Honesty (Mark of Nexus) (12 page)

Riding back with Corynn was
almost
as awkward as the carpool with ERA.

Oh well. At least the Jeep had been in the lot like I’d expected—intact, with the keys stuck in the tailpipe and the gun slid under the driver’s seat. I wasn’t about to complain.

After I dropped off the British Bloodspiller, I fired off a text to Wallace.
“Aiden Ross is stable and Corynn is back in her dorm. Faye said you can visit after the memorial service. Stay safe.”

I tightened my grip on the wheel and looked around as I waited, letting out a deep breath. The campus had fallen eerily silent since I left. Flashlights crossed here and there, illuminating battered tents and worse-off figures.

Come on, this place is creeping me out…

My phone chirped, announcing a two-letter reply.
“TY.”

“Good enough,” I announced in a tired voice, putting the Jeep into drive. “One more stop.”

Rachel’s place was only a few minutes from campus, but I had trouble finding it again. The neighborhood didn’t have any memorable landmarks, aside from graffiti, and I could barely concentrate.

Stress, exhaustion—whatever it was, I felt every pound of it around my shoulders. The streetlights seared my eyes, making them tear up for no reason, and my pulse quickened.

What the hell? Get it together.

Finally, I recognized a shabby little house at the end of the street. Same gold beater, same broken fence. I cut the engine a few houses down and walked.

I just needed to see her. Once. Convince myself she was whole, even if I wasn’t. Memories of her previous apprehension didn’t occur to me until I was already mid-knock.

The door opened a crack. “Cole?”

I leaned around the opening, squinting into a dim room. “Rach?”

She pushed a coppery tress behind her ear and crossed her arms over a baggy t-shirt. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking on you. Sorry I didn’t call. Did you hear what happened?”

She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder and nodded. “Yes, it’s terrible.”

“I was there,” I admitted involuntarily. “It was bad, Rach. Really bad.”

Her eyes rounded and she reached for me, hesitating an inch from my face. “Are you okay?”

I nodded and swallowed a quick-forming lump in my throat.

“Hold on a second.”

The door closed, and I heard some shuffling around. A few seconds later, she reemerged wearing a flannel button-up over the oversized t-shirt and sweats. She slipped past me to sit on a chipped porch swing. “We can talk out here…if you want.”

Again, I nodded.

There was something about her, something about the air she carried, that made me want to start confessing things and never stop. To be someone else. To have other things to talk about, besides the messed up shit I had to carry.

“Were you visiting Wallace?” she asked in a quiet voice, her skin ethereal in the moonlight. “Did…something happen?”

I shook my head and sat beside her. “He and Rena were at the dance. I came to, uh, give him a message. Then it all just…”

My eyes were doing that weird, burny shit again. I looked up at the ragged wood above us and felt her touch my leg. “They might’ve ended up with a few cuts and sprains, but their friend—that Aiden Ross kid—he didn’t make it.”

She covered a gasp, absolutely horror-stricken over someone she didn’t even know. “Oh no.”

It hurt me to lie to her. For once, I wished I had the kind of thing Wallace had—a loyal outsider to share the burden of all this knowledge. But I didn’t. Rachel wasn’t my anything. I couldn’t tell her anything but the press copy.

“They’re really torn up about it,” I went on. “I guess they were all pretty close.”

“I can’t even imagine.” She lowered her hand to cup the other one, both on my leg. “Cole, I’m so sorry.”

I tried to pull my lips back into something resembling a smile, but I had a feeling I hadn’t pulled it off. “It’s okay.”

“You must’ve been so scared.” She looked me over with glittering eyes, shaking her head back and forth.

Her concern burned a hole in my chest. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had worried so much over me, my well-being, not what I’d done. My throat closed. Maybe it had been a bad idea to come here. I was off my game, shaken—

She pulled me in, wrapping her arms around my neck. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

My breath caught.

Just like that, the dam broke. My eyes—treacherous bastards—burned streaks down my face, and I buried my face in her hair. It didn’t make a damn bit of sense. It wasn’t like I’d lost friends or gotten negotiated into ERA’s recruitment mission. Why was I shaking?

Fuuuuuuck.
I bit my lip hard, trying to stem the flow of emotion. If this was how I reacted to someone showing they cared about me, maybe my shrink was right. Maybe I
did
have issues. What had happened to my tolerance for pain?

“Just let it out,” Rachel coaxed in a soft voice. “I’m right here.”

You’re making it worse.
I gritted my teeth. Distraction was necessary. I needed something,
anything else
, to concentrate on. I inhaled and breathed in the fruity scent of her hair.
Strawberries?

Ah, hell. Who was I kidding?

