Steam was seconds from pouring out of her ears. “Well, for starters, I’m not an ass. You are.”
I chuckled. “That’s a good start.”
“And I got Dawson to heel.” She smiled victoriously while I was feeling the exact opposite of that. “And—wait. This isn’t even important. God, you always do this.”
“Do what?” My gaze slid back to her, and even though she was pissed at me and I was angry at her, she was so freaking hot when she was mad. Her cheeks got all flushed, her eyes deepened to a stormy gray, and I wanted to lay her out on one of those tables.
“Distract me with the inane,” she said. “And in case you don’t know what that means: silly—you always distract me with something silly.”
I finished off my pizza. “I know what ‘inane’ means.”
“Shocker,” she retorted.
A slow smile inched across my lips. “I must be really distracting you, because you still haven’t told me what you need to talk to me about.”
Kat might hit me. “I saw—”
Tommy Cruz, football player and friend of the most likely dead Simon, knocked into Kat. No accident. Hell no. I straightened, pushing off the wall.
“Oh, sorry,” Tommy snickered. “Didn’t notice—”
Moving fast, I grabbed a fistful of Tommy’s shirt and pushed him back against the wall, lining him up with the stupid-ass mascot painted on the wall. Tommy’s eyes bugged. I waited for him to piss himself as he gasped out, “Jesus.”
I lifted the milk carton with my other hand, getting it nice and close with his face. “See this milk carton? Do you want to see your face on the back of it? No? Didn’t think so. Touch her again and it’ll be there.”
“Boys!” Coach Vincent’s voice rang out. “Break it up! Both of you! Break it up.”
Silence descended in the crowded cafeteria.
Tommy’s wide gaze darted around, as if he really thought someone was going to intervene. Wasn’t going to be his coach. Oh no, Coach was rocking the Luxen highway. I smiled at him as I slowly released my grip on his shirt, stepped back, and then dumped the milk carton over his head.
Kat slapped her hand over her mouth as sticky white liquid ran down Tommy’s face. Laughter rose from behind me as I patted a clean spot on his chest. “Glad we’ve reached an understanding.” Tossing the empty carton in the trash, I turned to the coach. “Sorry about that. Those milk cartons are slippery buggers.”
Coach stared back with a blank expression. “Get out of here. Now.”
Curving my fingers around Kat’s elbow, I guided her around and started down the aisle. “Overreact much?” she whispered, face burning bright.
I shrugged. “It made me feel better. And I know you thought it was funny.”
She cracked a tiny smile. “Yeah, okay. I did. A lot. Thank you.”
“Uh-huh.” I led her down the hall, stopping by the gym doors. She turned, leaning against the wall. I placed my hands on either side of her head and lowered my forehead to hers. “Can I tell you something?”
She nodded.
“I find it incredibly attractive when you’re all feisty with me.” I brushed my lips against her temple, smiling. “That probably makes me disturbed. But I like it.”
“Focus,” she said when my lips were near hers. She placed her hands on my chest, pushing lightly. “I have something more important to tell you than what disturbing things get you hot.”
I grinned as I backed off. “Okay, back to what you saw. I’m focused. My head’s in the game and all that.”
Kat laughed under her breath, but the sound vanished as she drew in a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure I saw Blake today.”
I cocked my head to the side. I did not hear that right. There was no way that idiot came back here. If so, he was a dead SOB, and he knew it. “Say what?”
“I think I saw Blake here, just a few minutes ago.”
“How sure are you? Did you see him—his face?” My hands curled at my sides as a wave of anger rose swiftly.
“Yeah, I saw—” She stopped, her nose scrunching. “I didn’t see his face.”
Didn’t see his face? How could she be sure she saw him then? I let out a low breath as a different kind of concern took root. “Okay. What did you see?”
“A hat—a trucker hat,” she said, her fingers fidgeting. “That had a surfboard on it. And I saw his hand…”
“So, let me get this right. You saw a hat and a hand?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, shoulders slumping.
I stared at her as the concern for her—for her well-being—unfurled, replacing the hotter, easier emotion to deal with. Kat had been through so much, so there was no surprise that she’d have a hair trigger right now, that she’d see Will or Blake when they really weren’t there. I smoothed out my expression as I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, drawing her into my side. “Are you really sure it was him, because if not, that’s okay. You’ve been under a lot of stress.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I remember you saying something like that to me before.”
“Now, Kitten, you know this is different.” I squeezed her shoulders. “Are you sure, Kat? I don’t want to get everyone freaking out if you’re not sure.”
Her gaze met mine for a second and then dropped. I squeezed her shoulders again, wishing like crazy she weren’t in this position. That she didn’t know this kind of fear.
“I’m not sure,” she said after a moment.
Closing my eyes, I brushed my lips across the top of her bowed head. She wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed her cheek against my chest. “It’s okay,” I said, running my hand up her back.
“Sorry,” she murmured, curling her fingers into the back of my thermal. “I didn’t mean to freak you out. I just thought—”
“You don’t need to apologize for that.” Reaching down, I brushed her hair back from her face. “It’s totally understandable.” When Kat didn’t reply, I held her a little tighter. “Tonight I’m on babysitting duty. Join me?”
There was a pause, and then Kat lifted her chin. “Sure.”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes; it didn’t erase the haunted look there. The smile changed nothing.
Hours later I sat with Kat beside me, and Dawson on the other side of her, two movies into a zombie-thon. At first, we talked about different ways to find Beth, which kept going back to either the office building where Dawson had been held or at the warehouse with the cages.
Kat and Dawson were down with that plan, but I was the lone dissenting voice that repeatedly kept pointing out that the likelihood of her being there was slim, but we were still going to scope out the places this weekend.
Land of the Dead or Party of the Dead was on the TV. I had no idea which one, but some dead dude was eating some other soon-to-be-dead dude. I reached over, grabbing a handful of popcorn out of the bowl in Kat’s lap. “I had no idea you were a zombie fan. What is it—the blood and guts or the in-your-face social undertones?”
Kat laughed. “Mostly the blood and guts.”
“That’s so un-girlie of you.” I frowned as a zombie picked up a cleaver and started banging it against the wall. What the? “I don’t know about this. How many hours do we have left?”
Dawson raised his hand and two DVDs shot into his palm. “Uh, we have Diary of the Dead and Survival of the Dead.”
“Great,” I muttered. Truth was, I was having fun. I had my girl and my brother next to me, and even if what was on the TV was weird as shit, which coming from me was saying something, there was no other place I’d rather be.
Well, having Kat upstairs and in my bed was another place… I shifted my foot on the coffee table.
“Wussy,” Kat replied.
“Whatever.” I elbowed her, knocking a kernel of popcorn between her chest and notebook. She sighed, and I kind of wanted to fish it out with my mouth. “Want me to get that for you?” I asked.
Kat shot me a dark look as she plucked it out and threw it in my face. “You’re going to be grateful when the zombie apocalypse occurs and I know what to do because of my zombie fetish.”