Chapter 10
Walking into the bathroom, I see my reflection in the mirror and hate it, hate him for doing this to me. Yet, despite all that, despite how I look and how much hostility I have for a dead man, I can’t help but smile back at myself.
You’re worth getting murdered over. Replays in my head on a loop, understanding the significance of what he’s saying.
My alarm ringing on my phone tells me class starts in an hour.
“Shit.” Mumbling as I sigh again, reaching for my makeup and trying to figure out how to conceal what is apparently my face.
Picking up my phone, I search for ‘how to cover a’, but hesitate as I type in bruise, knowing the triggered response will come up with something about domestic violence. Instead, I click on the suggestion of a Hickey. I can cover up a pimple no problem, but this… never.
“Same thing.” I mumble to myself.
Pulling out some yellow eyeshadow, I pat it over the bruising, then cover it with some concealer and finally add my foundation.
“There.” I smirk to myself. Looking at myself hard in the mirror to see if I can see anything appearing from underneath.
Making my way across campus, I hear someone call to me. I don’t need to look behind me to know Low’s running up.
“How’d it go last night?” She winks at me as she rushes over.
“Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“He was a dick?” She asks, reaching out and stopping me by pressing on my side.
Hissing, I wince. She shoots me a questioning look.
“Drew...” It’s a warning. “What happened?”
Shaking my head as we enter the building. Her grip on my arm stings as she pulls me across the hallway to the single-stall bathroom, pushes me inside, and locks the door behind us.
“Show me…” she demands.
“It’s nothing.”
“Goddammit, Drew. Show me now, or I will call your brother.”
“Don’t call him.” Shaking my head, I stop her as she pulls out her phone. “Don’t.” My eyes widen. “I’ll show you, but you have to promise not to say anything.”
She just glares at me again.
“It’s handled, but Z cannot know.”
She gives me a questioning look again before nodding her head. “Fine.”
I raise my shirt, showing her my ribcage as she gasps out.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” She shouts.
“Shut up.” I snap, grabbing at her hands that have already pulled her phone back out. “You promised.”
“How bad is it?” She asks, shaking her head. “Take your shirt off.”
“Low, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.” She fumes as she paces the bathroom floor. “I’m gonna fucking kill him.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re too late for that.” I mumble under my breath.
“What?” she wavers. “You killed him.”
“No.”
“If you didn’t kill him and your brother can’t know.” She gasps as she looks at me again. “You went back, didn’t you?”
“I woke up there this morning. He said he found me on his porch, drugged. After I jumped out of the car and ran.”
“The cop killed him?” She smirks to herself.
“I don’t actually know that’s what happened. He just said I didn’t have to worry about him ever again.” Pausing, trying to save Eli from her knowing what he may have done. “He may have just threatened him, but his tone… didn’t seem like he did.”
“That’s a shame if he didn’t.” She pauses. “I hope he did.”
“Why?”
“He drugged you and did this.” She shakes her head. “Imagine what he would have done if you were a sane person.” She smirks for a moment and shakes her head.
“Apparently he called Z for help after the fact.”
She looks at me, shocked, and I nod my head.
“Which is why Z cannot find out. He finds out I was drugged last night, and he’ll put the pieces together.”
She nods her head, agreeing with me. Before a smirk comes back onto her face. “So you fucked The Law, again?”
“No, well, not technically.” She gives me a confused look. “Apparently, I tried to take his pants off last night, saying something about how he looks in his uniform.”
“I mean, no one’s blaming you for that.” She laughs loudly. “I want him to arrest me.”
“I will kill you.”
She cackles before nodding back towards the door and unlocking it. I follow her back out into the hallway.
Walking into the lecture hall and sitting down next to one another, she looks at me confused for a minute.
“So, why aren’t the two of you together?”
I laugh, shaking my head. “I may have left a couple of things out when I originally told you about him.”
“Which is?”
“Eli and Z were friends.” I whisper, hoping no one else can hear us.
“So, you already said that.”
“Like, he lived across the hall from me their senior year.”
Her eyes and smirk widen as she takes in what I’m telling her. “Oh, so you slept with your brother’s best friend?”
“Well, technically, brothers. The three of them were inseparable growing up.” I pause, looking back as the professor walks in.
