Vengeance was a fire in her eyes when she left, and it’s only when I’m distracted—worrying she’s out on some one-woman vigilante mission—that Hayden manages a win. He leaps up off the couch with a roar and the entire apartment damn near shudders.
“Enjoy the moment while it lasts, He-Man,” I tell him when he starts rolling his hips and arms in a victory dance.
Halting mid-step, Hayden points his controller at me, his excitement palpable. “Let’s go again!”
He slams back on the couch with force, and it jiggles my ankle.
“Arrghhhhh!” I shriek.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he chants, tossing the controller to the side and readjusting the ice that slid off to the floor.
Leah chooses that moment to return. Her arms are laden with glossy shopping bags, and there’s a bright, determined gleam in her eye that makes me nervous. The last time I saw that look, I was dragged to a frat party in a purple ‘fuck me’ dress and look how well that turned out.
“What’s in the bags?” I ask.
Retaking his seat beside me, Hayden eyes her loaded arms with the hopeful eyes of a kid at Christmas. “It’s bags and bags of black lacy underwear.”
Leah’s grin is smug as she dumps them on the kitchen counter. “Nope.”
His smile falters a little, but hope remains. “Red lacy underwear?”
“Nope.”
“Pink?”
“Nope.”
Hayden rattles off all the colors of the rainbow while she digs inside one of the bags.
“Nope, nope, and nope,” she replies.
All his hope slowly dies out, leaving behind the wounded expression of a kicked puppy.
What she plucks out is a stretchy black piece of fabric, and instantly I know what it is. The dress she tossed over the fitting room door when we were trying on clothes. It’s a deceptive piece of material. It looks like a bit of scrap, but after tugging it on I almost didn’t recognize my own body. It has a high neckline, but it shows a mile of leg, gives me a waist, and dips so low at the back it’s almost obscene.
“You didn’t,” I breathe.
Lean grins, victorious. “I did. I also…” she pulls out item after item after item, “…did this, and this, and this.” Out comes tiny, cuffed shorts the color of ripe lemons, two blouses, a white maxi-dress that cinches at the waist with a brown leather belt, and more.
Tears prick my eyes. She must have spent a fortune. “You can’t, Leah,” I protest while my internal voice screams at me she can, she can! “Take it all back.”
Opening the kitchen drawer, she comes out with a pair of scissors. I watch as she neatly begins snipping off tags and cutting through receipts. “Oops. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Leah …” I trail off, speechless.
“That crazy bitch doesn’t think you belong with Brody? We’ll show her just how much you do, and then her eyes won’t be the only part of her that’s green. The second he sees you in that black dress for your date, he’s going to swallow his tongue.”
My stomach sinks like lead as she folds all the clothes in a neat pile. It doesn’t matter what I wear because I don’t belong with Brody. I never will. Not even if I wanted to. I’m only here for senior year and then I’m gone. Everything I’m making here—this little life inside an even smaller apartment, new city and soccer team, friends I’m growing to love harder than I thought possible—is all temporary.
After we have dinner, Leah helps me hobble to my room. My painkillers are wearing off, but I don’t take anymore. I just want to sleep. Stretching out on my bed, I open my laptop to check my emails first. What I find is over a hundred Facebook friend requests, emails inviting me to parties, and emails calling me a whore. With a shaky hand I slam it shut and shove it away.
It takes over an hour for me to find sleep. The moment I do, Brody wakes me with his phone call, drunk and belligerent. I want to care that they lost their game, but he’s being a dick. After the day I had, his attitude is like the cherry on top of a shit cupcake. When I hang up, I’m glad that Monday is still two days away. It will give me time to calm down.
The next two days are spent at home resting my ankle. It’s not until Monday night rolls around and Brody’s a no-show that I realize the battery on my phone is dead. After charging it up, I try calling him, but he doesn’t answer. Brody set about this whole dating farce and now what? He gives up on being tutored before we’ve even started? I’m fuming mad.
It’s not until Tuesday that I see him next. I’m seated in the quiet study section of the library. He stalks past, carrying a stack of lecture notes in his hand, noticing no one. He’s wearing a Colton Bulls cap that hides his eyes, and his skin is damp from the outside heat. For some reason my heart starts slamming in my ribs and it gets hard to breathe. Rage. It’s all that anger oozing from my pores like lava. In fact it’s an exercise in restraint not to stick my good ankle out and trip him up, or toss the heavy text on my desk at his head.
“Brody,” I hiss loudly when instead I should just let him go. If he doesn’t want to be tutored I can’t force him, but sometimes I can be a dog with a bone. Winners aren’t quitters, though I’m not sure I’d classify this as winning.
Brody halts at my voice and turns. I suck in a sharp breath. His left eye is a rainbow of purple and red and so swollen it hurts just to look at it. A split brow is held together with butterfly tape and his bottom lip looks busted.
“Oh my god, Brody.”
“Jordan,” he says quietly and presses his lips together like he has no idea what to say. The move makes him wince, and he touches a hand to his mouth before meeting my gaze.
The teasing sparkle in his eyes is missing, and my anger disappears like vapor. “What happened to your face?”
Brody shrugs. “Training.” He puts his sheaf of papers on the desk and crouches next to me, bringing me a little higher than eye level. He has to look up a little bit. “It can get a little rough.”
I don’t believe a word. I have a brother. I know the difference between training and a fistfight. My gaze drops to the knuckles on his right hand. They’re swollen and red. “Just a little rough, huh?”
Brody puts a hand on my knee. The touch is intimate and sends my pulse rocketing right through the ornate ceiling of the library. “Sorry about last night.” He waves a hand briefly at his face. “I was a bit sore. I should’ve let you know I couldn’t make it, but I thought you were avoiding me. I tried ringing you yesterday but it kept going to voicemail.”
“Oh. Well I admit I needed some time to cool off after your phone call on Saturday night, but I wasn’t avoiding you. My phone was flat.”
Brody grimaces. “Sorry about that. I was an asshole.”
“You were.”
He gives me a rueful grin. “Well at least we can agree on something. So can we reschedule the tutoring?”
I should say no, but I can’t. I’m his tutor. The whole point of this is to help Brody in any way I can. And we both need to start taking it more seriously. “Thursday night,” I tell him. “My apartment.”
Brody exhales sharply. Rescheduling was obviously a chore he’s happy to be done with. “Great. Now will you tell me what Lindsay said to you on Saturday?”
“She didn’t say anything I can’t handle.”
His jaw ticks. Obviously it’s not the answer he wants. “Tell me what she said, Jordan.”
I shift my leg from underneath his grip and his hand falls away. “Brody, you’re a popular guy. There are a lot of girls who aren’t going to be happy with the idea of you dating me. They’ll get over it, so just let it go.”
Brody stands slowly, his wide shoulders looming over me. “I’ll let it go. For now. But if anyone ever threatens you, you tell me and I’ll handle it.”
“I can handle myself. Don’t treat me like I belong to you.”
He leans over and takes my face in his hand, the other he props on the arm of my chair. His palm is calloused and scrapes my cheek, but his touch is gentle.
When he speaks, his voice is low and his eyes dark. “How should I treat you?”