Page 87 of Endless Anger
“Oh yeah?” He rolls toward me, propping his cheek on the heel of his hand. “How so?”
In the dim lamp lighting, I can make out the warm brown of his irises, emphasized by the bruising around the right eye. There’s a cut on his lip, split next to the scar, and his nose looks a little swollen.
I drop my gaze to the length of my body, ignoring the blush consuming me. “Well, for starters, I didn’t hate you back then.”
“You don’t hate me now.”
Huffing, I shift onto my side away from him. Unwilling to let him know that he might be right.
He snorts, and I feel him move again, probably lying on his back. The warmth from his body sets mine completely on edge, my temperature skyrocketing.
I study the worn spines of the books on his desk across the room, volumes of manga and classics he’s had for years now. It makes me feel like we’re kids all over again, and a part of me preens at that thought.
When we were kids, I didn’t question anything. Asher was my best friend, and that was a truth I knew.
It was all that mattered.
Keats’s glowing yellow eyes appear at the bedside, and I move my arm, allowing him a place to jump onto. He fits himself into the small space, curling against me as he begins to purr, and I thread my fingers into his lush fur.
“So…what have you been doing all this time?” I ask quietly, hoping to change the subject. “I mean with Foxe and stuff. Besides going to school, apparently. You haven’t really been around back home. At least not when I’d visit.”
“Didn’t think youwantedme around.” He blows out a long, labored breath. “To be honest, I haven’t been doing much outside of classes. Learning animation and traditional art takes up most of my time. Otherwise, I just go for anything that doesn’t demand too much from me, since I apparently became Foxe’s main roadie at some point.”
A smile tugs at my mouth. “I’ll bet he loves that.”
“The way he complains, you’d think he’d rather have someone else doing it.”
“That isn’t true,” I say around a yawn. “I doubt he trusts anyone more than you.”
Asher grunts but doesn’t comment. For a while, neither of us speak, and rain begins pattering against the windowpane, lulling me closer to the edge of consciousness.
Until this moment, I hadn’t realized how tired I was. The nap I had before he came in helped a little, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to fully catch up.
Exhaustion covers me like a weighted blanket, and I let my eyes fall closed, telling myself I’m only staying because there’s quite literally nowhere else for me to go.
My room is blocked off, and the library isn’t comfortable. If I go to Aurora, she’ll just worry and make me feel worse.
Me sleeping here has nothing to do with how good it all feels.
Nothing at all.
“Just like old times, isn’t it?”
I peel an eyelid open at his musing, expecting him to say something more. Something that shatters the illusion.
“Don’t bother reading into it,” I reply softly. “I’ll be gone in the morning.”
Again, he doesn’t respond, and I assume he’s fallen asleep. I clutch Keats close, trying to convince myself that it’s his fur heating me in places I’ve never felt before rather than the steady, rhythmic breathing coming from behind me.
But it’s the breathing I fall asleep to anyway.
27
ASHER
My phone buzzingsomewhere on the bed wakes me up, but it’s the arm slung low across my waist that keeps me in place on the tiny mattress.
I’m on my back, the same way I fell asleep, but Lucy’s turned completely around. She’s facing me now, her hair in total disarray, and her arm is heavy where it lies on my bare skin.
