“He messaged back?”
“Aye. Get the feck in.”
He gave me the blandest glare and settled himself into the passenger seat, but I wouldn’t have expected anything less from him. “He fucking messaged me back.” I let out a whoop. “Tell me where to go,” I said, tossing him my phone so he could see the address. I peeled out and sprayed gravel behind us.
10
Hunter
King stared at me as he lowered his phone to the table. He frowned and his salt-and-pepper eyebrows were hiked high as he studied me. That was hisyou just done fucked up, prospectglare.
What did I do? Fuck.King couldn’t possibly be pissed off at me, so I took a risk and ignored him in favor of staring at the phone in my hand. Jamie’s last message was still there above mine. He wanted me to be sleeping alone. That must mean he wanted to… what? Be with me? Was he coming here to… to do what? Excitement so sharp and good it almost hurt stabbed into my gut.
Jamie followed me here. Why? My brain scrambled the same way it did the one time I rode the Ring of Fire at the county fair five times in a row, even though I could hear the metal supports creaking the whole time and there were spots where it was held together with wire coat hangers. The only thing missing was my gut trying to empty itself, but if I thought too much about what Jamie might want to say to me, I would be able to reproduce that unhappy effect, too.
“Play, Hunter,” King growled, still staring too hard at me. His grayish-blue eyes flashed with annoyance as he set his phone down on the table beside him and tossed an Uno card on the discard pile. His play switched the color from red to yellow, and I sighed because I had a handful of blues and nothing else. How did he always know what I had in my hand? Normally I could slay at some Uno, but I hadn’t started out able to concentrate, and now? I drew a card from the deck—another blue.
“I fold.”
“You can’t fold, I just dealt,” Dallas said, and he stood to reach across the table and playfully jab at my shoulder. He had one of the nicest smiles, and I always got flustered when he beamed at me the way he was right now. His dark hair was a little messy from whatever he and King had done about an hour earlier—I’d heard them, too—and I was glad I didn’t feel… jealous of him anymore. “Plus it’s Uno, not poker. The only way out of an Uno game is death or playing all your cards.” Dallas took his seat again and sat taller.
“Yeah, what he said.” Grant slugged a healthy gulp from his bottle of grapefruit Izze and purposefully made an obnoxiously loud popping sound on the glass bottle when he pulled it from his mouth. Reaper chuckled at him, and it still weirded me out when he stared at Grant with soft eyes the way he was right now.
It was unnatural.
“Let him drop out.” Reaper eyed the money in the middle of the table because even though itwasUno and not poker, we were still betting. “I got a good hand.”
We were gathered around the small, polished black table in the newly extended black-and-white themed kitchen in King’s cabin, crowded nearly shoulder to shoulder, and the cards had only been handed out a few minutes ago. I couldn’t blame them for being irritated with me, but I had to… prepare myself somehow. Would Jamie yell at me more? Would he make this terrible? I wanted to see him again, and I wanted to touch him again, but I didn’t know if I could take more yelling.
I hated that.
Couldn’t stand it.
Would do nearly anything to get away from it.
I was embarrassed about how I’d run off on him but had no idea how to fix it. Maybe I should just take whatever he had to say. But would he really drive all the way here just to make me feel bad?
Anticipation and dread tangled together in my belly and left me jiggling my knees up and down so bad I got a dirty look from King. I stopped because listening to even the smallest of hints about his moods was an ingrained habit.
“Who was that on the phone?” Dallas asked King. He laid down one of those cards that switched the direction of the game play, so King discarded another card, and I still had nothing in my hand. I picked up a card, not really bothering to look at what color I held. Dallas glanced at me too but didn’t ask who had texted me.
Grant nudged his shoulder against mine on my left and shook his head. “Why didn’t you play that?”
I flinched away from him, and he frowned an apology. “Don’t look at my cards.”
“Don’t flash ’em and I won’t see ’em. Pay attention or you’ll be out ten bucks.” Grant reached out and lightly patted my shoulder like he was sorry.
“Business shit,” King finally said, but his foot knocked against mine. I ignored it. He did it again, and I stared at my cards, not seeing them before I shifted my attention to him. He had a furrow between his brows and his jaw stuck forward a little.
“What?” Dallas asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know. What were you up to while you stayed at the Virtue, Hunter?” He turned to glare at me. “Why do I have a Killough man calling me and asking where you are? Do I need to lie and say you’re not here? What sort of trouble are you in?”
I held my breath. No one, and I meanno one, had told King anything about my trip to the city. Grant didn’t really know what I’d done, other than I was out of the Virtue for a while and then something bad happened in the city that was on the news. He’d guessed at things, though, I think. He’d told me to not talk about it, or King wouldn’t let me out of New Gothenburg again, and he’d been dead serious when he’d pulled me aside to whisper that in my ear. Grant knew King pretty well, so I’d listened to him.
I shrugged because that seemed safe as far as answers went, and I didn’t talk much anyway.
Dallas sighed. “Who was that on the phone?”
