Why was he so covered up before, or am I just jumping to conclusions? Then again, I can’t see the back of his left hand fully in the dim light.
He laces his fingers together, letting his hands tilt down, his knees spread and eyes on the table.
Then he starts to speak.
“I followed Will. The moment he stepped on campus—right at Bun Duns—the police swarmed him. He’s not a student here, and he’s connected to a murder victim.”
Bun Duns is a doughnut shop that sells mini donuts in tiny pink boxes. I’ve never been there, but everyone on campus knows about it.
Neve shifts slightly on the couch at his mention of it, and I wonder why. She doesn’t seem like she’d indulge in many doughnuts. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure I’ve ever seen her eat.
I don’t fucking like that.
“I happened to be there,” Sylvan continues.
I can’t imagine him indulging in a doughnut either but Icanimagine him accompanying a girl and buying her a box or two.
“After he spoke to the police, he kept walking, over the green, toward Cathedral Street.”Her street.Sylvan glances at Neve.
I want to take his eyes from his skull.
“I followed him.” Sylvan shrugs. “My date wasn’t going well.”
Neve coughs.
Sylvan smirks up at her, but one look at me, and his eyes are on the table again. Itisan act, isn’t it? The timidness. Neve was right.
It’s unsettling.
“He ducked inside the bookstore.” He glances at Neve. “I didn’t think much of it, until I looked up.” He wouldn’t be able to see her there, but he’d see someone likely lived above it, thanks to the curtains. “I went around the back. Climbed over the wall.” He seems to relish the stalkerish nature of it, the way his smile tips up. “The door above the staircase is unlocked.” His smile drops. “You should fucking fix that.”
Neve doesn’t speak. Neither do I.
He’s right.
“I walked down the hall. Saw your door close behind him.” He’s staring at her, no smile now.
I want him to keep going but I want him to stopthat.
He doesn’t, though.
“When I heard some commotion, I went in.”
“And my number.” If Neve is grateful to Sylvan for intervening, she doesn’t show it, nor should she. Sylvan Connor is the type to smell blood and poke at it. Before you know it, there’s a body-sized puddle all over the floor. “How did you have that?”
Sylvan shrugs once. “Stalking.”
He’d only have to casually ask around, wouldn’t he? Neve Devine is a beautiful girl. I’d never seen her on campus before that night but this is one of the biggest schools in the country so that’s not entirely surprising.
Still, I don’t like it.
Any of it.
And the more I think about his stalking, the more another question forms. “How didyouknow who Will Barbour was?” Or was it the police presence that caught his attention? Either way, I’m not supplying that answer for him.
Sylvan lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “I research.”
Silence shifts between us. No one trusts anyone else, and I don’t feel satisfied with anything my teammate is saying.