It’d been a long, hard day—the first of many to come. We were on the verge of major shit going down, and for once, I didn’t have a plan. Everyone counted on me to bail them out, but I…I…

An amber light flicked on overhead, and Rachel pulled back with a sharp intake of breath. Her wide eyes took in the door, seconds before some creep poked his head out.

I scrubbed my face raw with my sleeve.

“Why, Rachel,” the man’s lips wrenched back in some kind of sick pleasure, “I didn’t expect to find you out here at this time of night.”

“I’m sorry.” She looked down at her lap. “My friend was on campus during the—”

“No need to explain to me, sweetheart. Why don’t you bring him in out of the cool air?”

“Um…” She looked at me, pleading.

I didn’t like this assclown. I mean, sure, superficially speaking, he looked like a sex offender. Big ol’ glasses from the seventies, weirdly styled hair. But there was something else, something unnerving about the way he looked at her.

And it pissed me off.

“Sure,” I said, standing up. “Thanks for the invitation.”

He took a step forward, blocking our path to extend his hand in a power move. “Gene Brewster, man of the house.”

“Cole Blake,” I took it, wishing in that moment I had Wallace’s strength, “man of the porch.”

He laughed and clapped my shoulder as he stepped aside. “Welcome to my home, Cole.”

“Thanks.”

Rachel studied the floor as we followed him, her hair falling in a silken curtain to cover her face. There was something going on here. Something I didn’t like.

We settled in on a misshapen couch, and she flipped the TV on with an aging remote. Gene hesitated at the stairs. “Now, Rachel, your friend can stay over if he needs a place to stay, but be careful. We don’t want any accidents happening like last time.”

Red scorched her cheeks, and she jerked her chin upward. “I got it.”

Weird.

“Good.” He snickered and made his way upstairs. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Yeah right,” she grumbled under her breath, turning the volume up. Once he was safely out of earshot, she slumped forward. “I’m sorry. I was hoping they were asleep.”

“Your step-dad?”

“Mom’s boyfriend.”

“Ah.” I blanked my expression. “Is he new?”

She combed the ends of her hair with her fingertips, pretending to watch an infomercial. “Afraid not.”

“Do we like him?” I asked, leaning back.

A sad smile curved her lips. “Afraid not.”

“Ah,” I said again. My mind raced through a mental catalog of every way I knew to torture and kill a man, but couldn’t focus enough to settle on anything. “That sucks.”

Want me to destroy him for you?

“So, do you?” she asked, turning to sneak a glance at me.

“Do I what?”

“Need a place to spend the night? You were probably planning on spending the night with Wallace before the storm. Or maybe you were headed home and—”

I waved her off. “I’ll just sleep in my Jeep.”

An uneasy silence settled between us before she spoke again.

“I know it’s not very nice here, Cole.” Her brows pinched together. “But we do have a couch you can sleep on. There’s no reason for you to sleep outside.”

Ah, hell. She thought I wanted to sleep in my Jeep because of the quality of her home? I shook my head. “Are you kidding me? I love it here. Reminds me of my grandma’s.”

“You don’t have to say that.”

“I’m serious. It’s way comfy. I feel perfectly at home.”

She looked up through her lashes. “So, you’re staying?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go find a blanket.”

When she went to stand up, I caught her wrist. “Rach.”

“Yes?”

“I…never mind. Thank you.”

Her half-hearted smile returned. “It’s no trouble.”

Something about this girl made me
throb
—and not just in my dick. Those soft-spoken words, the pleasant mask that didn’t quite reach her eyes. I wasn’t one for heart-to-hearts, but it seemed like she needed one with a desperation no one else understood.

Though, what could
I
do to comfort
her
? She’d sensed the storm inside me out there and offered me her shoulder, like she’d understood I couldn’t vocalize it without losing my shit. That was instinctual. Human. I couldn’t do that.

“Here you go,” Rachel announced, entering my line of vision with a flowery bedspread and a lumpy pillow. “I know it’s probably not your style, but—”

“It’s perfect.”

She brightened and set the pillow at my side, smacking it a few times for good measure. The bedspread was shaken out to cover my legs and drape across the cushions. “There we are. All cozy.”

“Thank you.” I tried to meet her gaze, but it was darting between the couch and the staircase. “Do you…want to hang out for a little while before bed?”

“Oh.” She nipped at her bottom lip and listened for a second, probably trying to detect movement from the assclown upstairs. “Sure, I’d like that.”

“Me too.” I stayed perfectly still as she positioned herself on the opposite end of the couch, afraid even the slightest movement could spook her into a retreat. A clock ticked from somewhere in the kitchen.

Rachel tucked her feet under her legs and folded her hands under her lap. “So…”

I had to play this cool. Imitate Grandma or Wallace or—”So, what did he mean when he said you didn’t want another accident?”

Damn it, mouth! I said play it cool.

Her brows pinched in instant worry before smoothing out. “That? N-Nothing. He just likes to torment me. That’s all.”

