Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Two voices swam around me. Male and female. There was a gentle rumbling. I groaned, clutching my head as I peeled my eyes open. I was in the back of a car.
I jerked upright.
Bad move. My head pounded.
Dark hair streaked with blue blurred in front of me, and the female spoke, “We’re taking you to UPMC, just hang in there.”
I rubbed my eyes under my—still intact glasses, thank God!—and let my vision clear.
The voice belonged to the girl from the party, the one who’d come in with My Angle behind her. “I’m . . . fine. Just a bit disoriented.” And confused. What happened? That Freddy guy attacked out of nowhere; if it hadn’t been for that hooded guy showing up . . .
I shivered and shifted my focus. Sitting in the driver’s seat was My Angle—I couldn’t see him well, but I recognized his scent. Axe.
“You’re My Angle!” I said, the words distorted and easy to mistake.
Blue Streaks laughed. “Wow, Quinn, he must have had quite a fall to think you’re an angel.” She turned to me with a cheerful grin. “That’d be Quinn, and I suspect he’s more spawn of the devil than anything.”
That earned her a whack across the arm. “I just found out my boyfriend’s cheating on me,” he said in a deep voice that vibrated in the air and stirred the hairs on my arms. “Just like that I’m apartment-less, and instead of holing myself up in your room with Super Mario and Pringles, I’m dropping this guy off at the emergency room. You can be nice to me, Shannon.”
She laughed as she shook her head, hair falling in waves over her shoulder. “No. Not happening again. Even after cleaning my sheets, I still had crumbs in my bed for weeks!”
“What’s a few crumbs to my grief?” Quinn asked, turning the car onto College St. and passing my apartment; it was the only floor with all the lights out. “Why not think of it as an opportunity?”
“Opportunity?”
“Think of it as a chance to exfoliate or something.”
“Eww, boys are so gross.”
“One person’s gross is another’s creative.” Quinn angled the rearview mirror. He winked at me. Or was it a trick of the light? Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought. “Help me out here, man,” he said. “Together we can prove just how damn awesome us guys are.”
Shannon snorted, and Quinn growled, low and playful.
“I think it depends on the guy,” I said, tenderly touching the back of my bruised head. Luckily I didn’t feel any blood.
Shannon agreed and settled a hand on Quinn’s shoulder. “This one straddles the line between grossest and most awesome guy in the world.” She gave him a fond smile and swung her gaze my way. “You hanging in there all right?”
I nodded and rested my head back on the seat.
“We’ll be there in a minute.”
I shut my eyes as she continued bantering with Quinn. The sound of their voices comforted me, and I suddenly began to laugh. Quietly at first, but then the bouts got louder and my breathing became more labored. Tears tickled the edges of my eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Shannon asked, and Quinn frowned in the rearview mirror.
Funny? No idea. Nothing. Everything.
I shrugged and burst into another uncontrolled bout that squeezed my stomach so hard it hurt.
“Jesus,” Quinn said with a half-laugh, sending me into another episode. “I think I better drive faster.”
Antiseptic and linoleum, the smell markers of a hospital. The walls were covered with pictures of superhero-doctors that must have been donated by a local school. I took off my glasses and cleaned the lenses with my shirt.
“I’m fine,” I said again to the rather tired-looking Doctor Carter who was scanning her clipboard of notes. “I don’t need to stay here.”
It wouldn’t be the end of the world to be admitted overnight.
Hospitals didn’t bother me like they did some.
But my laptop was at home and my report needed writing.
Ideas gnawed at me, sentences rolled through my mind—and it didn’t help that My Angle, Quinn, was right there.
My column seemed to be hanging in front of my nose, but I couldn’t write it with doctors prodding and poking and policemen asking questions.
I slid the glasses back on.
Other than a bit of tenderness and slight headache, I really was fine. Perhaps still a little jumpy from the attack, but on the whole, I was okay. Certainly good enough to go home.
I smiled at the doctor as she narrowed her eyes and gave me an assessing once-over.
Shannon and Quinn stirred somewhere near the door, talking in hushed whispers. Except, they really weren’t so hushed.
“Lee should stay here,” Quinn said, “to be on the safe side, right?”
“Pretty sure it’s Liam. Let’s see what the doctor says, but we’re not leaving until we know he has a ride home if he needs it.”
“Fine with me. Not like I have a home to go back to anyway.”
Shannon sighed, but it sounded fake. “If you promise there’ll be no Pringles, I suppose you can crash with me and Travis.”
