“I was in a meeting with Robinson. And yeah, I’m fine,” I said reassuringly, giving him a pat on the back.
Logan sighed in relief and readjusted the heavy bag full of books on his shoulder. He still looked upset and afraid. I would wait until we got home to tell him about Player.
“It’s so touching, the way you care about him, princess,” Xavier sneered, but a look of warning from me was enough to shut him up.
“He was looking for you all over campus, and when I saw you leave with—” Megan spared a glance for Xavier and Luke, her lips twisted in disgust. “With these thugs you call friends…” She waved a dismissive hand. “I said I’d come with him. He was really freaking out,” she explained, and Logan gave her a grateful smile. This easiness between them was more than a little irritating for me. Had my brother forgotten how dangerous the Wayne sisters could be? I couldn’t even say which of the two was the worst.
“Fine. But we have to go now, and you have to give me a lift,” I ordered Logan, cutting Megan off. I didn’t feel like giving her any more of my attention.
Just her being that close to me was irritating.
“Well, as you can see, Neil is safe and sound. And a prick, but that’s nothing new,” Head Case continued anyway. When I walked past her, I paused just inches from her pretty face. She had to tilt her head back to look me in the eye, and I watched her inhale. I knew what she was smelling: the scent of the excess bath gel I’d used just a few hours before.
“Knock it off. You are trying my patience,” I warned her seriously, though I had lost count by then of how many times I had given her a similar warning. Still, Megan just gave me a knowing grin and inched fearlessly closer.
“If you say it in that sexy voice, I’ll do whatever you bid me, my liege.” She mock-bowed and cocked an eyebrow at me. She was truly off her rocker. She just couldn’t stop provoking me even when I was explicitly telling her to stop. It was why I hated her so much—she always did the opposite of whatever I told her to do, and she enjoyed winding me up until I lost control.
“I’m out of here,” I said, unwilling to continue that little scene. I was a man, not a boy consumed with pointless games. Logan followed me, but before we got too far, Xavier called me back.
“You going out with us tonight?” he asked. He and the rest of the Krew were going to Blanco. I, however, had no desire to get with a woman or to get drunk while club music slowly deafened me. But, as I looked back at him, a wild idea occurred to me.
“No, I think I have somewhere to be,” I said, sounding slightly uncertain. I didn’t even understand myself this time.
I swore under my breath and headed for the door, certain that I was headed straight into another major fuckup.
4
“I had to stop wondering if, one day, he might be able to love me.”
Selene
Alyssa left Detroit the following morning.
I hadn’t asked her any more questions about the kiss with Neil, but I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep either. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d said to him on the phone. I’d told him I was going to stop chasing him, that I was afraid of him and the pain he might bring to the people around him, including me.
But Neil didn’t care about the people around him. And he’d hung up on me, which surely meant that he agreed with my decision and didn’t feel I even deserved a verbal answer.
At the moment, however, I had a different problem: my mother.
She’d overheard my late-night phone call—or, rather, my outburst of suffering—and she seemed determined not to talk to me about it.
“Mom…” I called out to her while she poured herself a cup of coffee.
We were both standing in the kitchen, me still in my pajamas. Mom had to go into the university in about an hour.
“What is it?” she answered shortly. I frowned; it was out of character for her to snap at me like that.
“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, taking a bite of yesterday’s cherry pie.
“You know what’s wrong, Selene. That boy is no good for you,” she said, like it was an indisputable fact. I just knew that she was going to get the wrong idea about him after last night. Neil was an asshole—I certainly thought so—but he wasn’t all bad.
“Mom, you shouldn’t make too much of what you overheard last night,” I told her, preparing my defense of Neil, no matter how ridiculous it was of me to do that, considering how I’d just told him where he could get off the night before. I should have been agreeing with everything she said, but, once again, I was setting myself against everything and everyone to protect him.
“Oh, I shouldn’t, should I? He kissed his brother’s girlfriend. That is not a normal thing to do. If he’s willing to hurt someone who is so dear to him, I can’t imagine what he would be willing to do to you!” she insisted in a rush of worry. I understood where she was coming from. She was my mother, and she was afraid for me, but the irrational part of me stubbornly insisted that I could bring out Neil’s human side.
“He didn’t do it to hurt Logan on purpose. Or me. He wouldn’t do that,” I answered. And it was true, in a way. He wouldn’t hurt me; he’d just touch me in that savage way of his and make me want him to the point of madness.
“Are you sure about that?” she asked skeptically. No, I wasn’t at all sure.
