Disorderly Conduct (The Academy #1)

In my daydream, another man walks up behind her. Smiling. Asking what she’s cooking. While she’s reading my notecard tree.

My shout ricochets off the tile walls of the showers. I roll over onto my knees, pressing my face into the draining water. I’m probably catching malaria, and I don’t even give a shit. Bring it on. Maybe it’ll put me into a coma and I won’t have to spend another minute wondering what I’m missing. What I’ll be missing for the rest of my life.

Ever. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Why, God. Why did I spend the night? I would have been a pitiful excuse for a man, rolling around in piss germs, even if I’d left her apartment Tuesday night. But I wouldn’t have the added mind fuck of knowing how she talks in her sleep. Talks to me. Sometime around three in the morning, she’d snuggled her face into my chest and murmured, “Charlie, you were mean to farmers at the farmer’s market. Bad Charlie.” Proving she was aware of me mad dogging the guy who’d sold her bok choy, but didn’t even mention it. Proving she is the coolest, most incredible unicorn of all unicorns. And I’m without her now. I’m forever without Ever.

“Wow.” Danika’s voice in the men’s locker room isn’t even enough to bring my face off the ground. “He’s going to need a tetanus shot.”

“Jesus.” Jack. “This is how you earn the title patient zero.”

“Fuck off. Please.” I roll onto my side and listen to the comforting gurgle. “I don’t need you to tell me I’m a mess.”

Danika retreats into the main locker room and returns with a towel. She wades into the shower on her tiptoes, shuts off the water and throws the white terrycloth over my lower half. “There,” she says. “Not that you don’t have a lovely dick, but I have rules against ogling another woman’s property.”

“Thanks.” I still can’t find it in me to move. Maybe I’ll just stay here the rest of my life. “But I’m not her property anymore. She was never mine, either.”

Jack makes this noise, like he’s been silent too long and the suppression of his almighty opinion has taken its toll. It’s the equivalent of a bear waking up and growling after a long winter of hibernation. “Look, you know I’m the last one to give relationship advice, but you’ve been dating Ever since the beginning. Doesn’t matter what enlightened bullshit you were calling it.”

“No. They weren’t dating,” Danika enunciates. “Dating means bingeing on Netflix together. Awkward nights out with each other’s friends. Having a song.”

“Wait.” I finally find the wherewithal to sit up. The towel slips off and Danika throws up her hands, clearly disgusted, but she’s the one raining on my pity party so she can just deal with my junk. “We do have a song. ‘My Type’ by Saint Motel. We danced to it at the art function and again at Webster Hall. Technically, she did meet you guys, too. And it was awkward enough, right?”

“Not that awkward,” Danika says. “She barely batted an eyelash when she walked in and saw Jack arm wrestling shirtless. I liked her.”

“Why wouldn’t you?” I pound my head backward into the tile wall. “She’s amazing.”

“What are you upset about? This is great news.” Jack rubs imaginary dirt off his hands. “You were dating all along. Show up with a Netflix password and some wine. Get this shit sorted out by the weekend.”

“You don’t understand.” The pounding starts up again in my temples. “If I was dating her, I had no right to. As soon as I take the exam, I’m going to be working around the clock.” I shove both hands through my hair. “I could only spare her an hour a day before. Once I graduate? That hour is going to shrink down to nothing. I watched it . . .” I swallow hard. “I was young, but I think I watched it happen with my parents. I’m starting to remember more . . . about how unhappy it made my mother. She was lonely.”

Danika and Jack are silent a moment, then both of them are in the shower, sitting down beside me. In their clothes. Danika lays the towel over my lap and puts an arm around my shoulder.

Jack does the same, his expression more serious than I’ve ever seen it. “Real talk, Burns. Tomorrow, I’m going to deny saying any of this and I’ll never repeat it, so listen well.” He squints one eye, like he’s looking into the bottom of a bottle. “You come from a long line of legends. It’s true. Your father is already in the history books, and he’s still alive and kicking. Your brother scares everyone shitless, and he’d run headfirst into a shoot-out. Fine. These are all true facts. But you have something we—” he cuts a hand between himself and Danika “—value in the Kitchen, more than brass and medals. You’ve got heart. Okay? So maybe you’re not cut out for forty-eight-hour shifts and going home to an empty apartment, content just to be respected. Maybe you need more. And you’re a shit ton smarter than me, so don’t look this way if you want the solution.” He elbows me hard in the ribs. “You’ll come up with it yourself.”

My throat feels hot, so I clear it. “Christ, Jack. You wait until my dick is out to be this sincere?” Our laughter helps, but we’re still not looking each other in the eye. “I don’t know if it works that way for me, but thanks for saying so.”

“I’ve never been so relieved to be a woman.” Danika’s voice is dry. “But one-half of this emotionally stunted duo is right. Look at you, man. You’re sitting here in piss and mildew, and she’s probably home thinking about you. Right now.”

I snort. “Yeah. Thinking about what an asshole I am for leaving before she even woke up.” I tilt my head back on a disgusted laugh. “She doesn’t even know the half of what I’ve done since she started dating other people. Screwing with her dates, letting her think I’m some guy named Reve and agreeing to meet her—”

Danika rears back. “Come again?”

I hold up a hand. “Trust me, I don’t deserve her. Not even a little.”

“So, figure out how to change that,” Danika says, getting pissed. “You can’t just—”

“Charlie.”

At the sound of Greer’s voice, all three of our spines snap straight, gazes shooting to the shower entrance, where my brother stands. Looking more disheveled and haunted than I’ve ever seen him. Without a command from my brain, I gain my feet, wrapping the towel around my waist. “What is it? What happened?”

Funny how tragedies have a way of putting what’s most important into perspective.

Okay, not funny at all.





Chapter 23





Ever