“You think?”
She laughed again, the tension easing a little bit from her. “I knew there wasn’t a second light. I was looking, but it didn’t matter. It was already in my head. What if someone was actually there? They were following me. They could’ve killed me. No one would’ve known, and they would’ve gotten you, too. Okay. My imagination was running wild.”
Right as we topped the stairs for our floor, I murmured, “I will never prank you again.”
She shrugged, letting out a breath of air. “It’s my bad. I know it was a joke—at least, I think I knew it. I totally overreacted, but,” she shot me cautious look, “this just means that I get to plan my payback.”
A retort was on the tip of my tongue, but when our dorm room came into view, it died.
Mason was sitting on the floor outside our room.
He’d been waiting, and judging from the mask on his face, he wasn’t happy about it.
MASON
She was laughing. I heard it as she and her roommate were coming up the stairs.
She had every right to be angry with me. I ditched her. She didn’t know about Nate or that we’d been at the hospital with him for the last six hours, waiting for all the tests to get done before they’d let us take him home. They would’ve kept him for observation, but the last bed went to a heart attack patient. That was what the nurse said when she cleared Nate to go with us. We were given instructions on what to check for, including his breathing, his skin color, his pulse every hour, and a few other things that Logan wrote down. As soon as I could, I went to Sam’s dorm. She hadn’t answered my calls, and as she came down the hallway, I saw the reason.
I stood, but they both quieted as they got to me. “You were running.”
Sam didn’t reply. Her eyes narrowed, and a shadow appeared underneath them. It was me. She knew something was wrong, and bags formed under her eyes. My mouth pressed flat. I hated being the cause of it. I couldn’t lie, but I knew that I couldn’t tell Sam about Nate. Those bags would become permanent, and she’d only worry.
She started to say something but waited, glancing at her roommate.
The girl continued to stare at me. Her eyes widened a fraction.
Sam cleared her throat.
“Oh!” Her roommate blinked rapidly, jerking forward. “Sorry. Um…” She pulled out her keys for the door but dropped them. “Shit.” Grabbing them, she tried to insert the right key, but it wouldn’t go. It took three more tries before she slid it inside and grimaced to us over her shoulder. “Sorry about that. I’ll be, uh…I’ll be in here.” She paused in the doorway, still looking between me and Sam. “Oh, yeah. Okay. Bye.” She went inside, and the door slammed shut.
Sam was frowning at it.
It opened again. Her roommate poked her head around it, biting down on one side of her lip. “Sorry. It slipped from my hand. Okay…again. Bye.” She waved at us, her hand right next to her ear. “Take as long as you want. I’m going to bed.”
Sam moved into me. I leaned against the wall, holding her to my chest, when their door opened again.
The roommate slipped out, holding a shower caddy. “Sorry.” She kept her head bent, and her eyes forward. “I have to go to the restroom first, and then I’m off to bed. For real. Take your time.”
I could feel Sam’s silent laughter, but she didn’t respond. We waited until her roommate made the trek to the restroom and went inside.
Sam whispered, looking up to me, “Maybe we should go somewhere private?”
I nodded, letting her take the lead, but when she started to head toward the parking lot, I caught her hand and motioned for the basement. “You have some rooms down there, right?”
Her eyebrows lifted high as she nodded. “A computer room. The movie room, and the kitchen are down there. There’s another smaller lounge, too.”
“Let’s go down there.”
“But…” She cast a confused look outside.
I entwined our fingers and started for the basement. “If we go to my place, you won’t be leaving until morning.”
I was already hard, imagining how it would feel to slide inside Sam. It would be heaven to me. I could forget about Sebastian and how he’d gotten to Nate. All of that shit could be forgotten, but that wouldn’t be fair to Sam. She deserved normalcy. Spending time with her at her dorm was normal. Hearing her laugh with her roommate was normal. She’d get pulled into our war. I knew it was inevitable, but I wanted a little bit more time. That was all I was trying for. I was just holding that off.
She was happy.
I couldn’t be the reason that went away.
No one was in the small waiting lounge. I headed inside, but Sam checked the movie room.
“Mason,” she held the door open, going inside, “this is more private.”