Liam Davis & The Raven (Love Inscribed 1)

I scratched the back of my head. “So lately, when I’m in the shower, I fantasize about winning the BCA competition for best article of the year.”

Quinn blinked and looked at me, his gaze running over my lips as if expecting me to say something else. “The what now?”

I shrugged. “It’s a competition I submitted three of my articles to. The results come out next month.”

“Are you saying,” Quinn rested his head on the back of the couch and stared toward the ceiling, the side of his mouth curling, “that you literally get off on work?”

I hadn’t thought about it like that before. But, I guess—“Yes. Seems I do.”

I stood, because I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. I needed to focus on something constructive so I wouldn’t feel so—exposed.

Quinn didn’t pull me back, but he touched the side of my knee. “You’re something else, Liam,” he said quietly. “And I’m going to figure out exactly what that something is.”

Chapter 9

My lashes fluttered away from my comic to meet the view of hummingbirds, and then Hunter in his wheelchair, arms crossed.

“I invite you here for coffee, and you just sit there and read?”

I glanced around the almost empty Crazy Mocha Coffee as I carefully set the comic on the table next to the tea I’d barely touched. “The only reason you invited me here was so you didn’t have to wait for Mitch on your own. You are not alone, are you?”

He wheeled forward enough to snag the comic. “Booster Gold? You’d rather have his company than mine?”

“Booster will still be there when Mitch finally arrives and you give me my cue to leave.” I sipped my tea, and my mind skipped from Booster to our campus vigilante. Where was he right now? Who was his daytime persona? Was it someone I’d recognize?

Hunter laid the comic on the table and wheeled closer to my side. He gripped my shoulder. “Dude, don’t leave right away when he comes, okay? I invited you here because you’re always so busy. If I didn’t have a reason to meet, you’d have had something else to do. That’s why I said I wanted you to wait until Mitch came.”

“Oh.” He wanted to spend time with me? “In that case”—I slipped Booster Gold into my messenger bag—“enough of him then. What about The Raven, the campus vigilante. Have you ever heard of him?”

With Hunter’s hand still on me, I felt him stiffen, his fingers tight on my shoulder.

“I take that as a yes?” I pulled out my notebook and pen from my pocket. It wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about leaving his identity a secret. I would. At least from the masses. But the thing was, every time I watched Hunter wheeling his chair, it reminded me how lucky I was and I wanted to thank The Raven in person.

That, and—to be entirely honest—I was curious. I itched to solve the Raven mystery almost as much as I itched to hear the BCA results.

“What about this vigilante?” Hunter pulled back from me and maneuvered to the opposite side of the table.

“Have you ever seen him?” I asked, scribbling down Hunter’s first reaction. “Or heard about him?”

Hunter shook his head firmly and grabbed his coffee. “Nah. Just what we all hear in Scribe.” He shrugged. “Have you ever seen him? Do you know who it is?”

Like with Quinn, I got the feeling he wasn’t telling me everything. The question was: why not?

I took a long drink of tea. “He saved me from Freddy Krueger a month back.”

“Freddy Krueger?”

“It was a nightmare and The Raven saved me from it.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” he blurted. “You’re not gay, and—” He shut up suddenly and swore.

I held my pen poised over my notebook and wondered why he was squeezing the life out of his wheelchair arms.

“Am I missing something here?” I asked.

“Ah, shit.” He drained his coffee and then reached over for my tea as if he could drink his way out of the moment.

“Hunter?”

He set the tea down. “Fine. Look, I may have noticed a few things about this vigilante, like the fact that he only rescues gay guys. At least, up until you.”

“Is that what you were hiding?”

“Look. It’s embarrassing, but I sort of root for the guy, okay? I wish—” He cut himself off and ran a hand though his hair. “I just root for him.”

I flipped back a few pages in my book to the list of guys who had been saved by The Raven. “All gay victims? Garret Tucker?”

“Gay.”

“Dylan MacDonald?”

“Gay.”

“Marcus Livingston?”

Hunter blushed at that name. “Oh yep, he’s gay.”

I listed all the names, and sure enough, Hunter responded “gay” to each one.

“All of them. See?” Hunter checked who was coming through the door. “Except for you.”

I thought back to that night. How Freddy had attacked me right outside Mitch’s apartment—“Your theory holds water.”