Tangled Thoughts (15 page)

Was I doing this wrong? I
liked
college, a lot. I loved classes and campus and pretty much everything except for Natalie. I liked Jack, more than I wanted to. I hung out with Serena and her friends sometimes, but I still felt a little separate from her group. The truth was, I
still
didn't know how to make friends. Maybe no one knew how. It was just something you did, naturally. Or not.

The biggest problem was that I missed Carter. He would have—
should
have—filled in the small spaces that now were empty. Like tonight, when I had no plans except to read a book and feel sorry for myself.

Nat tapped me on the shoulder and I jumped high enough to rock the bed. Though I wasn't actually listening to anything, I pressed mute on my computer just for show and took my headphones off. “Hey. What's up?”

“I was going to get coffee. Want to come?” Maybe Natalie was lonely too. Actually, I was sure she was. She rarely sought out my company, or any really. What I should have said was yes, but I'd opened a sad door in my head and I needed Amy to help close it.

“Not right now, I'm sorry.” She dropped her eyes, making her look sadder than usual, so I added, “Maybe tomorrow? Or later?”

“I'm going to the play with Kendra later.” She hesitated a second. “It's just at Fine Arts, if you want to come.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'd like that. And actually…” I tugged my bag over and scrounged a five out of my wallet. “Would you maybe bring a coffee back for me?”

As soon as she was gone, I closed our door and called Amy. I laid back on my bed while the phone rang and stared at the photo collage on Nat's dresser that I could see reflected in my mirror. The faces were fuzzy from my angle, but I knew she was smiling in most of them.

Finally Amy picked up. I was afraid I'd missed her before she left to spend the long weekend in Iowa. “Lainey-baby. Just when I was sure you were avoiding me, you call me back. Finally.”

“Sorry.” I ran my finger along the edge of the
Out of Africa
poster over my bed. I had a theme, one for each of my roommates. Turned out we were all a little international, not just Ginny. Kendra had been born in Ethiopia. I had Pearl S. Buck's
The New Year
for Ginny and
Like Water for Chocolate
for me. For Natalie, whose mom was Italian, I had
Roman Holiday
. “It's been a busy week.”

“Busy avoiding me.”

I didn't want to tell her she was right, but she knew she was. “I'm sorry.”

Amy sighed. “I know. So. Let's get it out of the way. Go ahead, ask.”

“Did you have fun?”

She sighed again. “Yes. It was freaking great. But to answer the
real
question, yes, Carter was there. Yes, I talked to him.”

I dropped an arm over my eyes. For some reason, it was easier to have these conversations with my eyes closed. “What's he doing?”

“Besides Alex-bitch Morrow?”

“God, Amy.”

In softer tones she said, “Besides studying, he's doing data analysis and statistics, he says. He reads a lot.” My stomach churned and I pressed down on it. That was it? Daniel Astor was ready to kill me to have Carter do math and
read
for him? Like I would have kept him from any of that! “Lane?” I was quiet for too long.

Finally I said, “Did he…did he seem happy?”

“Truth?”

“Always.”

It was her turn to be quiet. After a few seconds, she said, “I think so. He said he doesn't know, but I think he just doesn't realize it. He
loves classes and feeling like he's helping Senator Astor. He
looks
amazing. And I think…” She hesitated. “I think he likes Alexis more than he should.”

“I'm…glad,” I said, because what else could I say?

She laughed. “Well at least that makes one of us.” She regaled me with the rest of Homecoming, which really did sound like a good time, and I dutifully filled her in on my boring life, leaving out the ruminating and feeling sorry for myself. By the time I got to my volleyball match, my stomach was feeling better.

“And then I saw Jack,” I admitted.

“
Again
? I think he's following you.” On the other end of the phone, I could hear the sounds of her last-minute packing.

“That's what I said!”

“There are worse things to follow you around.” She huffed as she zipped up a bag. “Like rumors and syphilis.” I laughed. “Mr. H.O.T. is more like a puppy. A sexy puppy.”

“He's pretty fit,” I added casually.