“Really?” I continued, my exhausted mind betraying me. “Because it sounded like a threat veiled as teasing. He deliberately said it in front of me to embarrass you, which suggests that specific phrasing had weight, so I’m thinking it could refer to the last time you had a guy friend over. Accident could mean he chased him out with a baseball bat. Or hell, it could be one of those tell-them-you-fell-down-the-stairs abuse scenarios—in which case, I will happily murder that prick in his sleep. No. Scratch that. I’d want him awake, anticipating the—”

“Cole!”

Her sudden exclamation derailed my train of thought, and I froze. Had I really rambled that all out loud?
Shit.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to say prick. Or, ya know, plan his murder.”

“That’s not it,” she whispered, bringing a hand to her quickly rising and falling chest. “I just…that’s not…”

This time, it was my brows that furrowed together. “What?”

“He meant that I got pregnant, okay?”

Rachel is a mother?
That didn’t make sense. Rachel was of the saintly variety. She’d been thumping her church tambourine next to my brother for the past eight months. So, did she get married right out of high school? And where was the kid?

I kept my face neutral as a thousand scenarios played out in my mind.
Someone tapped that sweet, uncharted land before me?
I thought I had four more weeks to spend with her. Now I had to back off before I screwed with her kid’s fragile little psyche. They’d want me to stick around and play daddy, and that was a no go.

No one else would ever compare to me. It wouldn’t be fair.

“Fuck,” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry.” She wrung her hands, staring at the couch cushions. “I didn’t want to drop it on you like that.”

“No, no…” I waved her off. “It’s cool. I mean, women get pregnant every day. Why would that contribute to my slow, but inevitable breakdown? I’m just…wow. Is the kid here?”

A sorrowful expression twisted her features, and my heart wrenched. “I gave him up.”

“Oh.”

“I was in high school, Cole. Barely sixteen. I’d always been this quiet, reading wallflower, and then, all of a sudden, I’d become visible to someone. Special, even. He was too good to be true.” She leaned in, tears glistening her eyes. “
Really.
Three weeks after he found out, his parents transferred him to another school. He wouldn’t answer my calls or messages. I couldn’t get a hold of him.”

My fist clenched. “Tell me his name. I’ll find him.”

Her smooth skin glided over mine as she covered my hand. “That’s sweet, but not what I was getting at. What I’m trying to tell you is that I was young and terrified and completely unprepared to care for another human being. The best thing I could do for my…
my
son
was to give him his best shot in life.”

“Adoption,” I said, as the pieces came together.

She nodded. “His name is Kyler. He’s almost five now.”

I couldn’t help but stare in that moment, taking her in with a whole new level of respect. “I bet he’s beautiful.”

The corners of her mouth lifted in a bittersweet curve. “I always imagine he is.”

Something ignited within me then, and I had to fight to keep from green-lighting her. This wasn’t the time to make my move. Not with her feeling this vulnerable. What she needed was a friend. A regular, human friend.

And I needed a smoke.

“So, when Gene makes remarks like that, he’s really just warning me.” She pulled back, leaving my hand undesirably cool. “He’s not trying to be mean.”

“I see.”

“He had to pay for my medical expenses; my mother can’t work. I owe a huge debt to him.”

“Right.”
Not.

From the sounds of things, I might’ve been right about the abuse thing. It just happened to be verbal instead of physical. Unfortunately for Gene, that was still worth the death penalty in my book—or the equivalent in psychological warfare.

Her shoulders sagged. “I can’t explain it. He’s not my favorite person, but I can’t ignore what he’s done for me. He works all the time to support us. When he gets home, he’s tired and just needs to let off a little steam.”

I bit my tongue. Literally.

“We need him.” She widened her eyes, near frantic to explain. “Without that income, my mom and I…”

“I get it.”

But I won’t allow it. Mental note—look into Gene Brewster.

“So, do Rena and Wallace have a place to stay?” Rachel asked, making a not-so-subtle effort to steer the conversation elsewhere. “I mean, was Reid badly damaged? It was too dark to see anything on the news.”

“Yeah, their dorm seemed intact. The northwestern end of campus took the brunt of the storm. I’m sure they’re holed up in his room looking at wedding magazines or something.”

She blinked.

“He proposed, remember?”

“Oh, right.” She laughed to herself about something and shook her head. “Of course.”

“What?”

“Hmm?” She looked up. “Oh, it’s nothing. I was just remembering a discussion Rena and I had a few months ago.”

“About what?” I asked, unable to picture them on chatty terms.

She lifted her shoulders. “You, mostly.”