Doctor Carter glanced over my shoulder at the two of them. “If one of your friends here will take you home and keep an eye on you overnight, then I’ll sign the release forms.”
“Oh. No, I—” The urge to laugh overcame me again. “They’re not my friends.”
“Do you have someone to call? To take care of you?”
“Well, I . . .” I pushed my glasses higher up my nose. My shoulders slumped forward. Of course the answer was no. I leaned forward and asked quietly, “For future reference—though I’m hoping this will not occur again—would it be enough to say I owned a cat?”
The doctor let loose a small smile as she shook her head. “Sorry, no.”
There was more shuffling behind me, and then Quinn yelped. I turned to see him rubbing his side and glaring at Shannon. “Fine,” he said, and then looked up at Doctor Carter. “I’ll stay with him, if he wants.”
“You would?” I asked, sliding off the bed and reaching for the notebook inside my jacket.
“Sure—as my darlin’ here just pointed out,” Quinn looped an arm around Shannon, tugging the back of her hair until she jumped. “I’m homeless anyway. Why not crash at your place?”
Of course I said yes to Quinn’s offer. Why not? I had the space in my apartment, and I could finally write my piece.
It didn’t hurt his case that he was built like one of the superheroes in the pictures that lined the hospital halls. I mean, for tonight, while I was still a touch jumpy, having him between me and any possible Freddy visitation wouldn’t be a bad thing . . .
“Nice place,” Quinn said, following me into my apartment, his shoes squeaking over the threshold. There came a ziiip, and he slung his leather jacket over the wooden coatrack in the corner.
“Yeah. It’s all right.” I took off my jacket, removed my notebook, and kicked off my shoes. My socked feet skated over the floorboards but I caught myself before toppling over, and I continued the short house tour. “Living room and kitchen here. Bathroom just down the hall next to my room.”
Quinn walked to the closed door in the living room and knocked. “And in here?”
He didn’t wait for an answer; he twisted the handle and let himself in.
I waited for him to finish taking a peek, but he didn’t turn around. I tucked my notebook under my arm and crossed over to him. “What is it?”
“Okay, Liam,” Quinn said, glancing at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m officially jealous. I’d be happy with a room—you have a study?” He shook his head.
“I don’t use it as much as I should. If you really need a room, you can use it.”
Quinn snorted.
“I mean, it’s a little draughty,” I said.
“You’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Quinn turned and leaned his back against the doorframe, staring. What was with that intense look? I folded my arms, dropped them, refolded them, and glanced at my darkened study, which was mostly an empty room with a wall of bookshelves and a dusty desk in the corner.
“You don’t even know me,” he said. “What’s more, I don’t know you.”
“You knew all your previous roommates?”
“No.”
I pushed up my glasses. “Then I don’t understand your issue.”
He blinked and glanced back into the room. “How’d you score this place, anyway?”
“It’s one of my father’s apartments. I can use it while I’m studying.”
“Why do you talk like that?” Quinn asked. “Father instead of plain old dad? And ‘hoping this will not occur again’? That type of thing?”
I unfolded my arms, catching my notebook as it dropped.
“I haven’t really noticed I speak in any particular way.
But I chose ‘father’ instead of ‘dad’ because this”—I gestured to the apartment—“we’re not close.
I was the product of an affair he had, and we don’t really consider each other family.
” If he considered me family, he’d have offered me the apprenticeship without any stipulations.
“And yet,” Quinn said carefully, “he lets you use his place.”
“He can afford it. That way he figures he’s square with my mom.”
A frown etched its way between Quinn’s brows, and I sensed unnecessary sympathy.
“We’re all fine about the situation. There are no hurt feelings hidden anywhere. It is what it is.”
“Huh,” he said, his gaze dipping to the notebook in my hand. “Okay. What’s that?”
I turned the notebook over in my hand and slipped it under my arm again.
“My work. Which I’d really like to get started on.
” I walked back into the living room, turning another slip into a large stride.
If I weren’t careful, I’d end up with another concussion.
“There are some blankets in the cupboard next to the bathroom. You can sleep on the couch. I’m going to work from my bed tonight. ”
Quinn’s steps came heavy behind me. “Right. Well, I guess I’ll come in on an annoyingly frequent basis to make sure you’re all good. But first”—he pinched the notebook from under my arm—
I twisted sharply, lunging for my notebook. The half-head he had on me gave him an advantage. He whipped the book out of my reach. A dull ache throbbed in my ribs, stopping me from jumping for it.