I push him off me as hard as I can, my head eaten upwith the stinging pain. It grows worse with each passing second, spreading and intensifying until my vision wobbles and my legs are strangely buoyant.
There’s a decorative line of moulding running along the corridor walls, right at the worst possible height. Where it had been behind me, the plaster is now cracked, a sizeable chunk on the floor.
“Sorry,” Keanen mutters again, face stricken. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
He looks like he’s about to dissolve into the easy tears of drunkenness, and I offer him a limp smile, the pain receding as my skull decides a better result is to go completely numb.
I excuse myself to the bathroom, holding onto the basin for a long time, staring at my face until its white pallor fills again with colour. When I raise an exploratory hand to my skull, there’s a lump stretching my scalp, a sharper pain at the side where it hit the raised decorative strip on the wall.
A few seconds more, and I’m ready to brave the corridor again. Keanen waits where I left him, gently swaying, face carved into an apology. “Please don’t tell Lock,” he whispers, and I can’t blame him for looking concerned. After seeing him mete out justice once before, I’d be scared in his shoes.
But it was just a drunken accident and I like Keanen, even if we’re growing progressively estranged.
I hook my arm through his elbow, immediately having to take some of his weight as he stumbles. “Don’t worry. You stop talking about Lachlan marrying Kari and I won’t tell him you mistook my head for an egg and tried to crack it open on the wall.”
Together, we make it to the drinks counter. Keanen licks his lips as the person in front of us grabs their slopping-over-the-edge lager but dutifully collects a large carafe of water. It usesevery bit of his concentration to get it back to the table intact and Greta looks relieved at the cargo as he slips back into the seat beside her, shooting a worried glance across the table at Lachlan, who is staring at a game involving bottle caps that Issy and Calvin have invented.
The numbness in my head eases, leaving me with a dull throbbing ache akin to a hangover without all the preceding fun.
Finally, we’re on the home stretch. As the time edges past midnight, Keanen gets aggressive, kissing Greta while she struggles to push him away.
“Why don’t you quit it?” I tell him, joining in her efforts to push him solidly back in his chair, so she can stand and move places. I try a glare to encapsulate the threat to tell Lachlan that he seemed so wary of earlier, but either my face doesn’t broadcast at the right frequency or he’s too blotto to understand.
Whatever the reason, when I try to take my seat again, he grabs my hand and yanks me across his lap.
I land awkwardly, the right side of my face slamming against the table edge, launching a wave of pain. My eye waters, already swelling, and I taste blood from where my bottom lip split from the force.
Keanen takes advantage of my dazed state to clutch me closer, his hand squeezing my tit as I try to break free.
“Get off me.” I struggle harder, lurching to the side and the back of my head knocks the underside of his chin, sending the pain level straight up to eleven.
I’m lost in a sea of agony.
Unable to focus. Unable to get free.
Issy, Greta, and Kari scramble to help as Lachlan shakes off his bored stupor. He leans over, grabs Keanen’s hand off my chest and slams it on the table.
With the help of a tug from Greta, I lurch off Keanan’s lap, turning just as Lachlan plunges the knife down, stabbing so brutally, it pins the boy’s hand in place. Holding it secure to the table, even when Lachlan lifts his hand away. “I think you’ll find the lady said no.”
There’s a horrified pause, then Issy screams, and the patio erupts into panic.
“Actually,” Lachlan says, gripping the knife handle again and yanking. “I’m gonna need that back.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
GEORGE
At two in the morning,I stand outside my home, growing progressively colder. My father is sleeping inside, something I can tell because the windows rattle with each loud snore.
It’s not the ambient atmosphere I’d wish for a clandestine date.
Half of me is convinced Lachlan won’t come. After the stabbing, he bundled me into the back of a taxi and paid the driver to take me home. Goodness knows what happened to the limousine Keanen had originally booked for the trip, though I suppose some lucky students might have talked their way into the back if it showed.
I’m almost certain he won’t come, the arrangement seems like a dream, yet I’m still out here, in the freezing night air, waiting because the tiny sliver of hope that he will is enough to brave the elements.
Headlights turn the corner and I hold my breath, but it onlytakes a second to see it’s not the right car. I duck my head, hiding my face from the passing motorist.
My stomach is tight. I’m scared I’m making a mistake. Nothing has changed since the night I told Lachlan no—Kari stood beside him as the taxi drove me away, his arm linked loosely around her waist.
