Gifted Connections 4

I shrugged. “I saw a lot of it growing up,” I said flippantly. I don’t know how many times I had to clean a bloody nose or bandage a wound left from Heidi, her mom, or Heidi’s friends. The worse had come from the men who carved the scar under my breast and the time when Heidi had hit me with the belt buckle and leather.

I saw Remy clench his fist on the table.

“Relax,” I teased before kissing his cheek. “I’m not angry about it.” I then lowered my voice by his ear. “If I pretend like it doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t have the power to hurt me anymore.”

He grabbed my hand and squeezed it. “I still don’t like to think about what you had to go through,” he said fiercely.

“That was the past, this is now, and I couldn’t be happier,” I told him. I grabbed his face and peered into his blue-grey eyes, so he knew how sincere I was.

“Oh, my great goodness,” Jaxson groaned as he looked over at the opening from the dorms. “Is there a club in here that I don’t know about? First Jemmy, now the others.”

I looked up and barely stifled my laughter. “That’s right, you slept-in this morning. They tried to show up to breakfast like that, too. Paul flipped his lid. He made them go change into their uniforms. The duty day is over, so they can wear their civvies now.”

“Does this happen to you all the time, man?” Ben asked as he leaned over to look at Lincoln. “Girls losing their minds?”

Lincoln gave him a shrug and a little smile. “All the time.”

“I bet you get laid all the time, too!” Mike said with jealously lacing his voice.

Most of the guys laughed, but Lincoln just shrugged once more. “It gets old after a while.”

I looked over at him in disbelief. I narrowed my eyes at him. I couldn’t believe him. Less than two weeks ago I witnessed him hook up with two girls at the same time. Whatever.

I don’t care, I told myself. He meant nothing to me, even if we bore the same mark.

“I totally expected to see you out there. We just saw some training videos of ya’ll the other day. You guys are sick! Where were you guys?” Tyler asked before he looked over at me.

“I’m restricted to light duty,” I explained uncomfortably. They didn’t need to know the truth, at least not the whole truth.

“She was too busy getting shot.” Mike smirked at me.

He obviously followed the gossip rags, too. Mike could be a total jerk. I had tolerated him when we played together, but he purposely pushed people’s buttons all the time. I had a theory it was because his mother was overly devoted to her job and barely paid attention to her only son, but I still felt like it was a good excuse.

“Is that why you’re here?” He looked over at Lincoln. “Wasn’t it you who saved her and shit?”

“I didn’t save her.” Lincoln shook his head, looking like he barely tolerated Mike either. He was brash and loud, after all. “She actually saved my best friend, and I just happened to be nearby to help the bleeding stop.” His eyes met mine briefly. Since our verbal sparring match earlier, we kind of went back to our own corners and avoided each other.

“Anna is your best friend?” Jemmy gushed, leaning into Lincoln. “That is so sweet that you’re best friends with a girl.”

“That’s not what you said today to Gavin,” Sierra said with a deadpan expression, showing a rare side of herself. She was docile and laid back until she felt like someone important to her was under attack. Then she was quick to speak up. “You told us today you didn’t like how close Gavin was to Blake, that men and women shouldn’t be best friends.”

I looked at Jemmy in confusion. She had never been intimidated by my friendship with him in the past, and I was the one who technically got them together. She looked away. She was still upset with me, apparently.

“This is getting out of hand,” Drake muttered clearly upset at Jemmy.

“You still play?” Ben asked, clearly trying to break the tension that just fell over the table as he looked over at me.

I looked over at him, eagerly grasping onto the subject change. I was struggling, and Jemmy knew it, but instead of being there for me, it almost felt like she was against me. “Yes. I got a beautiful guitar and violin for my birthday,” I told him with a smile. “I play as often as I can.”

“You down with playing for a little while? Unless you’re tired,” he added quickly.

“I’m not tired yet, but my guitar is upstairs,” I frowned.

“No worries,” Jaxson hopped up. “I’ll go get it.”

“It’s still restricted.” I reminded him. “No one is supposed to go upstairs yet.”

He flung out his arms dramatically. “I really don’t think all these girls packed their ho garb when they thought their lives were in danger. They definitely went back up at some point.”