Chapter 33 Neve
THIRTY-THREE
NEVE
Karter’s roommate is out of town and her condo is big.
Not quite like Faust’s castle, but we can’t all be sponsored college hockey players, can we?
I sip on a canned vodka tonic as Karter tosses her seafoam green hair over one shoulder and leans into me, a beer in her hand.
“So, what did you do with them in there?” She grins at me and the girl is clearly tipsy. Her green eyes are wide; mascara smudged on her upper lid. She’s gorgeous though, and if it wasn’t for my post-fingering bathroom visit at Slyth’s, my makeup would still be all over the place too.
I take another drink as Cynthia cackles from her spot on the chair opposite me and Karter in the all-white living room.
White walls, white coffee table, white chair, white couches, but the dark paintings hanging all over the walls alongside the obsidian mouth mounted on one give the place a strangely Gothic vibe rather than a boring, sterile one.
I actually think I should do mine and Cyn’s living room like this. Add white paint to up the dark academia thing we have going on. Briefly, I wonder if Nolan would fund it. Tomorrow, I make a mental note I have to ask him about Buffalo and actually return his call if I want his money.
Nothing will come of my inquiry but he’s been hounding me for updates anyway.
I can’t avoid him forever, as much as sometimes I’d like to try. Am I a bitch for using him for funds? Maybe. But I have to deal with the mental burden of his overprotectiveness so it’s a fair exchange.
I feel someone staring hard at me and realize it’s Cyn, her gaze intense as she waits for me to answer Karter’s question.
“Same thing Tasia was doing?” Cynthia presses, and this time, she isn’t laughing.
I take another drink. I might pass out here before Cyn and I can get a ride back to our place.
Before we left Tas at Slyth’s, all three of us went into the private room to check on her.
As much as the girl irritates me and clearly just wants the attention of some man—any man—I didn’t want to leave her to the wolves, particularly since she’d been drinking.
But she was perched on Sylvan’s lap and Faust was nowhere to be found.
Sylvan locked eyes with me and smirked before I rolled my own and walked out, letting Karter and Cyn talk to Tasia.
She had another girl friend there, Darcie, her roommate, and Karter stalked the girl in the lounge to make sure she’d promise to bring Tasia back to their place at the end of the night.
I tip my head back on the couch, desperate to be out of these leather pants and this fucking bodysuit, but I like Karter and I don’t want to make Cynthia leave yet.
I don’t really want to be alone with my thoughts either.
“We’re not talking about it.” My words come out slow and slurred, and I mean it to be humorous, but the girls don’t laugh.
“Neve.” Cynthia’s serious voice.
“First of all,” Karter says, and I feel slightly relieved hearing her own slurred words as she shifts beside me on the couch. “Tasia is crazy.”
Great.
“And I mean that so nicely. She’s one of my best friends. But I’d hate to be her enemy.”
“Yeah, well, I’d hate to be Neve’s, so don’t threaten us with a good time,” Cynthia chirps in and my chest feels like it’s going to burst with pride.
I drag my head up and look at her, smiling as she arches her brows at me from across the room. She’s got a water bottle in her hand and she coolly sips from it as Karter sighs beside me.
“Oh, boy,” she says, and she drinks, too, but definitely not water.
“Cyn is right,” I say, and I mean it. “For now, I’m letting her win. I don’t give a fuck about those boys.” It’s true, isn’t it? The tension in my limbs when I say it makes it feel like a lie, but I. Don’t. Care.
“But you might if you keep fucking with them, and she won’t give up without a fight.”
“Have you seen us next to each other?” I raise my brows, staring at Karter. “She doesn’t want to get physical with me.”
“Unless she has a death wish,” Cyn murmurs, and the words land hard, considering…
the murders. None of that has come up tonight, shockingly.
Although there have been murmurs of the deaths on campus, it’s oddly not a big topic.
The local news seems to be suppressing it, and they finally made clear neither of the deaths were students.