“No shit. So what's he do again?”

“He plays basketball and lifts—”

“
Sentimentally
I mean, Lane.” That was her code for Sententia. “You know I don't care
how
he works out. He's not a sex demon, right?” Amy was still rightfully bitter about her experience last year with Alexis's cousin Mandi, a Siren who'd tried really hard—and nearly succeeded—to ruin her year. “Though in
this
case maybe that wouldn't be so bad.”

“Amy.”

“I'm just saying—you could use a sex demon.”

“Jesus, Ame.”

“What? You could.”

I pulled a tack from the corner of the poster and pushed it back in. Finally, I said, “I'm not ready for that yet.”

Amy made this throaty noise of dismissal. “Sure you are.
You
broke up with
him
, or did you forget? Sometimes you act like you didn't want to and I don't get it at all.” She cursed under her breath as it sounded like she stacked her bags. I could hear her door open and close.

“I didn't forget,” I said. I never forgot. This is when it hurt most that I couldn't tell her what happened. “I'm just…trying to adjust to college and everything. I'm not ready to throw relationshipping into it. Plus, he's still my TA.” I took a sip of water to help me swallow the lump in my throat.

“I know. That just means it's going to be
awesome
when you finally do it.” I choked on that water. “All the waiting will be
totally
worth it,” she went on, oblivious. “And besides, I really wasn't talking about a
relationship
.”

“God, you're impossible.”

“I think the same thing about you, you know.” I knew. It was part of why we loved each other. After a pause, she said, “I gotta go, babe. My ride's here.”

I could hear the wind and traffic as she stepped out of her dorm, swallowing up our goodbyes. I tossed my phone on the end of the bed. It bounced and slipped over the side, through the little space next to the wall.
Shit
.

I flopped backwards onto my pillows. From beneath the bed, I heard my phone buzzing but I didn't have the energy to retrieve it. With one hand, I smoothed the corner of the poster I'd been worrying.

Even though she was impossible, I was sorry it took so long for me to call Amy back. I hated that she was involuntarily caught in the middle of Carter and me. It wasn't
her
fault. Hell, it wasn't even
my
fault. It was Daniel Astor's fault, that manipulating, lying, asshole uncle of mine, among other choice terms. I refrained from using
son-of-a-bitch
, though it flowed so nicely, because his mother Evelyn was actually a
gem of a woman. I refrained from using
life-ruining
too, because he wasn't in control of my life anymore. He wasn't even part of it.

My phone was buzzing again.
Crap
. I squeezed my arm down between the bed and the wall, but when I tried to grab it, I pushed it out of reach. It stopped buzzing. With a sigh, I heaved off my bed to retrieve it. The two missed calls were from Aunt Tessa. Huh. I was just getting off my hands and knees when our door buzzer rang. I just could not win.

I skipped down the stairs to see who it was, but even before I'd opened the vestibule door, I could see behind the glass wasn't a friend, or pizza delivery guy, or even Natalie, forgotten her keys. It was a man, clearly not a student, and he looked…almost like a police officer, standing straight and with a serious kind of intensity. The missed calls from my aunt! I rushed to the door and threw it open without a second thought.

“Miss Young?” the man said as soon as I opened it.

But I didn't even see him.

Beyond his broad shoulders, waiting at the bottom of the steps in an eggplant colored velvet coat, was a petite brunette alive, unblemished, and beaming at me. And she wasn't alone.

I gripped the door frame until my fingers were white. “Auntie?”

“Surprise!” she called, though I barely heard her.

Because behind her was Daniel Astor. His razor smile was the last thing I saw before I passed out.

I
WOKE UP
in a nightmare. Halloween wasn't until next weekend, but I felt like I was being tricked right
now
. This couldn't be real.

My aunt was having Daniel Astor's baby.

This. Could not. Be real.

“I know it's a shock, honey.” My aunt was sitting next to me on my bed and petting my hair. Quietly in a corner and safely out of my reach
stood the baby's father, making the room look shabbier and more beige just with his presence. I kept darting glances in his direction and blinking in hopes that when I opened my eyes he'd disappear and I was, in fact, dreaming. Nightmaring. Was that a verb? If not, it should have been.

