Finally, as we hit the overpass, she speaks. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says. Voice flat, calm, a little cracked at the edge.
I keep my eyes on the road. “Yes, I did.”
She laughs, but it’s not funny. “You think you can just fix everything by breaking someone’s nose?”
I shake my head. “I didn’t break his nose. He’ll be fine.”
She looks at me then, sharp. “Well, I’m not fine.”
I nod. Let it hang in the air.
We drive in silence, the only sound the low rumble of the engine and her teeth, clicking together when we hit a bump. At a red light, I risk a look. She’s hunched in the seat, eyes huge, makeup a disaster, the white of her shirt peeking out from the collar of my coat.
“I’m sorry,” I say, but it’s not enough.
She shrugs. “It’s whatever. This is college. This is what happens.”
I want to argue, because that’s not right at all. This isnotwhat happens, but Mary Kate’s too in shock for that kind of discussion.
I keep driving. She watches the city peel by, and I know she’s thinking about what comes next—how she’ll have to face the morning, how she’ll explain the bruises, the torn shirt, the silence between us.
But I’m too furious to contemplate tomorrow morning.
All I can focus on is the now.
The girl beside me.
And how another man tried to take what belongs to me.
15
CLAIMING THE SWEET BRAT AS MINE
MARY KATE
Kent’s so angry that I can feel it. It’s a wall between us, the air shuddering in the sedan with the force of his thoughts. But he doesn’t speak. Not even when the heater starts to rattle, then finally gives up and just blasts air, dry and too hot but not enough to warm the marrow. His hands grip the wheel so tight I can see the bones move under the skin, see the angry red gouges where his knuckles split open on Clay Newell’s jaw. There’s still a crescent of blood under his thumbnail, dried black now.
I’m pressed into the passenger seat, every muscle tight, hands clamped together in my lap to keep from shaking. My party outfit feels like a practical joke on my own body: the skirt’s ridden up so far I can feel the rough cold of the leather, the t-shirt’s still sticky at the shoulder from where a cup of beer splashed me, and one of my boots is half-unzipped, flopping with every time I cross and uncross my legs. The smell in the car is layered — Kent’s sandalwood and sharp aftershave, the lingering masculine musk of the man himself, and then the rank undertone of cheap beer and the tang of weed that still clings to my hair from the Sigma house. The air is thick enough to chew,but neither of us breathes right. I stare at the glowing Mercedes symbol on the wheel, at the blur of city lights, anywhere but at him.
He makes it to the river and cuts north, and that’s when I crack.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words sound like I coughed them up from the bottom of a drain. “I didn’t — I only had two beers. Maybe three. I just wanted to dance and—” My voice dies, the apology unfinished.
Kent doesn’t answer. His jaw is so tight the muscle jumps under his cheek, flexing in time with his pulse. I realize then that he hasn’t looked at me once since he rescued me from the party, not even to see if I was okay. Just drove, eyes forward, teeth bared.
The silence gets so thick it actually hurts. I feel like I should fill it, like it’s my duty to patch over the wreckage of the last two hours, so I try again: “It wasn’t even that fun. I didn’t want to go, really. Emmeline talked me into it and?—”
He cuts me off, finally, but doesn’t raise his voice. “You think it’s safe to drink with strangers? You think I can’t see what goes on in those places?”
I shrink. “No. I mean, I wasn’t alone.”
He snorts, not amused. “You were alone the second you walked through that door.”
I can’t argue. He’s not wrong. I clutch at the hem of my skirt, rolling the fabric between my fingers until my grip hurts. My knee bounces, heel rapping an anxious metronome on the floor.
He slows at the light, foot pressing the brake a little too hard so we both pitch forward. “You’re not old enough,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “You’re still fucking underage.”
I bristle, something in me refusing to bend. “I’m not underage, actually.” It comes out sharper than I mean it to. “I turned twenty-one last month. Before I moved back.”
