Chapter 17
C rue’s already in his Bronco by the time I make it out front, clearly disinclined to open the door for me, even after I make eye contact with him in his side mirror, quirking a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at him.
He does, however, look away like I’m not even here.
I wish I wasn’t. I fucking wish.
My hip is on fire, my makeup is streaked, and my bodyguard is ignoring me. Again.
At least I know what will get his attention.
I poke my head back into the foyer and call for Edwin to have my car brought around, then I cross my arms and wait. Less than a minute later, my Lucid Air Sapphire appears in front of me.
One of the techs gets out and hovers by the driver’s door.
“Here you are, Miss Munreaux. Would you like help getting inside?”
He’s a younger one, I’d say around Crue’s age, and only been here a couple months now, so we haven’t had the chance to properly get to know one another.
“Sure,” I say like I couldn’t possibly get into my own vehicle myself.
Before I reach his open hand though, I hear my bodyguard bark, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” giving me a shot of adrenaline straight to my bloodstream.
Lookie, lookie who we have here. Major Danger finally reporting for duty.
With a stare so hard it could curdle milk, he sends the tech back to the garage. That’s better. Not quite Munreaux-like, but a vast improvement. All he had to do was lose the hat.
“Your car’s ugly,” I inform him when he turns that same look on me.
“Thanks to you.”
“We’re taking mine.”
“Why haven’t you said anything before now? You’ve been riding in it just fine.”
“Because…” I scramble to think of something. “It didn’t reek like cat food before.”
Cat food? Why am I like this?
“That’s probably your fault, too,” Crue mutters, glancing at the manor, then me. “Did you take your medicine?”
With or without a yeast infection, my pussy doesn’t smell like cat food.
“In front of my father?” Shaking my head, I walk around to the Sapphire’s passenger side.
“What’d he want to talk to you about?”
“How cheap your car looks, and since nothing about the Munreauxs is cheap, I can’t be seen in it anymore.”
His eyebrows dip. “Is that all he wanted to talk to you about?”
Did he hear something?
“No. He said you were fired, effective immediately.”
His expression flattens out as he comes over to stand so close that shot of adrenaline doubles, making my skin tingle.
“Then why are you waiting for me to get the passenger door of your car?”
He opens said door.
On an eye roll, I get in.
Whatever. I didn’t actually expect him to fall for it.
Dusting my immaculate high-waisted pleated skirt, I tell him, “Because you just sent away who I really wanted to ride…” I glance up at him before adding, “With.”
Crue closes the door, muting his colorful curses.
Totes profesh, Major.
“Where’s your meeting?” he asks after he’s taken care of his car and jumped into the driver’s seat of mine, handing me a jar with granola and fruit atop a white creamy substance.
“More mashed potatoes?”
“What?” Crue pauses his dramatic perusal of my dashboard to look at me. “No. That’s yogurt.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Ryan said it was in his description.”
“I didn’t hear him—”
“Plain Greek yogurt. He said it. You can go in and ask him if you want.”
I’m not going back in there, especially not to talk to that person. But Crue’s getting a little too defensive about this.
“Did you do something to it?”
“No. Jesus. Just eat your breakfast.”
He rolls down the driveway.
“And tell me where we’re going.”
“Littoral. I’m meeting with the dean.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Mm-hm.”
After using the visor mirror to reblend my makeup, I take small hesitant bites of my breakfast. Plain Greek yogurt tastes awful on its own, so I’m not sure I’d be able to tell if anything was done to it.
At a stoplight, Crue picks up the black tourmaline I keep in one of the center cup holders, inspecting the polished tumblestone.
“Why is there a rock in your car?”
“It’s not a rock. It’s a crystal.”
“Why is there a crystal in your car?”
“Same reason I have crystals everywhere, because they have powers.”
“What kind of powers?”
“That one’s black tourmaline and it’s good for protection.”
“What do you need protection from in your car?”
“Shouldn’t you, of all people, know? You’re the expert on vehicular catastrophes.”
The thud the black tourmaline makes from Crue dropping it back into the cup holder sets my teeth on edge.
Neither of us speaks, both of us focused on the winding road ahead as Crue gets back up to speed, the bright yellows, whites, and pinks of spring making everything seem so much more hopeful than it actually is.
At Littoral, Crue helps me out of my car, which is a first, and hopefully not a last.
Releasing my hand, he immediately latches on to my wrist.
“You weren’t wearing this earlier.” He thumbs my brown-and-tan beaded bracelet.
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. They don’t ruin your aesthetic?”
Probably. But I don’t care.
“No, they don’t.”
“Your clones don’t wear them.”
“They don’t believe in crystals.”
“These are crystals, too?”
“Yes.”
“What’s this one’s power?”
“Tiger’s eye provides protection from other people’s bad intentions.”
“Whose bad intentions?”
“Everybody’s.”
His head bobs slowly.
“For someone that claims to hate having a personal protection agent, you sure seem obsessed with being protected.”
“You’ve noticed I’m a woman…correct?”
I ignore the goose bumps his once-over creates.
