Audition (North Security 4)

“Who’d know? And know what?”

“My brothers. They’d know that I care. Not that it matters, coming from a soulless monster.” That truth feels casual. Comfortable. I have never been anything better than I am right now, but I’ll be worse one day. Guaranteed. Bethany’s eyes lock on mine, pools of darkness against the strobe lights. She’s a fucking siren, drawing me off the edge of the ship. I could drown in the way she rolls her hips. Maybe I will, one day when she’s not a one-way ticket to prison.

“Would it be so bad?” Her body moves against mine. The dance becomes sinuous and dark. “If they knew?”

“It would be fucking terrible if anyone knew.” My heart thrashes against its bounds. “Getting close to people is a setup.” It’s an irony, because there’s nothing separating us but sweat-slick clothes. It’s a thousand degrees in here. A million. “You’re a sucker if you think they’ll do anything but leave you behind.” Bethany rocks to one side, pulling us toward the edge of the crowd. On instinct I throw my weight back, keeping her here. But it only takes one lithe step for her to make her argument.

“I need some air,” she says over the crushing bass. She doesn’t lose contact with me all the way out to the alley. Outside, the dance doesn’t stop. I can still feel the music under her skin. Bethany’s eyes search mine. “Is that why you’re buddy-buddy with my brother, then? Because you think he’ll keep you around?”

My entire body bristles. “No,” I growl. “Because when he finally gets what’s coming to him, I won’t give a fuck.” I’ve said too much. She tenses beneath my hands. My muscles react for me, and I back her against the wall of the alley. There’s the delicate line of her throat again, her pulse fluttering underneath. Exposed. One brush of my lips against her skin has Bethany panting.

“He’s not all bad,” she breathes. “You don’t have to say things like that.” Tension sings in her voice, but she doesn’t push me away.

“Is that what you give a fuck about, sweetheart? Your brother?”

Her fists curl into my shirt. Starlight echoes in her eyes. “He’s my brother. You care about your brothers. We’re the same.”

We’re not the same. We’re fucking not. She might have a preternatural grace and old understanding in her eyes, but she’s as naive as they come. My nerves feel like live wires, exposed to the air and her touch. But no matter how raw they get, this will only ever be a false closeness. I can never, never let her in. Her or anybody else. The risks are too high. They’ll always be too high. “We’re not the same.”

I can’t let go of her. The cool night air swirls around us, making the hairs on the backs of my arms rise. One of her hands curls around my wrist. She holds tight to the bone. “I know what you need, Josh.”

I can’t say it out loud. I can only take it.

This time, when she kisses me back, it’s hot and brave. It lands like a cannonball at the center of my soul. I pretend with all my might that there’s something left for Bethany to destroy, but I’m already rubble.

Bethany, present time

The sound of running water infiltrates my dream. It takes a period of time to realize that the water doesn’t fit with the dream. I’m sitting in my high school math class, trying to get the numbers on the page in front of me to make sense. The whoosh of a shower, complete with the irregular splashes that suggest a person washing their hair, has nothing to do with an algebra test.

As soon as that thought is fully formed, the dream dissolves and I’m squarely back in the center of reality. Also known as Joshua North’s personal bedroom. And his personal bed. I grab for the covers and pull them up to my neck. But…I’m fully clothed. Of course I am. He’s made it abundantly clear that intimacy is not part of the deal.

Not that I expected intimacy from him. We stumbled into its gates on the first night, and he dragged us out and slammed them shut. I don’t want that with him, anyway. I don’t want any of this. Not the threatening letters. Not Landon’s condescending treatment. He dismissed my opinions about this security team completely, and now look where it’s gotten me.

In Josh’s master suite, listening to him shower.

Unless a true apocalypse has happened, there can only be one man in the master suite’s bathroom. He wouldn’t have let anyone else walk into the bedroom. My mouth drops open. He walked past me, sleeping, to get to the en suite. Who does that? He does, obviously. Which means he doesn’t really care that I’m sleeping in his bed. At the same time, he’s ordered me to sleep in his bed. It doesn’t add up.

When I came out of the dream, I was still tired. It took forever for me to fall asleep last night, yet again. Each time I woke up, the cycle started all over again.

Now I’m wide awake but frozen in the bed. He’s in the shower.

I launch myself out of bed just to break the spell, then run my hands over my hair. I don’t toss and turn much in my sleep. Years of ingrained habit. But what do I do now? Waltz into the bathroom and act like this is my home, too? I still haven’t figured this part out. Josh would deserve it. He’s the one who wouldn’t stand for my apartment. The shower in the master suite is all modern tile with a big glass front. It takes up one entire wall of the bathroom. There’s just no earthly way I can enter that space and not look in his direction. His naked, wet direction.

This isn’t how I thought this would go. For one thing, I have class in a matter of hours. How many, I’m not sure. Where is my phone? I find it exactly where I left it on the bedside table, only it’s been plugged into a charger.

He didn’t want me out and about with a dead phone. At some point he came in here to plug it in so I wouldn’t have to go without it. I’m not one of those people who spends a lot of time on my phone. Dancing takes up most of my waking hours.

What the hell is happening?

The other piece to this equation is that I suddenly and desperately have to pee. I probably could have held it off if I’d stayed in bed, but I’m upright, and gravity is a cruel mistress. Leaving this bedroom

means I run the risk of Josh thinking I’ve disappeared. Staying means I run the risk of seeing him get out of the shower. Did he take all his clothes in there with him, or will he come out with a towel around his waist? Or no towel at all?

The phone tumbles onto the bed. I bury my face in my hands.

I’m not sixteen anymore.

I should not be acting like the man who’s kicked down the door into my life and left it hanging from its hinges is anyone to get excited about. No. The only possible way forward is to carry on with what we now call our normal routine. This is the suite he’s assigned me to, so that’s the bathroom I’ll use. I’ll brush my teeth. I’ll get dressed. I’ll go to class. Noah, I’m sure, will be waiting to drive me.