Blood Ties (10 page)

Once outside
, we slunk around to the side of the house. Dylan signalled to Jeff but then suddenly held up his fist. We crouched in the bushes. A cop car did a slow drive by.

“Shiiittt,
look at that.” I pointed across the street.

“
Fuckin’ Darth van.” Jen grabbed the back of my arm. “Ya gotta another one.” Ever since I’d told her about the guy who followed me around like paparazzi in high school, making my life a living hell until I beat the shit out of him, she’d seen one behind every tree.

“What makes you think
it’s stalkin’ on me?”

“History and bad karma.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

“
Whaaaatttt?” She gave me half confused look. I shook my head. Bad move, my brain did a “slow-mo-slosh” movement to either side of my skull. God. Tomorrow was going to be hell – no strike that – today. It had to be at least 4 a.m.

“
Who’s it?” whispered Parker.

“The van from the bar.
We think its Mick and Eddie.”

“Jesuuus, they followed us?”

Logan piped up, “They’re having sec’ thoughts of dumpin’ you guys.”

“Yeah, huh sure,” said Jen.

Logan hitched his head and he and Parker took off across the lawn towards the van motioning for Jeff to follow them.

Dylan
threw his hands up and mouthed, “What the hell are they doing?”

I shrugged.

They were within twenty feet of the van when it suddenly took off. They stood watching it go, talking quietly. Jeff went back to his post and the boys ran back across the lawn.

Dylan slunk back to join us
. “What’s going on?”

Parker wiped the sweat from his face as he caught his breath.
“The creeps from the bar followed us.”

“
We couldn’t see who was inside,” Logan added.

They both seemed pretty
excited. Probably hoping for a little fist-pumping action.

Parker pulled out his cell phone.

“Who ya callin’?”

“911.”
He pulled away when we tried to grab his phone. “Hey, I just saw this van weaving down the middle of Greenway. I think it’s a drunk driver.”

We broke out into grins and smacked his fist.

“No, there weren’t any plates … Black Ford cargo van … sure, no problem. Any time.”

He hung up and
grinned. “Problem solved.”

Dylan
moved forward and gave us the all clear. Jeff walked casually out onto the street and popped the trunk and in less than thirty seconds we had stuffed the picture in the trunk and piled into the car. We drove out to an all-night truck stop, famous for their cinnamon rolls and coffee.

“Let’s circulate a rumor
that the Betas have it.”

“Yeah, let’s,” Logan growled. “Their president’s on my socc’ team. Total a’hole.”

“Since when do you play soccer?” I asked, dumping a heap of sugar into my coffee.

“Hello, where you been? I am … a sssoccer player
. I got a scholarship. I’m their Center Forwaaad. I tol’ya that.”

“Huh?
” I looked at him dumbfounded. Jen kicked me under the table. Logan looked perturbed. “Sorry Logan. I’ve been a little distracted.”

Jen opened her mouth and I
returned a kick to her shin. She shut it with a glare. I glared back. She’d been trying to get me to go out with him. My personal matchmaker.

“Maybe I can go to one of your games.”

“Sure.” He gave me a pleased, almost hopeful look from his bloodshot eyes.

We slouched into the booth, eating and sucking down coffee. Except for Dylan. He was perched up against the wall, sound asleep, soft snores purring out of his throat.

The sun was coming up. It was going to be a very, very long day.

Chapter 8

I growled an unintelligible acknowledgement and fell ungracefully into my chair at my desk, sliding down into a slouch, my eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses I’d borrowed from Jen. My backpack had gained a hundred pounds overnight. It slid off my shoulder and landed onto the floor with a thud. I gave it a half-hearted swipe with my hand hanging at my side to avoid having to move anything attached to my brain and stomach. When I came up empty-handed, I gave it another swipe, this time broadening the search pattern. It came back with air.

