“Really?” I rolled my eyes. “Do we have to list off who’s worse than the other one? Oh, and by the way, it was so nice of you not to tell your sister everything you had done. You tried to control Mason first. You started all of this.”
He grew quiet. “You might think you have my sister on your side, but you’re forgetting another thing.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“She’s family.” He opened the door, his gaze trailed over my shoulder. “You’d be surprised by what you do for family.”
He left.
I had a sick feeling as I glanced behind me. Right there, in the smack center of my desk, was a picture of Mason, Logan, and me. The picture was taken at David and Malinda’s wedding. All three of us had our arms around the others with wide smiles facing the camera. It’d been on my shelf among the rest of my photographs.
Sebastian put it there on purpose. A shiver wound down my spine.
Pins and needles.
That was the feeling over the next few weeks.
Everyone was waiting for the big explosion because it was coming. Everyone could feel it. I was waiting. Mason and Logan must’ve been waiting. Sebastian and Summer, too. And even Heather. When we went back to Fallen Crest for Thanksgiving, she’d asked if anything had happened yet. Nothing. It was the calm before the storm.
When we went back to school for the last month before the long holiday break, it was more of the same.
Waiting.
Tension.
There were whispers of a threat. People heard that Logan set fire to a car. He and Mason weren’t saying anything, so I assumed that was a rumor. The next gossip claimed that Nate tried to get Sebastian expelled from school, but again, Mason and Logan didn’t say a word to me.
What did I do?
What I was doing right now. Studying and wanting to rip my hair out because there was no way I could memorize every famous psychologist, all of their theories, laws, and principles, and every tiny function of the brain.
The door to our study room in the library was kicked open.
Logan had a pizza in one hand, his bag thrown over his shoulder, and a grocery bag filled with energy drinks in his other hand. He proclaimed, “I’m here, bitches. Let’s get the studying going.”
Before anyone could say a word, he dropped everything on the table and pumped his arms forward and back, like he was a machine gun. And for the grand finale, he swung his leg over an empty chair, slid down into it, and his arms crossed so that his elbow landed on the table at the same time as when his palm propped up his head. He batted his eyelids at Summer. “What’s happening, hot stuff?”
She dropped her pen into her book. “Did you just quote Sixteen Candles to me?”
His eyelids fluttered, and two dimples showed in his cheeks. “Does it make you horny?”
“No.” She scowled.
He didn’t care. His cocky grin went up a notch. “My name could be Long Duck Dick for you. Does that make you horny?”
“You’re messing with me on purpose. Stop it.” She poked at the pizza box. “We can’t have food in the library.”
“Yeah, we can and I haven’t even started. Do you like cupcakes? Because I do, and ass-skirts. Just putting that out there.” She sent him a warning look and Logan dropped the flirting, his grin deepening. He leaned back, hooking his fingers behind his head. “How do you think I brought it in here? Walked right past the librarians.”
“You can’t have food like this. Sandwiches, salads, bags of chips—we can have those. But a large pizza? You’re going to get us kicked out, and I don’t know about the rest,” she cast Mason and me a look, her eyebrows locking together, “but I can’t study at my dorm. Kitty and Nina have a rotating schedule of their meltdowns. If Kitty’s not crying about how she’s going to fail poli-sci, she’s comforting Nina with her full-blown dry-heaving panic attacks. Like I said, I can’t study there.”
Logan frowned. “I was joking before, but seriously, you need to get laid. You’re wound too tight to get any real studying done.” He wasn’t looking at her as he said that. He reached forward and flipped the pizza box open.
I didn’t move. I waited, watching my roommate. Beside me, Mason was doing the same. Her scowl morphed into blind panic as Logan talked, and it changed to speculation.
She was going to do it.
I saw the wheels spinning, and as Logan took a slice of pizza and started eating it, she studied him. Her eyes slid over him, taking in his hair and how he got a crew cut, going down his throat as he was swallowing the pizza, moving to his hands and how he folded the pizza in half. He took one, large bite, devouring half the slice right there. Her eyes lingered on his shoulders, which were accentuated by the shirt he was wearing. His shoulders were broad, and the shirt showcased how his bicep muscles were cut and sculpted, rippling as he leaned forward for another bite of pizza.
She shoved back her chair, throwing me a pleading look. “Don’t think less of me.”
Logan looked up. “Huh?”
Summer grabbed his hand and yanked him behind her. “We need to find a closet.”
His eyebrows shot up in the air, but he flashed us a grin and waved the pizza at us while Summer led him around a bookshelf. Right as they did, he stuffed the rest of the pizza down and hurried, catching up with Summer, his hands on her hips.
Mason grunted as he got up and shut the door again. “We got thirty minutes.”
I laughed, focusing on my laptop again. “I say twenty.” A large envelope was tossed on the desk, and I grew distracted. “What is that?” It was wrinkled from wear and tear. One corner of the envelope was ripped open, and the edge of a photograph peeked out. My mouth dried up, and my tongue felt like a lump of coal.