“What does that have to do with—”
“I’m constantly at risk of getting mugged, raped, kidnapped—”
Crue proceeds to roll my bracelet off my wrist.
“Um… That’s mine.”
Except, he puts it in his pocket like it’s not.
“What… No… Because…” I stammer before settling on, “I need that back.” Like right now. Today is not the day.
He dodges my hand when I reach toward his pocket, saying, “You don’t need it.”
“Actually, I do.” I don’t care if other people believe in crystals or not, I do, and they give me some semblance of security. It’s not a superstition either. This morning’s interaction with my father proved that. I wasn’t wearing it and now I have two new bruises.
“I’m more powerful than any superstition. None of those things will happen to you when I’m around.”
I continue my advance.
“And when you’re not?”
Unfortunately, Crue matches my every step forward with two of his own backward.
“When I’m not what?”
“Around!”
He gives his head a single shake. “You don’t have to worry about that for a while.”
“You’re not always around,” I argue because it’s the only thing that makes me feel alive right now.
Crue suddenly comes to a stop to study me. “Do you feel unsafe when I’m not?”
I throw up my hands. “I’m a woman. I always feel unsafe.” Hello. That’s my whole point here.
Closing some of the distance between us, he says, “The only times I’m not with you are when you’re in your classes, your conservatory, or…your room.”
Silence grows around us like a field of cornstalks, taller and taller until all we can see is each other…and cornstalks. Just like at Hide and Keep. For a moment, I let myself pretend we’re back there, just the two of us again.
A smile tugs at my lips.
Crue’s focus falls to them quickly before yo-yoing back up to my eyes.
“Do you want me to change that?”
Yes, but not just in my sketches or during my dreams. In reality. And I don’t just want you in my room. I want you in my bed. In my shower. I want you everywhere, Crue Brantley. I want you.
I drop my gaze to the ground, away from the cornstalks, away from the fantasy, and tell him, “No. Of course not.”
“Are you sure? I will follow you into hell if you want me to.”
My eyes fly back up to his. “You would?”
“I’m already paid to face one demon. What’s a few more?”
“Are you saying I’m a demon?”
He doesn’t even blink when he replies, “I’m saying the devil wept the day you were born.”
Letting the insult slide, I consider that scenario for a moment. Only for a moment because it’s so far-fetched, it’s nearly impossible to imagine, even more so than Crue being mine in all the ways I want.
Twisting away from him, I say, “No. He didn’t.”
He huffs out a sound of disbelief as he catches up to me. “So you admit it? You know the devil personally?”
Not caring if he hears me or not, I mutter, “Yeah, I know him.” And I know he was too busy tossing back whiskey and smoking cigars with his golf buddies to shed a tear over my birth.
The talk with the dean doesn’t take long, and when I leave his office, Crue’s holding two drinks from the café again. After handing me the matcha lemonade—keeping the tea for himself—we go outside to meet up with the clones.
I sit on one of the metal eels, half-listening to them as I watch Crue take sips. Without that hat on, I can see all of his face. Each time he fits his mouth to the strawless lid, his eyes close briefly, savoring the flavor as well as convincing me that the only thing better than having twenty ounces of my own chai latte, would be licking it off Crue’s lips.
“What shade was it again, Ever?”
“Hmm?” I say, making myself stop ogling my bodyguard.
“The dress you had custom made last month for the gala… Was it ivory?”
Crue rotates his head in my direction until his eyes hit mine. He rarely looks directly at me when I’m with the clones. He despises them as much as I do. Except for Paris, who he said “looks good no matter what.”
He told me I was uglier than a glory hole.
“No, diamond white,” I tell Kinnedy.
Crue looks at Topher, then away, giving us his right side again.
I glance at Topher, too, finding him staring at my bodyguard like he’s a bug he wants to squash with his loafer.
“Topher?” I say, gaining the attention of the second guy in the group. He wishes he was first but Bradford Hoffman being in the equation means he can never be. “Did you bleed when you got Botox in your asshole?”
It sounds like Crue chokes on his drink, but with my eyes glued to Topher, I can’t be sure.
Topher’s face turns beet red. “What the fuck, Ever? Why would you ask me that right now?”
“I was thinking of getting some before the gala but didn’t want to risk bleeding on my dress.” I shrug and point at Paris. “Paris said she bled when she got Botox in her forehead, so I just thought…”
Paris shrieks while Bradford guffaws.
“Oh my God. I knew your forehead looked more plastic than usual,” Kinnedy tells Paris, initiating a whole conversation about who’s had what done.
Crue now forgotten, I tune the clones back out to search glory holes on my phone.
I didn’t know it’s not technically a paid position, more of a volunteer thing. Huh. Or that the exchanges mostly go down in public restrooms.
I zoom in on the picture of a stall. While the holes themselves are not exactly ugly, the cock poking out—
“Ready, miss?”
“Goddess!” I clutch my phone to my chest and glare up at Crue, my face probably as red as Topher’s just was. “Why aren’t you standing over there?” I gesture with my other hand, hoping he’ll turn his head long enough for me to clear the tab.