A noise, a cross between an oath and a groan, came out of my throat as I leaned over oh-so-very-slowly. Quick movements made things in my stomach and brain jiggle. I didn’t want jiggles. Jiggles spelled
“up-chuck”.

I slowly unzipped it. The sound of the unraveling plastic caused my brain to squeeze to the front of my forehead, which in turn caused a twist of my stomach. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

Last night had been a marathon of epic proportions. None of us had gotten much sleep. I’d only had enough time to take a shower. A bit of shut-eye in class hadn’t been an option. Dr. Marcheon had done a review for an upcoming test. My stat class had been worse. There’d been a pop quiz and the professor had taken perverse pleasure, in my weakened state, to repeatedly ask me for answers to problems on the latest set of handouts.

I spread everything out on my desk. I’d stopped at the cafeteria on the way through campus for a cheese and egg burrito and giant sized coffee. The coffee, I finished. The burrito sat in front of me, unwrapped, limp and sad. Despite my best efforts to convince myself I could skip breakfast, my brain said otherwise. On the other hand, my body reassured me
that if I ate it, there was a ninety percent chance it would crawl right back out of me. Since when did I ever have a burning desire to eat breakfast? Such a quandary. It hurt to think about it.

I sat there, slouched in my chair, hiding behind my sunglasses, the burrito and I staring at each other. It was a dominance game. I heard a small sound that might have been a laugh. I slowly turned my head towards the source. Dr. Marcheon was bent down, picking up a pen. He pulled back up chewing on his bottom lip. I stared at it. Somehow, he made a simple act like that sensuous.

I turned back to the flaccid thing in front of me and reached out with my shaking hands to twist the paper underneath so the congealed egg and cheese smiled in another direction. Yeah, let it smile at the wall. I poked at it. It was cold. There was definitely no resurrecting this baby.

“God,” I whispered.

I heard a snort. He had turned away, his shoulders shaking. I was too tired to care. I pushed my sunglasses up over my head, then slid the unwrapped road kill up to the wall and pulled open my laptop. While I waited for it to boot up, my eyes closed just for a second. My body jerked suddenly when it teetered over on one side.

The burrito looked like it was bloating.

I let out a miserable sigh, slid my hands over the keyboard, and brought up one of his handouts I’d been working on. The words on the screen blurred. I had a bad case of dry eye. Trying to look at anything was like wrestling a camel through a sandstorm. I perched my chin in my hand, posing myself in such a way that it looked as if I were reading, playing the eye game, resting one eye and then the other. It was too hard to fight it. My eyes gave up the battle and closed. I began to click the down arrow rhythmically in a half attempt to keep conscious.

I woke with a start. My
head rested on my forearm. There was drool on the side of my mouth. I slouched back in my chair. On the desk in front of me was a small container of yogurt. Next to it was a steaming cup of coffee, a couple containers of cream, and several packs of sugar.

“Late night?” he asked. He didn’t bother hiding the amusement in his voice.

I jerked against my chair startled. “Wha?”

“Late night?”

“Yeah, you could say that.”

“Well, don’t pass out on me. I don’t want to have to carry you to the infirmary. It’s at least two buildings over.” I raised one blurry eye. I knew there was a joke in there somewhere but my brain wasn’t on top of it.

“My, my,” he said. “It must have been one fun night. I’m all out of Visine.”

He was having his bit of fun this morning.

“Thanks for the yogurt and coffee.”

“You’re welcome.”

I opened up the container and scooped it out with the attached spoon, washing it down with coffee. It wasn’t the sludge from the vending machine. He must have gotten it from somebody’s office.

I heard him get up from his desk. “Do you mind?” He smiled
, motioning towards the burrito. He reached down to pick it up gingerly by the edges of its waxed paper. I watched him as he left the office. He returned without it. A fast and quick burial.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome again.” I let out a small laugh into my coffee. He drew near and slid a long finger slowly across the glossy hardcover of the book on Raphael. The movement was slow and sensual. I closed my eyes, swallowing noisily. His scent floated down around me. I shivered, as if invisible fingertips brushed across my skin.

