Fuck it. This is for Beck.
I take the elevator at Vanier and knock on the cracked-open door of six-oh-six at the end of the hall.
There’s no answer, but I slowly push it open to reveal a girl with straw-blond hair and alert eyes perched in a chair by one of the two desks.
“I’m looking for Annie,” I say.
“She’s in the bathroom.”
“I’ll wait.” I realize she’s the girl who was with Annie at the opening assembly, the one who said she was in six-oh-four. “Elle, right? This isn’t your room.”
“Not yours either.”
She’s got me there.
But Elle returns to a notebook computer, and I step inside.
I know immediately which half of the room is Annie’s. The cover on the bed is purple, and there’s a stuffed fish on the pillow.
Fish on the desk, too. Huh.
“Working on something for class?” I ask, mostly to make small talk.
“New bits for a set. I’m a comic.”
I shoot her an admiring look. “That’s thankless.”
“I get off on being laughed at. Tried eight years of therapy and learned this is cheaper.”
A standard-issue dresser draws my gaze. There are photos on top and a frame turned down. I lift it to find a picture of Annie with Jax, though he’s wearing sunglasses and a grin and is almost unrecognizable.
I set the picture right-side up.
Under it is a stack of Polaroids.
It takes me a second to realize what they are. Words in black ink on an organic canvas.
My tongue wets my lip, and I glance over my shoulder to where Elle’s typing on her keyboard.
I read the lines on the first picture, absorb them into my soul before turning carefully to the next. There’re a couple of dozen photos. I get through half before a sound drifts into my brain.
“What are you doing?”
The sharp voice has me turning.
Annie’s standing at the door, and my gaze drags down her body—her toes, painted the same purple as her bed; long, curvy legs; the dip between her breasts just above the top of a knotted towel; the long hair, darkened and piled on top of her head, a few strands dripping on her bare shoulders; that oval face, full lips and amber eyes brimming with accusation.
Desire slams into me, but I manage to slide the photos behind my back.
“Elle?” Annie demands before I can respond, but Elle looks between us, eyes narrowing in fascination.
“You have a gentleman caller,” she drawls.
Annie folds her arms over her chest. “Tyler’s no gentleman. Why are you here?”
I force my attention to her face. “I need your help. The other night you… asked me for something.” From the way Annie sucks in a breath, she gets I’m talking about keeping her secrets. “I want something from you, too.”
“Elle—” Annie starts, and I hold up a hand.
“It’s fine,” I say. “She can stay.”
“Why, thank you.” Elle grins, shifting back in her seat to study us as if we’re two different species trying to mate.
I turn back to Annie. “Beck had this audition he’s been psyched for all week. It didn’t go well. He’s also had some shit going on, and it’s his birthday this weekend. Maybe we can do a little party or a cake? The kind that doesn’t need refrigerating,” I amend.
Her suspicion is replaced by concern, and if I wasn’t sure she cared about him, I am now.
Annie sits on the bed, crossing her legs. The towel rides up, and I press my tongue against the floor of my mouth to keep from swallowing it.
“Beck needs a party,” she says.
“We could take him to a club,” Elle volunteers.
“Like Leo’s?” I ask.
Annie shakes her head slowly. “No. Somewhere you can dance.”
Elle leaps up and snaps her laptop closed. “I’m in. I want to dance my ass off. Hell, I bet even Rae would come. Sure, she’d cross the street to avoid us, but the girl likes to party.”
Annie cocks her head at Elle. “Where’re you going?”
“Funeral. I don’t know the guy,” she says as she reaches for the door. “They’re the only place to witness the full range of human emotions. And they usually have snacks.”
In a moment, Elle’s gone, leaving Annie and me in a room that somehow feels smaller than it did with three of us in it.
“Your neighbor goes to strangers’ funerals and your roommate avoids you,” I say. “Nice girls.”
“I’m pretty sure Rae’s going to voodoo me out of Vanier.”
I cross to the bed with the little figures along the back and bend to look at them. “They don’t look sinister.”
We exchange a smile that’s gone as fast as it appears, as if we’ve both realized it’s an old habit, and a bad one at that.
“I need to get dressed,” she says, watching me with an unreadable expression. “I have class.”
She’s already opening a drawer, pulling out clothes. I turn away, the photos still in my hands.
The unmistakeable whoosh of a towel dropping has my head jerking upright.
Is she naked right now?
“I’m auditioning for the fall showcase,” Annie says from behind me, forcing me to focus on her words instead of wondering what color panties she’s pulling on. “Beck says I shouldn’t because you need it more.”
The rise and fall of her voice says she’s moving, but I can’t hear any clothes.
“You didn’t need it last year. You had an offer to work for Zeke. So, how’d you end up at Vanier?”
My chest tightens. I’d rather be tortured by her undressing behind me than talk about this, but I force out a response. “The contract didn’t work out.”
“Why not?”
I thumb through the photos in my hands, a dull ache in my chest. “It doesn’t matter. Life is hard. We have to go after what we want.”
“Like you did.”
Pain rips through my gut. “I thought I was doing the right thing. For everyone, Six.”
I didn’t mean to blurt out the nickname, but I can’t take it back.
In that instant, I’m remembering the time I went to see her, two months after I left Dallas.
It was after the shit with my dad and with Zeke.
I rode all night to get to there because I needed to see her, to know something in this world made sense.
She had no idea I was there, sitting on my bike, the ache of weeks of not sleeping and hours of riding heavy in my bones.
I wanted to tell her I’d fucked up—not because I lost my contract, but because I missed her and I hated that I couldn’t text her funny things from my day, that I didn’t get to hear her low voice in my ear… that I didn’t get to kiss her, to feel her breath mix with mine.
I wanted to say Jax was wrong, that I’d be willing to do whatever it took to be the guy she needed.
I hadn’t thought of what would happen when I got to her, just that when I did, everything would somehow be okay.
It wasn’t. At least, it wasn’t the okay I expected.
She was standing outside the library where she was working for the summer with a guy—not someone from Oakwood, or I would’ve known him. She was smiling and laughing, and without so much as looking at me, it was clear that we were done. She was over it.