“WHY IS THIS YOUR PROBLEM?!”
“BECAUSE I DON’T WANT A HATEFUL FUCKING MEAN GIRLFRIEND!”
Wyatt’s stock just skyrocketed to me. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard him. But hearing Mia had remained on the Hate New Roommate Train wasn’t a surprise to me. Just confirmed everything I’d been feeling, and to think I almost considered trying again with them.
“She ditched Nicole and the group,” Mia was still trying, but she was losing some of her momentum. “What kind of person does that? I mean, that’s so mean and rude and disrespectful. Nicole didn’t have to invite her at all in the first place.”
“Yeah. You know, it was kind of shitty what she did, but put yourself in her shoes. She told Savannah she had driven across the nation to come here. She told Savannah she didn’t know anyone else in town. You are a bitch to her within two seconds of stepping inside this new place. You’re surrounded by all your friends. She’s alone. She was set up by Char, too, and yeah, that was an insanely bitchy move on Char’s part, but it’s Char. Then, what I hear is that Lisa was a bitch to her. Sorry, but I’d probably ditch, too, because you never know when the tide is going to turn.”
Silence. Total and complete silence.
Then, a hiccupping sob. “I’m not a mean person.”
“No, you’re not, but you’re acting like one.”
“Wyatt,” a soft gasp. I don’t know from who.
“Look, you can hate the girl all you want, but at least make it be for a good reason. You’re hurt and mad at Char. Take it out on Char! That’s the kind of girlfriend I fell in love with, someone who had a problem and took it up with that problem. You can’t take it up with this girl because you know it’s not really about her. And you’re scared to deal with Char. I don’t get why because you know that Char’s gonna wake up and come back crawling and begging to be let back into this house, so you actually have the upper-hand with your old bestie.”
I was firmly team Wyatt here.
“If you want to rip into the new girl, fine. I’m with you, but make sure it’s because she’s done something that deserves it.”
My team allegiance was slipping.
Then the doorbell rang. Followed by a fist pounding against it.
“What the—”
Someone gasped again.
And then I heard my worst nightmare happening in real life, in real time, and I was frozen to stop it.
“Is Dusty here?”
Low. Angry. Irritated. Frustrated. A hint of savage impatience, too, and then as I swooned, but not in a good way, the fainting way because this was not happening. No way because I couldn’t deal if it was—and then Wyatt went, “DUDE! You’re Stone Reeves!”
There was a moment here.
It was the beginning of the storm. The air is thick, heavy. Hair sticking to the back of your neck. Your hands are oddly clammy. Your pulse is racing. You know a train is coming your way. You know you’re on the tracks. You know you should jump off, but you can’t. You’re frozen because it’s not just a flight or fight response. There’s the whole freezing response, and as your heart picks up in force, in speed, in sound, you know you’re about to get pummeled.
Yeah. Because that’s what was about to happen.
Then a door slammed upstairs and I heard a gasp, “Stone Reeves is here?”
Another pounding of feet.
Shit. They were coming from everywhere.
“Oh my God.”
That was Nicole. I recognized her voice just as I heard a growl rip from Stone.
“Hi. Yeah. I really need to talk to Dusty first, and then I can come back and chill for a while.”
“Chill. He said chill.” That was Wyatt. I could almost hear the face-splitting smile through those words.
A giggle. That was Mia.
She’d been screaming seconds ago, beside herself with anger, and now she was giggling.
I wanted to vomit.
The door in front of me opened and Lisa came out, her hair in a mess and her eyes soft from sleeping. Her face looked a little puffy. She stopped in the doorway, seeing me, and for a split second, we weren’t enemies.
She frowned, hearing the chaos above. “What’s happening?”
Um.
I said the first thing I thought, “Fire!”
And with that, I could move. The paralysis broke from me, and as Lisa yelled and rushed upstairs, I turned and sprinted for my room.
Thank God I hadn’t changed into pajamas yet. It was nearing eight that night, so with my heart trying to pummel its way out of my chest, I grabbed everything I thought I’d need. I had no plan, other than maybe sleeping in my car, but I was running. As far away as I could.
He sounded furious.
Yeah.
Running was the best course of action and the only thing that could save me right now. I was embracing my inner sailfish.
Chapter Ten
Purse. Books for tomorrow. Phone. Keys. I checked—I had a bra on. I toed on my sandals, and I threw my arm through my backpack, pulling it on without stopping, and I was out the back door. Wait. Backtrack—I grabbed my toothbrush and paste from the bathroom, then I was running up the stairs.
Out the door.
“Fuck no, you don’t!”
A cement arm grabbed me around the waist, and just like we were kids, Stone had me up in the air.
“No!”
Everything was turned upside down. Me included.
My purse was open and all my stuff fell to the ground. My backpack went down, hitting my head, then falling off my arm and thudding next to my purse. My phone fell out of my pocket. My keys rained down from my hands because I was trying to grab onto Stone’s shoulders so I didn’t land on my head, too, even though I knew he was more than capable of lifting me over his head.
But I was kicking and out of control, and I swung, hitting something.
He grunted, ducking, then putting me on my feet. “Jesus. I forgot how solid you are.”
Solid.
My ass, I was solid.
Red in the face, hair literally everywhere, I shoved him back from me. “Get off me!”
“I’m off! Fuck’s sake. Chill the fuck out.”
He held his hands up, taking a step back, and then it was time to assess.
I was refusing to look at him. I knew how Stone looked. His face and physique was on the television on any given sports channel almost every day, or on the Internet, or people were talking about him on the radio. The team was local. I knew when I applied here that I’d have to deal with going into Stone-Land, but I hadn’t realized it would be this bad.
So, no.
I did not need to know how he looked like a walking, well-cut ad for the Marines. He was a professional athlete. He and his teammates could walk and nuns would swoon. No joke. I heard one once, and that’d been when he was in college and I’d been visiting my mom in Hospice before she was sent home to die.
The memory was like a bucket of cold water.
I was drenched with reality, and fuck that. I looked up, seeing him still taking me in, a look in his eye I didn’t want to identify, a hand at his jaw, and I snarled. “What are you doing here?”
Shit.
Now I was looking right at him, and I hadn’t been prepared.
He was gorgeous, with his ripped, lean body, and his crew cut, and those hazel eyes that were darkening, taking me in. Even his face had morphed into an athletic machine. I didn’t know that was possible, but his cheekbones were wide and slanting upwards. His jawline was so pronounced, ending in a strong square and fuuuuuuck, he was hawt.