“So how is Jen’s baby?” he asked gently. His voice slithered up my spine like a warm caress.

“Fine.” My mouth went dry. “It’s still in the shop. It looks like it’s a problem with some wiring or … something. They … ordered some parts.” My brain was turning to mush and something down below began to tighten.

“Good, I’m glad they found the problem.”

I looked up and met his eyes. I squinted a little. Maybe it was the light, maybe it was the lack of sleep but his eyes were dark. I didn’t remember them ever being so dark. He looked down at me, not saying anything, not doing anything. He was acting weird this morning. God, maybe I was dreaming, asleep at my desk. Another wave of his scent hit me and I let out a small noise in my throat as a thousand soft touches caressed my skin. I gasped for air as sudden heat shot through me. He reached out to touch me. I couldn’t move.

“Oh God … Oh God,” I whispered.
I clutched at the seat of my chair. “Please God, let me wake up.” I felt a gentle touch brush across my cheek, then soft words. I was suddenly floating someplace warm, comforting like a dream. Then everything dimmed.

***

“Dudes, we should steal a composite from the Beta house and blame it on the Delta Sigs.” Logan was spread eagle, sunny side up on Jen’s floor. “Your carpet’s got some bad stank on it.”

“No worse than yours,” Jen quipped, taking a break from working on her lapto
p to suck down another swig of Alka Seltzer.

He grabbed a handful of Cheetos from the bowl on his stomach and shoved it into his mouth. I got up and went to the kitchen to pull out a bottle of
Febreze. I handed it to him and he sprayed around his head and then under his underarms.

“Shower today?” I asked
.

“Nah … no time.”

“That’s what you’re smelling, Logan,” Jen said.

“Not anymore.
”

Parker suddenly sat up. He’d been sprawled across the
couch, his tennis shoes hanging off the end. His hair stuck up everywhere like a porcupine. He’d been snoring like a rock star. Jen had uploaded a video of it to Facebook. “Wha’d I miss,” he croaked.

“You’re going to steal a composite from the Beta House,” Jen said.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Sure, we’ll meet you there in two minutes.”

“Okay.” He dropped back down to the couch, his mouth open, snoring.

“Ahhhhhhhh …” I spewed my soda out my nose. I tried to catch it with my hands but missed. I squealed
, “Medic … somebody get the medic.” My nasal passages were on fire. Jen walked to the door, opened it and yelled half-heartedly down the hall for a doctor.

“Do NOT let me do that again,” I whined holding my nose, trying to blow the rest of it out on a handful of napkins.

“Next time do it with strawberry pop. It’ll look more realistic,” Dylan offered.

We all looked at him and stared, those of us that were half-awake, anyways.

“What? Red’s better than brown, unless you’re an oozing Zombie.”

It was a good thing I didn’t have any soda left in my mouth or I would have spewed again. Jen bent over screaming in laughter and Logan guffawed from the floor.

I slid off the vinyl chair onto the floor and hiked my feet up on the coffee table. I groaned. “I fell asleep at work today. Can you believe it? It was so embarrassing.”

“Yes and what did your McDreamy Prof do?”

“He thought it was funny, I think anyways. I offered to make up the time but he told me not to worry about it.”

“Guess who I saw on campus today?” she asked in a singsong voice, grinning at me mischievously.

“Guessing makes my head hurt. Spit it out.”

“Your ex-con boyfriend.”

“What?” I yelled out. Parker jerked, and then settled back down into the couch sound asleep.

“Yeah, I saw him outside the Hub between classes this morning. He looked sooo lonely. You sure you won’t give him a second chance?” She gave me a pouty look.

“You date him. He’s had his chance.”

She rolled her eyes. “My ex-con wouldn’t like it. They’re buds, but it only goes so far.”

My cell rang. I pulled it out. It was John, my ex-never-was-a-boyfriend from home.

“Hey, you still got his pic?”