“All 3 of them really grew apart after they graduated. Zeke and Loch were off with the band. Z was away at college, and even though it was only a couple of hours away, it was enough, and by the time my parents died and Z came home… Eli was already on the force. And let’s be real, how is the president of an MC supposed to be besties with a cop? ”
The professor starts the class, cutting off anything else either of us wants to say.
As much as I try to pay attention to what we’re going over, I keep getting dragged back to the images and the words he said this morning.
* * *
Leaving the hall, Low is still at my side as we walk through the quad. “Is this another one of those things that you’re going to obsess over for the next 6 weeks until you wind up fucking him again?”
“Probably.” I laugh, glancing over at her. “But it won’t take 6 weeks.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, he’s coming over tonight when he gets off work.”
“What?” I swear she shouts, drawing attention from our surroundings.
“Shhh,” I laugh, blushing. “Yes. He said I was worth getting murdered over.”
She covers her mouth with her hand as it drops open, just staring at me in shock. It takes only a moment before she’s squeaking. “That’s so cute.”
“Shut up.” Shaking my head as I turn, walking back towards the parking garage. “Wanna get lunch?”
She nods her head as she follows behind me.
“I’m serious. It’s so cute. Like he’s willing to go toe to toe with your brother for you.”
“I don’t know about all that.” I pause as we walk up to my car. “We actually didn’t talk about telling him. It may just be one of those if he finds out things.”
“You mean when.”
“What?” Tossing my bag into my backseat as she walks around to the passenger side of the car.
“You know these things don’t stay a secret; they eventually come out.” We slide into the car.
I can’t help but laugh, shaking my head again. “Believe me, I can keep a secret from my brother. Been doing it my whole life.”
“But can he?”
“What?”
“Is it going to eat at him? I mean, I’m sure he feels some sort of loyalty to Z, even though they’re not close anymore.”
“I mean, he didn’t tell anyone when he overheard Z talking.”
“See…” she laughs, shaking her head again. “Man, your family’s so exciting. I wish mine were.”
“No, you don’t.” I let out a sad chuckle. “Why do you think I moved off the compound? It’s exhausting.” Then, glancing at myself in the mirror for a moment.
“Please, it’s exhausting with my family cause it’s the same fucking stories all the time.”
Low grew up outside the city, not even a suburb, but a small farming town over an hour from campus.
“You saw it when you came with me for the holidays…” she trails off.
“I remember.” I laugh, nodding my head again.
“My dad tried to get you to feed the pigs.”
“I remember.” I laugh again. “Remember their reactions when they asked me why I wasn’t with my family for the holidays. They were mortified. I’m surprised they let you keep hanging out with me.”
“Why do you think I haven’t invited you back since?”
I cackle because, of course, they would hate me.
Of course, they would judge me because my family is deeply involved in an MC and has been since well before I was born.
That someone killed my parents because of it.
That my brother was in prison at the time for nefarious affairs, he got into because of it.
“That was a fun dinner.” I roll my eyes, thinking about the awkwardness that my trauma-dump caused them.
But what the hell else am I supposed to say when someone asks me why I’m alone on the holidays and what happened to my parents?
Or why my brother was in prison?
“See, boring.” She groans out. “Why do you think I haven’t been back much since?”
It’s true we’ve spent every holiday together since then, and she hasn’t really been back for longer than a few days in the last 6 years. “I didn’t want to ask. Figured if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me.”
“They made me promise not to go around your family, though.”
It makes me laugh louder as I pull into my parking lot and turn off the engine. “Little do they know you have my brother’s number.”
“That’s for emergencies. I mean, you have a tendency to get yourself into situations.”
“One time.”
“More than once, and you know it.”
“Fine,” I groan as we walk through the door and up the stairs.
As we walk into the apartment, she looks around the space. “So when is Dead Man Walking supposed to be coming back?”
It surprises me when she says it, and I look at her wide-eyed, trying not to laugh. “When he gets off work. Late. And both of you are being dramatic. Z won’t kill him if he finds out.”
“When,” Low corrects me again. “And he will.”
“Okay,” I say sarcastically to her.
“I mean. Unless you have control over when it comes out, he’ll at the least leave a mark. And you know I’m right.”
* * *
The creaking wakes me. As I look over, the glow from the TV lights up the room just enough as he pulls his shirt up over his head, exposing his abs.
Seeing him here for the first time, undressing in my room with plans to crawl into my bed, it should feel strange.
Feel like the odd sensation of a new relationship.
But something about it just feels comfortable, and that should scare me.