It’s like people don’t care, because they weren’t one of us.
Karter glances down at her fingers wrapped around the beer bottle. Her nails are a glassy, seafoam green. It must be her favorite color and I want to see if she used it in her bedroom so I can borrow more decorating ideas but obviously now is not the time for all that.
“I know you can hold your own, Neve. It’s just… She’s boy crazy, for one,” Karter says, lifting one finger off the Stella. “And when she feels like she’s not getting enough attention, she gets angry.”
“I mean, so do I.”
“Yeah,” Cyn adds. “That’s kinda relatable.”
Karter shakes her head though, and she doesn’t laugh. “No, it’s like… She rages. Destroys her stuff. She once got suspended at our high school.”
“What? How long have you known her?” I ask, surprised. Sure, Tasia introduced me to Karter, but they didn’t necessarily act like besties and they don’t room together.
Karter shrugs one shoulder as she glances at me. “Most of my life honestly. She was worried she wouldn’t get in at Drayton because of her behavior.”
I think of my clinical analysis, but Tasia doesn’t really fit a psychopath’s description.
Maybe something else, though. Borderline?
But mentally ill people are more likely to be the victim of a crime rather than the perpetrator.
That’s drilled into us. But so is watching for signs that something wayward might have happened or could happen in the future.
No.
Tasia definitely did not kill Will or Jackson. She wouldn’t even know them, would she? Then again… I did. And she seems happy taking my leftovers. Maybe she hooked up with Sylvan before I knew him, but she stayed in the room with him after he got me off. At least the leftovers were warm.
“She’s a cool girl. Very supportive, if not very loyal when it comes to a man.” Karter wrinkles her nose, and I don’t ask if something happened between them, because if it did, it wasn’t enough to ruin her friendship and honestly, it ain’t my business.
“But if she doesn’t like you…” Karter takes a breath.
“One time she sprayed bear spray all over a girl’s cheer uniform our senior year, only on the inside, right before a pep rally.
When Marissa,” must be the victim, “put it on, she pulled it over her head instead of stepping in. Started throwing up, her eyes bulging red almost out of their sockets.” Karter winces.
Cynthia’s mouth hangs open.
“What the fuck?” I ask. “Couldn’t she be charged with assault?”
“Uh, why isn’t she in jail?” Cynthia questions.
“Her parents are rich. They’re connected. A small town, Northern Ontario. She was nearly untouchable.”
“Nearly?” I press. Again, I think of Will and Jackson.
“That’s what she was suspended for. But clearly… here she is.” Karter throws out her hand.
“And why, exactly, did she choke Marissa with the bear spray?” Cynthia asks.
Karter rolls her eyes, then rakes her fingers through her silky, green hair. “She started dating a guy Tasia had been pining after. And no, they weren’t friends. Marissa did nothing wrong.”
“Why are you still friends with her?” I ask bluntly.
That type of person could be dangerous. I once had a thing of bear spray in my glovebox just in case, but I left it there through last winter so it froze, and the can malfunctioned.
It had been in a Ziploc bag and should’ve been fine, but when I got in my car, I started coughing to the point I almost threw up.
The plastic bag didn’t matter. When the can leaked, it affected me even through the bag and the closed glovebox. Bear spray is serious.
Karter sighs heavily. “I mean, we’re not besties or anything. But I’m in her orbit, since we went to the same school. Better to be friends with her than not.”
“Hard disagree,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Cut bitches like that off.” I start to regret not shoving her out of the private room at Slyth’s. Why did I leave in the first place?
“Neve is right,” Cynthia says. “Next thing you know, she turns on you for nothing, and you’re getting choked out.”
I laugh, but Karter doesn’t.
She takes another drink, then her gaze fixes on the wall. “I mean, she’s not all bad. When she’s good, she’s really good.”
“What could possibly atone for killer bear spray?” Cyn asks.
