“Custom coaching.” I laugh smugly. “It’s what sets me apart from all the other graduates.”
“I thought it was the long pointless walks around campus with your female students,” she teases.
“Ouch.” I chuckle. “That too.”
We stop and grin at each other, and every part of me feels light, but it’s also uncomfortable in a way that I’m not quite sure how to define. It's like that split second before a tackle when you realise the guy coming at you is bigger than you thought, exhilarating and completely fucked at the same time. I turn and keep walking. “So, you’re not seventeen, right? You’re working at the bar so how old are you?”
She strolls beside me. “Twenty.”
I glance at her sideways.Twenty?She keeps getting better and better, only a year younger than me.
“Why didn’t you go straight from high school to uni? A yearof travel? Getting to know yourself and the world with a bag on your back?”
“Sorry.” She shrugs. “I’m not that cliché.” Her smile disappears slightly. “My mum was sick. She died a few years ago, and my dad likes to keep me close. It took a lot to get him to allow me to leave. He only did because Erik is here.”
“Damn.” I stop. My hands find both her shoulders before I’ve decided to put them there. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Blesk.”
She shivers, and I glance down to find my thumb moving slowly along her collarbone. I didn’t tell it to do that. I look back up at her, but don’t move my hands away from her skin because they are exactly where they want to be. Something shifts in my chest, warm and welcome, but still acute like a fucking heart attack.
She lifts her eyes to meet mine. “How long have you and Pembie been together?”
Fuck.
I let out a slow breath at the mention of my girlfriend. I’d been trying to enjoy the now and forget all about the girl I’d just left in her bed. I drop my hands to my sides, but each one mourns Blesk’s skin. “Pembie and I are…” I pause. I don’t want to admit that she uses me for my apartment, and I use her for her body. “We’re not together in the traditional sense.”
Lame.
Her tongue is visible between her teeth again as she beams at me, a knowing glint in her eyes. “I only asked how long you’ve been together, Konnor.” Then she laughs from her belly. I don’t care that it’s at my expense.
In fact, I like it.
“Right.” I chuckle. “About a year, I think.”
We turn the corner. The Grill appears on the left, the only bright light in the dimly lit square.
Erik is standing on the steps.
He isn’t moving. He’s just standing there in the dark, very still, watching us walk towards him. His eyes move to Blesk first, where they stay, burning with a possessiveness that isn’t fucking okay.
Then they move to me.
He walks slowly towards us with a thin smile that doesn’t reach his glazed eyes. Drunk aggression is usually loud and unruly—looking for anything to break, picking a fight. This isn’t like that. Nah, this is quieter than that. Measured. Like a fucking knife being slowly unsheathed in a dark room by your friend.
He stares at her.“Blesk.”Her name in his mouth is not warm, and something about the way he says it makes my skin crawl—like he’s reading aloud all the things he owns.
She goes still beside me.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” I ask, trying to keep it light, but not excusing his fucking death stare.
He doesn’t look at me yet, even though I was the one who fucking spoke! He’s still looking at her, and there is something in that look I can’t fully read, but it makes my teeth clench. His hand goes to her elbow, taking hold gently but with a kind of territorial dominance as if it never occurred to him that her elbow is not his to touch.
Fuck, I hate that.
“Come on,” he says to her, voice quiet and even. “I’ve been looking for you for over an hour.”
She tries to subtly tug her arm free.“Erik.”Her voice is soft and laced with uncertainty. Part of me wants to step between them, while another part says that this isn’t my business. How would I like some guy getting between me and my sisters? I’d kick his arse.
Then he looks at me. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