“Me?” I’d only met Rena three or four months ago. What would they have to talk about then?
Wait. Meeting Rena…

Just like that, the warehouse-induced paranoia returned, slamming under my shoulder blades. The logical part of my brain knew Sis hadn’t told anyone, especially for something as stupid as gossip, but I couldn’t fathom—

“She asked if I knew anything about you,” Rachel went on. “She was worried that you and Wallace were having problems. I just thought it was funny how things change. Here we are, months later, having a discussion of our own.”

Whew. Pre-warehouse. I’m safe.

“Well, I’ve never been one for change.” I inched closer. “But with reasoning like that, you might be the one to convince me.”

That earned me a real laugh—a giggle, even. Her sweet eyes drank me in, alight with slaphappy mirth. “I’m glad you came.”

That’s what she sai—no, inappropriate. Not now.

I leaned in, lowered my voice, and tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “Me too.”

Rachel and I talked until…I couldn’t remember.

It’d been so natural, one conversation leading to another. I couldn’t tell you the last time I’d spoken that much, period, let alone for no reason. The whole thing had just become so addicting, finding out bits and pieces about her—assembling the puzzle in my mind.

When I came to, pink sunlight poured through the faded curtains, and something warm snuggled against my side.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” a kind voice offered from just beyond my scope of vision. “You two looked so peaceful.”

My first instinct was to grab my knife.

My second was to cover my junk—until I realized it was already covered.

And my third instructed I play along to get a better idea of the situation.

“Thank you for the consideration,” I mumbled, craning my neck back. A quick analysis of the room reminded me where I was and what had happened. What it didn’t offer, however, was the identity of my conversation partner.

“Oh, sorry.” The woman’s voice grew louder as she came around the corner of the kitchen, the scent of frying meat wafting around her. “Where are my manners? I’m Rachel’s mom, Wanda.”

Her rounded silhouette filled the door’s opening, easily twice her daughter’s width. Maybe more. My brain scrambled for a polite response as I tried to find any shred of resemblance between them, but it just wasn’t happening.

Thankfully, my mind works at incomprehensible speeds.

“I’m Cole.” I fought the bedspread to raise my free hand. “Thanks for letting me crash here, last night. After everything that happened…”

“No need to explain to me, hon. I saw it on the news. Terrible thing that happened on campus. We’re just so fortunate it didn’t turn this direction.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Mom?” Rachel asked in a weak voice, stirring beside me. “What time is it?”

“Time to stop using this poor fella as a pillow. Why didn’t you look in the attic for blankets? I’m sure they would’ve suited him better than that ratty old bedspread of yours.”

Rachel turned red from her ears to the tip of her nose as she jerked away from me. “Mom!”

“What?” Wanda gave a bark of laughter and shifted her weight. “It
is
ratty. Gene wouldn’t even put it in the storefront.”

“What storefront?” I interjected, trying to keep up.

She waved a dismissive hand. “He manages the thrift store on Bolton Drive. When donations come in that aren’t fit for sale—say, they’re soiled or in poor condition—he’s allowed to bring them home.”

“Can we change the subject?” Rachel begged, mortified tears building in her eyes. “Please?”

“There’s no shame in it, kiddo.” Wanda fought to catch her breath from the conversation, shaking her head. “It helps us keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. That’s what’s important.”

I found Rachel’s hand under the blanket and gave a squeeze. Sure, I’d always dreamed of spending two to five weeks with a cougar who’d buy me a Testarossa, but money didn’t define a person. Even I knew that, and I was an asshole.

“Wallace used to dent cans at the grocery store,” I admitted, doing my best to make her understand the normalcy here. “Not the most honest thing, but when you live with your widowed grandmother, things get tight. You find discounts where you can.”

“He’s your brother, right?” Wanda asked behind me. “Rachel told me about you two.”

Rachel grabbed the pillow and buried her face in it. “Mommm…”

I laughed. Aside from the domineering assclown whom I presumed to be at work, this house was pretty entertaining. I could get used to it. “Yeah, he’s my brother. What’d she tell you about us?”

“That you’re the more handsome of the two.”

“I’m moving out,” Rachel murmured into the worn fabric with a groan. “Far, far away. To Alaska, maybe.”

“There, there.” I gave her back an awkward pat. “You didn’t lie. I really
am
the handsome one.”

Wanda giggled and waddled back into the kitchen, hollering over her shoulder, “I made breakfast, if you’re hungry.”

“I’m always hungry,” I yelled back. “What’re we having?”

She appeared around the corner with a spatula. “Oh, it’s just leftover potatoes and Spam with egg mixed in. Little bit of pepper.”

“Sounds amazing.” I stood up, pulling Rachel alongside me. “C’mon. We can eat and plan our next date—the one I haven’t asked you on yet. Spoiler alert, I’m going to.”

Her disheveled, auburn hair made adorable loops around her crown as she tilted her chin to stare at me. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re crazy?”

I winked and led her toward the smell of breakfast. “You’re the first today.”