Karter lifts one shoulder in a shrug and she has a faraway look in her eye. “When my Nana passed, she brought me flowers, came and saw me every day for like two weeks.”
Me and Cyn exchange a glance. It doesn’t seem to detract from her off-the-wall behavior, but I see why Karter has a soft spot for her. Maybe Tasia has experienced a loss too, and she knows what it’s like to grieve. Especially away from home. But neither Cynthia nor I say anything.
For about two seconds.
Then Cyn’s next question is aimed at me.
“So, Neve, knowing alllll that, are you going to tell us what happened with you and the two sexiest boys on campus in that tiny room?”
“First of all, aren’t you hooking up with someone? Shouldn’t he be your sexiest? I saw him at Slyth’s. That man is fine.”
“He might be, but I can still see,” Cynthia says, her brows jumping. “I can see.” She stretches out the word and it makes me laugh. “So…” She shoos at me with her hand.
Karter seems to be awake from her reverie about Tasia, and she’s looking at me too as my roommate keeps talking. “Tell us what happened. This is a safe space, Neve.”
I lift my middle finger with a smile I try to bite back, then take another drink. My head is dizzy, my thoughts sluggish, but I do need to tell someone or I’m going to lose my mind.
“Just a fair warning, if either of you judge me, I’ll never speak to you again.
” Then I snap my fingers in Karter’s general direction, but not in her face, because that’s rude.
“And please, for the love of bear spray, do not tell Tasia what went down, okay? I don’t want to break her fingers if she gasses me. ”
Karter puts her hand on her heart like she’s taking an oath. “I vow it.”
I snort a laugh, then I spill everything that happened in that room between Faust and Sylvan and me, minus a few key details like the words they said and how good it felt.
But I tell them how I said Faust’s name, and how it pissed off Sylvan.
I leave out the slapping; I don’t know just how kinky their sex lives are and even as I’m drunkenly confessing, I know I probably shouldn’t.
“Holy shit,” Karter whispers.
“But you’re telling me that blond asshole had another girl on his lap right after he put his fingers inside you?” Cyn’s brown eyes flash and she looks pissed, her lips pressed into a line, her brows pulled together. “Please tell me you are never touching him again.”
“Yeah, but did you not hear her?” Karter says before I can reply. “She played with both of them, Sylvan gave her an orgasm, and she said Faust’s name. It kind of makes up for it.”
My face is too hot. I fan at it and mutter, “I’m still in the room, y’all.”
“That’s no excuse for him to act like a complete jackass.
He agreed to screw around with both him and her.
I mean, they were all right there.” Cynthia gestures wildly and I shake my head, grinning despite myself at seeing my best friend stick up for me.
She gives me a look, and I know she’s thinking about the fact I met those boys the night of a murder.
Something Karter—nor anyone else on campus—knows.
It adds a creep layer to everything and I’m not ready to examine that right now.
“Well,” Karter says quietly, “do you even care?” Her green eyes search mine. “You said you didn’t, and you seem pretty comfortable with whatever he’s doing with Tas. I mean, you left them both together.”
I lift one shoulder in a shrug even as my stomach hardens into knots. “No,” I lie. “I don’t give a fuck what he does.” And although I say it with conviction, I can feel Cynthia’s gaze on mine. Like she knows.
She says I stuff down my emotions.
I always laugh and say I don’t feel any, except toward her.
I’m not so sure it’s a joke. After growing up without a dad, then Mom chose someone else over me and Nolan… maybe I’ve tried to protect myself by being reckless and pretending not to give a shit about anyone or anything except the people I know won’t hurt me.
Like Nolan.
Like Cynthia.
But Sylvan Connor? Absolutely fucking not. He’s too young, too rich, too talented, with too many potential hookups in his future for me to trust him an inch.
Then I think about what he said. Wanting to know if anyone else fucked with me, and how it strangled my heart.
“Tasia can have him,” I force myself to add to Karter, but I don’t meet her gaze when I do. “No bear spray needed.”