Vengeance (Private 14)

“What?” I blurted.

“Yeah. I guess he, like, really wants you and Sawyer to get together. Like, badly.” He slumped back against the tree as well, tearing up a big chunk of grass and tossing it down in the dirt.

So this was why Graham had called Josh a liar. He knew that he’d lied about getting into Cornell. But why had he made it sound like it was such a huge deal? And what was with the major jones for me to date his brother? Never in my life had I ever heard of a brother who cared that much about getting his brother a girl.

“That boy has issues,” I concluded quietly.

“Tell me about it,” Josh said. “Anyway, that’s why I kind of freaked when I saw you with Sawyer that day. After what Graham said . . . I think it just threw me.”

“I understand,” I told him, reaching for his hand and holding it in my lap. “I just wish you’d told me about all this sooner. I could’ve helped you study or at least been more understanding about everything.”

“I know. I’m an idiot. I was embarrassed,” Josh said, tilting his head and giving me a small smile. “Didn’t want you to think you were going out with a deadbeat or something.”

I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Like I could ever think that.”

Josh turned my hand over so my palm was facing up. Gently, he traced the lines of my hand with his fingertip. “So, what’s going on with you? It sounded like you wanted to talk about something too.”

Josh knew about my latest brush with death, of course, but I’d yet to tell him about MT and the potential connection between the accidents. As he looked into my eyes now, part of me wanted to keep it a secret. Clearly the last thing he needed right now was more stress. But nothing good had ever come of the two of us keeping secrets before. I pressed my lips together and turned toward him fully.

“Promise not to freak out,” I said.

“Uh-oh. No good conversation ever started that way,” he joked. “What’s up?”

So I told him. I told him the whole story of the mystery texter, all the way up to the message I’d received last night to avoid the awards banquet. Josh listened the whole time, his expression growing more and more tense with each passing second. Finally, his knee started to bounce up and down and I had to place my heavy cast on top of it to stop him.

“So? What do you think? Do I trust this person or not?” I asked, really hoping for a definitive answer. For some sort of direction. “Do I say screw it and go to the awards banquet, or do I stay home?”

“First, let me just ask you this,” he said. “How could you not tell me about this?”

I balked, leaning back. “Okay, pot, go ahead and call me black.”

Josh blushed. “Okay, fine, but my secret wasn’t potentially life-threatening,” he said. He shook his head and looked out across campus. “God, I can’t wait to get the eff out of this freaking place. I don’t even care where I’m going, I just want to get out.” Then he looked at me seriously and took both my hands. “I just wish you were coming with me.”

“Me too,” I said, feeling suddenly, overwhelmingly sad.

Josh looked at me for a long moment, as if trying to see inside, as if gauging exactly what I could handle and what I couldn’t. Finally he squeezed my fingers.

“You know what? Screw it,” he said with a devil-may-care smile. “We’re going to the banquet. You’re getting two huge awards and you should be there to accept them. Don’t let this latest freak scare you off.”

My chest instantly felt ten times lighter, and just like that I knew this was what I’d wanted to hear. “But what if something happens?”

“Nothing’s gonna happen,” he assured me, looking me in the eye. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t. I’ll get a bunch of the guys together and we’ll all be on high alert. No one will be letting you out of their sight.”

“Yeah?” I said, raising my eyebrows hopefully.

“I swear,” he said, looping his arm around me and pulling me to his side. He kissed the top of my head and held me close. “I won’t think about school and you won’t think about Billings or this MT nutbag and we’ll just have fun.”

I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head to look up at him. “Is that even possible around here?”

Josh smirked. “Well, we can at least try.”

THE PAYOFF

“Josh is right. You can’t just hide out in your dorm room for the rest of your life,” Ivy said that afternoon as she pawed through my jewelry box, holding an earring up to her ear, then trying out a necklace. She’d decided she wanted something new to wear with her blue Easton Academy graduation gown, and had apparently chosen to shop for it at the House of Reed. “If there’s some kind of threat at the banquet, then we’ll deal with it head-on, right? You have to show them you won’t be intimidated. That you won’t run scared.”

“You sound like you’re running for Senate or something,” I said, looking up from my history textbook. Then I lowered my voice to a deep grumble. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“Who knew you could apply that policy at private school?” Ivy smiled as she clasped a beaded necklace around her neck. “Whatever. I’m just trying to get you psyched up.” She sat down next to me on my bed and closed my book. “You do know everything’s going to be fine, right? Because it is.”