They popped open again as the conversation by the car finally caught up to me. Colin was going to be hanging around the university with me? For how long? Had I agreed to that without noticing?
I glanced over at his profile. Of course I wanted him around, but didn’t he have places to be? How much disruption to his life was too much before he started to get pissed, and justifiably so?
Maybe he’d just said that so Fiona could convincingly corroborate our story to Mom and Dad that I wouldn’t be alone.
Maybe it’d be better not to ask until we could have that conversation in private.
Maybe I wanted to bask in the thought of not actually being alone, because no matter how much I protested, Iwasfreaked out.
I could worry about it later. I let my head fall back again and settled in for the drive home.
Chapter 4
Under Duress
“Well, that could’ve gone worse, right?”
Colin started the car without saying a word in reply. He didn’t need to. It could’ve gone worse, in the sense that I could’ve been locked in the shed with Evan standing guard outside, something that might very well have happened if I hadn’t brought my very own alpha along as backup. I liked Colin’s voice, but no sound had ever been quite as welcome as the Cadillac’s engine grumbling to life, telling me it was about to take me away from all this.
Only two hours had passed since we arrived; the sun still hadn’t made it up enough to shine straight down through the thick forest, its rays skimming along the treetops and filtering sideways through the branches. The way I felt, it ought to have been going down already. I’d thought I’d been tired when we got there.
But no, not tired. Not remotely, not compared to now. I picked up a discarded pair of knock-off mirrored aviators lying in the center console—with a few friends; how many damn pairs of these did one person need?—and stuck them on my face, one of the arms correctly behind my ear and the other sloppily shoved over the other ear. I didn’t care.
Colin twisted around to back up and finish his three-point turn, caught sight of me, and cracked up.
“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “Whatever. You’re not the one who narrowly escaped house arrest.”
“It wasn’t that narrow.” Colin turned his attention back to driving.
“Easy for you to say,” I shot back. My mom had nearly blown a gasket when I’d told her I was heading back to the university, and not even staying the night. She’d shouted at me until even Fiona, who normally shrugged people’s tempers right off, had gone wide-eyed and begged her to stop.
Dad had just gotten all red and stomped off to talk to the pack’s council about the situation, and ask them to have our shaman beef up the boundary wards, but that was almost worse. He got the most stubborn when he had the least to say. Thankfully we’d escaped before he could make his move.
“Gods, I can hardly keep my eyes open.” I didn’t quite slur my words, but close.
“Suck it up, buttercup,” Colin said, hitting the gas so that gravel sprayed up from the tires. He clearly wanted out of there just as much as I did, a testament to how tense it’d been. Colin had visited my pack’s lands and my parents’ place specifically dozens of times over the years, and always said he hated to leave. “I’ve been awake as long as you have. Shotgun’s job is to keep the driver awake.”
“Crap. I’m sorry.” I sat up straight, blinking. It didn’t help much. Every shaft of sunlight felt like a laser beam directly into my brain. I didn’t know how I was going to finish writing those exams, as exhausted as I felt, but at least I might be able to grab a nap first. I didn’t think I’d have been able to drive even with the proverbial shotgun pointed at my head—and Colin might be an alpha, but he still got sleep-deprived, too. “Music. Um, coffee? That coffee shop in town’ll be open now that it’s not freaking dawn. Let’s stop there. I want a mocha, not more gas-station misery disguised as coffee.”
Which reminded me, I was going to miss my coffee date with Meredith. I pulled out my phone and tapped in a quick text.
“Real coffee,” Colin agreed. “Let’s skip the music for now, though. I want to be able to hear myself think.”
I side-eyed him. “You only think under duress.”
“Don’t go busting out those ten-dollar words on me, Mr. Fancy-Pants Professor.” He shot me a crooked grin. “Your mom’s under duress.” He waggled his eyebrows and took the turn onto the main road at a Cadillac-unfriendly speed.
It made me laugh despite myself, and I slumped back in my seat. I could feel myself hitting one of those waves of giddiness that struck at intervals after you’d been up more than twenty-four hours. I wanted to shoot back a your-mom joke of my own, but I’d long since made those off-limits with Colin. His mom had left a long time ago, when Colin and I were sixteen, finally reaching her limit with Colin’s dad’s bullshit. Colin and his younger brother had stayed with the pack, partly because their mom wasn’t exactly the parent of the year either—but mostly because she hadn’t even asked them if they wanted to go. Colin almost never mentioned her anymore, except for the occasional laconic update about getting an email telling him she was in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, or something along those lines.
I hated putting Colin at odds with my parents, because they loved him. And he might not ever talk about it, but every time my mom hugged him, he got this little smile that made my chest ache.
And there went my temporary, insane good-mood bubble.
“Anyway,” Colin said, making me jump, “I don’t know what counts as duress if this doesn’t. I get why you can’t ditch your classes and your research and your life and hide at home, but we need to think this through. Seriously. Your parents will take care of Fiona, so we don’t need to worry about her, but this doesn’t seem like a pack problem to me. And that’s the only kind of problem they really know how to deal with, honestly. I’m thinking maybe we should file a police report.”
My head started to throb. Avoidance. Sweet, sweet avoidance, how I longed for it. And Colin seemed determined to be all grown-up about facing our problems head-on.
Myproblems, not our problems. I shook my head.