me when I held out my hand for his gun, but eventually he passed it over, and I carried it out and put it on his dresser before I went back into the bathroom. I wanted to ask what had happened so badly, I almost itched with the need. The thing was, I’d been a King long enough to know better. Maybe he’d tell me, maybe he wouldn’t. All I’d do by asking questions was piss him off or make him feel backed into a corner. I hated being trapped and wouldn’t do it to him. Instead of talking, I ran steaming water into the sink and opened a half closet in the corner, relieved to find washcloths and towels. I tossed a cloth in the sink and then soaped it up. He watched me through eyes that squinted narrower and narrower as time passed.
“Do you need a doctor? My uncle is here. They call him Doc for a reason.”
He blinked at me and finally looked more like himself. “Ach, I don’t think so.”
I wrung out the washcloth and turned toward him. He spread his legs to give me room to get closer to him and allowed me to carefully wipe the grime from his forehead, cheeks, and the bridge of his nose. There was soot, like maybe he’d been near a fire. I went on washing him until all I had was a thin line of brownish blood that ran from behind his ear, which I rubbed clean from his long neck.
