He’s not twenty-two. If my math is right, which I can’t guarantee based on my current state of mind, he’s at least twenty-four.
Guilt cramps my insides and I breathe into my toes to flush it out. I should just walk away. That’s clearly what he wants me to do.
I take another deep breath, then collect myself and turn the corner into the open area between the shelves and the resource desk. My heart skips when I see Caiden behind the counter. Across from him with his back to me is my tweed clad professor. Caiden’s eyes lock on mine over Professor Duncan’s shoulder. In them, I see everything I’m feeling: desire, despair. But where I’m feeling doubt, what I see in his gaze is determination. His mind is made up.
Whatever we were starting is over.
His gaze turns back to Professor Duncan and I go to the table and gather my things. I cross the room and shuffle down the stairs without looking back.
Chapter 4
Caiden
My hand hesitates with the envelope perched at the lip of the mailbox. I pull it back and stare at the address, wondering for the thousandth time why I do this.
Especially this month.
It’s Mom’s mortgage or my rent. I don’t have enough student loan money to cover both. Hopefully my landlord’s on another binge. That might give me until my next work-study check comes on the tenth before he realizes I’m late.
My loving mother kicked me out of the house for good five years ago, on Christmas day, in the middle of my sophomore year at Sierra. Said she couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. Maybe it was because I’m Dad’s spitting image. More likely, she blamed me for the train wreck her life had become. I guess, in a backdoor sort of way, what happened was my fault.
When my younger brother, Chris, stood up for me, she threw him out too. There were a few crazy weeks where my thirteen-year-old brother and I lived in my car. I tried to get ahold of Dad for help, but by that time he was months behind on Chris’s child support and no one knew where his mid-life crisis had carried him. Once school started again in January, I’d drop Chris off at the junior high early and he’d shower and eat breakfast there before class. I withdrew from classes, moved out of the dorms, and used my student loan to get us a cheap hotel room and keep us fed.
But I knew the money was going to run out. And living in limbo wasn’t helping either of us.
So I went home when Chris was at school one day and had it out with Mom. I told her she needed to pull her shit together because Chris still needed somewhere to live. She told me I was a useless piece of shit. I told her Chris wasn’t. She finally agreed and I dropped him back at home that night.
He thought I chose school over him. Hated me for a long time for that.
I found my fleabag apartment that summer and started funneling what I was saving on the dorms to him so he’d have decent clothes and whatever. He still crashed at my place all through high school when things got bad at home. He just graduated in May and officially moved in here when he started JC in the fall.
Which means I don’t need to pay Mom’s mortgage anymore. Chris doesn’t need her. I should give that money to him so he doesn’t have to accept so many student loans.
I hate the thought of him getting buried under them the way I have.
I run my fingers over the envelope. Even if Mom knew I’ve been covering the mortgage since the foreclosure notice came four years ago, she wouldn’t appreciate it. She’d probably say I was doing it out of guilt.
Who knows? Maybe I am. Whatever the reason, the thought of her losing the home I grew up in sits worse with me than finding a way to keep her there.
The car behind me honks. I lift my eyes to the rearview and honk back, then shove the envelope in the slot and peal away from the curb.
When I reach campus, I go straight to the Student Wellness building and change in the locker room. Jones is stretching against the wall when I get to the kickboxing mats.
“You’re late.”
I shrug as I pull on my gloves. “It happens.”
“Watched Fight Night this weekend,” he says with a grin as he tugs on a glove and ties it. “Learned some new moves. Prepare to be dazzled.”
“Should have brought my sunglasses.”
I finish tying my gloves and press in my mouth guard as I take my spot on the mat. When Jones is done fussing with his gear, he joins me.
I strike out with a right hook followed by a knee to the hip and take him to the mat.
“Holy hell, Brenner,” he grumbles through his mouth guard. “I thought we were warming up. What the fuck crawled up your ass?”
“You name it,” I say, hooking an elbow into his and hauling him up.
“Duncan?”
“Among other things.” Like a tight little undergrad who’s still featured in my dreams every night.
He comes at me with an uppercut that I deflect before landing one of my own. I jam my knee into his ribs and follow it with a jab to the gut.
He doubles over and backs away, spitting out his mouth guard and glaring up at me. “It’s that tight piece of ass from the library, isn’t it?”