CLAY
Walking into my room,I stopped short at the familiar shape on my bed and scowled. “What are you doing in here?”
Cade looked up and grinned. “Huntin’ you down.”
“It’s not hunting if you’re just going to come to my room and sit around,” I grumbled, closing the door behind me. “That’s ambushing.”
“I mean, that’s a kind of huntin’,” Cade shrugged, tossing a book to the side and sitting up on my bed. “Just a different kind is all.”
“Andwhyare you hunting slash ambushing me?” I asked wearily. “You literally saw me this morning.”
“And you been acting weird,” Cade said, leaning forward to frown at me, “for like, a week. It’s been weird not hearin’ you all the time.”
“All the time,” I muttered as I grabbed a bottle of water and tossed it to Cade before grabbing one for myself. “ It’s okay if I’m quiet. You know that, right? I can be quiet.”
“No, you can’t,” he said with a snort as he cracked open the water and took a deep drink. “Not unless somethin’ is goin’ on, then you can be quiet.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about something being wrong with me based on how quiet I am,” I said, screwing up my face as I tried to decide if I should be offended.
“Well, it is,” he said, setting the bottle at his feet. “But I dunno why somethin’ might be wrong. Nothin’ happened, at least, nothin’ you told me or I saw. But you been real weird for days now, and I wanna know what’s up. Did ya have like...another moment?”
I grimaced at the reminder of my first time here. There had been a guy who arrived in my third week who had a thing for going into people’s rooms when they were out and nosing around. As far as anyone could figure out, he had never done anything except snoop, and since the system wasn’t designed to alert anyone other than the assigned guest, it took a while before people figured out what was happening.
It just so happened I was the one who figured it out, because the guy had been dumb enough to talk about things he had no business knowing. Specifically, there was only one person who was aware of the picture frame tucked in the bottom of my sock drawer, which was Cade,but, at that time, Cade didn’t know. And yet this man, whose name I couldn’t even remember because it hadn’t mattered, knew things he had no business knowing.
At the time, I thought someone like Reggie had read my file and said something around him. Well, that was my thought after the rage had cleared when I heard that jackass talking about my past like it was juicy office gossip. That was all it took for me to earn my first real mark against me, and he had earned several new marks on his body before I was pulled off. That was my introduction to Cade because it had been him who pulled me out of the fight. It had also been him who waited while Reggie and Mr. Shepherd talked to me in the office.
Cade had spent time with me while I was on lockdown, while the investigation had been ongoing. The investigation found that I had started the fight, and that put me on their version of parole, but they found that the other guest had been going into not just my room, but any room that wasn’t intentionally locked. After that, Reggie had made changes so entry and exit logs were available not just to the staff, but to the guests for their own rooms, and if there was someone in the room, there was an alert. I had seen it when I’d come in today, but I had already known who was waiting for me.
“I didn’t fly off the handle and beat anyone’s ass,” I told him sourly. “You don’t have to assume the worst.”
“Alright,” he said easily. “Then what’s goin’ on?”
“Nothing, I just…” I sighed. “Alright, fine. Did you notice how that Isaac guy talked about what you and Luka would want from some company, and the sex stuff?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you notice he only talked about the sex stuff about me?”
“Hmm, no.”
“Well, he did. And it was because,” I sat down at the table, “he didn’t want to say it in front of you and Luka.”
Cade’s brow rose slightly. “Really? Dang, that’s gotta be somethin’. Was it bad?”
“It wasn’t great,” I muttered, rubbing my face. “Not the easiest thing to argue against either...which makes it worse.”
Cade’s brow fell into a frown. “What did he say?”
“Nothingawful,” I said quickly, compelled to defend Isaac even though what we knew about each other couldn’t have filled a thimble. “Just not stuff you want to hear about yourself.”
“Okay...ya gonna tell me? I don’t really wanna guess; if I start guessin’, I’m probably gonna end up sayin’ somethin’ worse ’cause I know more about ya than he does.”
I laughed a little, running my hand through my hair. “Just that...the reason he couldn’t come up with something for me was that...he says I hide everything real or meaningful about myself. That I use all the horny stuff to keep people out, and there’s nothing about me that he can really figure out.”
Cade stared at me for a few seconds, and it wasn’t until he scoffed that I realized he’d been waiting for more. “Uh...that it?”
“Isn’t it enough?” I asked in disbelief. “Jesus, Cade, didn’t you hear me?”