I couldn't make my mouth work, so my aunt just kept talking. “This is something I'd been thinking about for a long time—you knew that. I wanted to talk to you about it sooner, I did, but there was so much…
happening
, and then, well”—she flapped her hand toward the corner—“with Dan, and the
sensitivity
of his situation, and so we just
waited
until we were sure, and you understand, don't you, sweetheart?”

Finally, what I managed to say was “Who's he?”

Aunt Tessa blinked. “I'm sorry, honey, what?”

“Him.” I nodded my chin at the big man, though he wasn't taller than me, who'd rung my doorbell and seemed to eschew sitting. He stood just outside the bedroom door, not at attention, but not lounging either.

“Oh,” my aunt said.

Obviously, he was at least half listening and not required to pretend he wasn't, because he turned his head and smiled. He had a nice smile, actually. “I'm the one who caught you, Miss.” And that, I supposed was true, because if not for him, my head probably would have hit the stairs pretty hard.

The man in the corner I was trying to pretend didn't exist cleared his throat. “Manuel is with the Service. There've been some security…concerns, so he's been with me for a while.”

My brain wasn't processing the importance of
security
and
concerns
, but I understood Service, capital S, as in
Secret
. That made a lot of sense, actually, the way such a large man could so easily blend into the wall. “Where are your sunglasses?” I asked him.

He cracked another smile and you could tell he was trying, really hard, not to laugh. He coughed a little before he said, “I prefer not to wear them at night, Miss.”

“You can call me Lainey.”

“Thank you,” he said, though I could tell he'd probably keep up with the Miss thing.

Next to me, my aunt's forehead looked a bit like an accordion. “Sweetie, I think—that is, are you having migraines again? Do you need one of your pills?”

I looked at her. “I'm fine. I just need some coffee.”

“Er. Okay! We'll get some!” she said, too brightly. She, too, kept flicking glances at the senator in the corner. “I mean,” she amended, “I'll have decaf.” Her hand fluttered to her stomach and I had this horrible, horrible feeling I might throw up.

I stood too quickly, making my head swim, and when my fingers failed to grab hold of my dresser, I sat right back down again. The bed gave a muted squeak underneath me and my little, pregnant aunt rocked back and forth. Right about then, the front door banged open and Natalie said, “Whoa,” before calling, “Lainey?”

“In here, Nat. Don't mind him.”

“Um,” she said and appeared in the doorway, fairly clutching a tray of white and green cups. Nat glanced at Manuel before her gaze traveled to me and Aunt T. “Oh, um, hi. I think you're—” she was saying when she realized there was still one more person in the room. “Holy shit!” Her eyes grew so wide I thought a blood vessel might burst. The coffee tray tipped precariously toward the floor, and Manuel, very graciously, reached out a hand and tilted it back up. Nat didn't even notice. “You're running for
president
!”

Mr. President smiled. “Daniel Astor,” he said, with an affable wave of his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Holy shit,” she repeated.

“That,” he said, “would be my opposition. You can just call me Dan.”

“I—um, hi. Dan,” she said. It barely came out as a breath. I hated him all over again right then for being so damned charming. “I'm just going to sit out here.” She backed out of the room, squeaking as she bumped into Manuel, who once again saved the coffees.

“Which one is Miss Young's?” he murmured, in a voice much more soothing than you'd expect from him.

“Lainey,” I reminded.

Eyes wide, Nat swallowed as she held out my cup. “This one, um, I'm not sure who you are.”

“Security,” he said, smiling that nice smile again and plucking my coffee out of her hand. I
really
didn't think Secret Service were supposed to have senses of humor. Mr. Funny Man breached the doorway and brought me my coffee.

“Thanks, Manuel.”

“My friends call me Manny.”

“My friends call me Lainey.”

“Touché.” His eyes crinkled when he smiled, and I thought that so far, he was the best part of this whole rotten deal.