He doesn’t. He just scowls at me and drones, “The clock chimed. You’re gonna be late.”
“If you attended college yourself, you’d know most professors don’t care if you’re a few minutes late.”
The clones’ snickers make guilt race through me, shoving the embarrassment out of its way.
“I’ll be sure to ask Johanna if she’s one of them when I meet up with her later,” he says.
Anger, jealousy, pure fucking hatred replaces everything—my body hot from the abrupt invasion.
Then I remember my talk with the dean and I push off the eel with a secretive smirk.
If Crue thought what I did last night was a fit, he hasn’t seen anything yet.
At the threshold of my first class, Crue smiles at my professor. Or I guess more accurately Crue tries to smile at her because Johanna Flemming’s positively oblivious to his presence right now. And according to the dean’s promise he made me, she’ll continue to be oblivious to Crue Brantley should their paths happen to cross again—on or off campus. Best of luck to her trying to move on from that divorce she may or may not be going through. It won’t be with my bodyguard.
My smile stretches wider as Crue redirects his gaze to me, the friendliness long gone. As a parting gift to him, as well as a reminder from our talk earlier, I tap on my sternum with my middle finger, and mouth, “Mine.”
I spend the class drawing Crue’s left-side profile on the back of the exam, spending extra time on the crescent scar starting just under the outer edge of his eyebrow, following the orbit to end in the space between his eye and cheek.
“Interesting choice,” I hear above me but don’t take my eyes off Crue’s graphite one.
I didn’t choose him. The universe sent him to me, not once but twice, and I’m going to hold on with both hands until the very last second.
“I’m more curious to see how you did on the front though,” my professor adds.
“I’m not turning this in.”
“I’ll have no choice but to give you a zero.”
“I should’ve drawn you.” Sitting back, I suck air between my teeth, but still, I remain focused on my work.
“Why? So I won’t fail you? That’s not how this works—”
“No, so that the authorities would have an updated portrait of you.”
“Why would the authorities—”
“To put in the paper.” I finally glance at the woman standing above me. “In the event you go missing.”
We stare at each other until I paste on a bright smile and shuffle my stuff into a pile, my exam turned right-side up.
“Have a nice weekend, Johanna. I hear it’s supposed to be beautiful. Might even take the yacht out for some deep-sea fishing.” I’ve never fished in my life, but if she utters another word to Crue, about Crue, or tries to fight me for his portrait, I won’t hesitate to use her as bait in—as my father would say—shark-infested waters.
I leave my speechless professor and join Crue out in the hallway. He doesn’t ask any questions and I don’t offer any answers. We don’t even speak to each other until we’re back at my car and he opens the door.
“What’s that?”
“This?” Reaching in, he grabs the teddy bear sitting on the passenger seat. “It’s yours.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Sure it is.” He thrusts the stuffed animal at me, forcing me to take it.
I inspect the little black bear with his redbreast burnt-orange ribbon bowtie. I’ve seen these around before. He must’ve bought it on campus somewhere.
“You wanted a prop. Something you can dress up.” Crue’s tone is downright scathing but I don’t let it affect me. He bought me a teddy bear. Nobody’s ever bought me a teddy bear.
“Does he have a name?” I ask.
“What?”
“A name. Did he come with one?”
“No. It’s… It’s yours. You get to choose.”
“Hm.” I get in.
Crue bends down and I lift my foot for him automatically. One, then the other, he removes my shoes.
“How’s your…”
Assuming he means day, I say, “Fine.”
“No, your, uh…”
“Exam? Fine.” Who cares? Look at this fluffball.
“No, your…vag.”
I finally pull my attention away from the bear. Crue’s staring back at me, no heat in his gaze, no disgust in his demeanor, he’s just…awaiting my answer…like he’s…concerned? “Oh…yeah.” That. I guess that wouldn’t make sense for him to ask about my day. Or schoolwork. Just my yeast imbalance. “Um…itchy and smelly.” According to Crue.
“Is that why you want to get Botox? To numb it?”
I almost laugh.
“No?”
“That’s why your friend gets Botox, right? To numb his…ass.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Fuck no. I looked it up.”
Imagining the pictures he might’ve come across in his research, I almost lose it.
“Topher does that for anal, so he can take bigger dicks deeper.” I’m sure some people get it there for medical reasons, but for Topher, it’s purely elective.
Crue’s hold on my ankle tightens, not painfully, just noticeably. “Is that why you’re getting it?”
Now I laugh. I was never considering getting Botox, not for my fake yeast infection and not for sex.
“What do you think about Lyndon?”
My bodyguard double blinks.
“What’s a lyndon?”
“A name. For him.” I jiggle Lyndon.
He releases my ankle and says, “I don’t like it,” before closing the door on me and Not-Lyndon.
For the few seconds I’m alone, I bring the bear up to my nose. It smells like him.
My eyes close on tears I’d die of embarrassment if Crue saw.
Major Danger gave me a teddy bear.
Thank you, Universe. Thank you.