More to come for this story.

  —Inside Daily Press

  EIGHT

  Bailey

  I had lost time.

  I know, I know. I was grieving. I had to mourn. But seriously. I. Lost. Time.

  Kash was so far ahead of me, and I hated that. I woke the next morning when he was already at work.

  “Whatcha thinking about?”

  I started, my knee slammed up against the table.

  Ah. Crap.

  I scrambled, reaching, but nope. There went my coffee. It spilled over the entire breakfast table.

  “Crap, crap, crap.” I reached for some napkins, throwing them over the pile of hot liquid, and began dabbing. I was trying to smash that liquid with a fervor like no other.

  Matt was frowning next to me. “Uh. Bailey?”

  I almost had all the coffee soaked up. “Huh?”

  “You’ve got half that mug running down your chest.”

  I looked down, and that’s when the sizzling seeped through. I screamed, running from the table. “Crap-shit-shoot crap-shit-shoot crap-shit-shoot—”

  “Okay.” A wet washcloth smacked me in the center of my chest. A strong hand was behind it, and I looked up to Marie’s frowning face. Her other hand was on my shoulder, holding me firm as she soaked up the rest of the coffee from me. She moved me back into my chair, but in a whole gentle way that was authoritative at the same time. “Relax. Your coffee was lukewarm, if even.”

  Theresa came into the dining area and circled around. She ducked her head, laughing, her shoulders shaking. “Never dull around the Francis family, that’s certainly true.”

  Matt threw her a cocky smirk, picking up his own coffee and pulling out a flask from his pocket. He uncapped it, pouring some booze into his coffee, and said, as he recapped and returned it, “And that’s why we love you both and you put up with us.”

  Marie grunted, taking the washcloth from my chest. Most of the coffee had been absorbed into it, and Marie was right. I touched my chest. The sizzling had been the sound of sausage being fried from the kitchen. I gave her a sheepish look, sinking back in my seat. “Thanks, Marie. You’re a chest saver.”

  Theresa started laughing, putting down a plate of toast and returning to the kitchen. “That’s a new one I’ve never heard my mama called.”

  Marie was trying to look at me all stern-like, but at her daughter’s joke, her eyes warmed and she couldn’t keep half of her mouth from curving up in a grin.

  A wave of jealousy washed through me.

  It was abrupt and powerful, enough that it wiped everything out of me. A tear filled my eye, but I kept it back and looked down to my lap.

  God.

  I wanted that back.

  Mom and daughter. In the same house. Teasing comments. A mother’s pride at just hearing her daughter sounding happy. I wanted it, so bad.

  I was biting my lip.

  I was tired of crying. I was tired of being a zombie. I wanted to live again. I wanted to move forward, keep going, and damn it, that’s what I was doing. And I was starting with eating a goddamn good breakfast. After that, I announced, “I’m going to Hawking today.”

  Conversation stopped.

  Okay, there hadn’t been much of a conversation going. Matt was on his phone, and he looked up. Marie was pouring some orange juice into two glasses and put the pitcher down, probably more because both glasses were full, but still. The thought counted here.

  I was counting it.

  I looked between the two, not having a clue what day it was, what time it was, or where anyone except Kash was, but I said it again for dramatic effect. “I’m going to reenroll and finish my studies.” I picked up the orange juice glass that Marie had put in front of me. “It’s time.”

  Matt lifted an eyebrow. He and Marie exchanged a look before he sat up in his chair. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure.” I gave Marie another sheepish grin. “This is really good orange juice.”

  She just frowned at me.

  Matt coughed, leaning back in his chair. “I’ll come with you today.”

  I looked at him. “Huh?”

  “Today. School. You’re going in to reenroll, right? Talk to them. I’d imagine there’d need to be some form of meeting, since they gave you extended leave from your studies.” He shrugged, picking up his coffee. “I’ll go with you. Team Batt.” He winked, taking a sip.

  Marie was looking between the two of us. “I agree with that idea. Matt will go with you. Team Batt…”

  Matt just laughed. “You’ve no clue what that means.”

  She went past him to the kitchen, and as she did, she raised her hand, making a motion like she was going to smack the back of his head. She didn’t actually hit him, but Matt followed her, turning his head so he could see her. Noting her implication, he just chuckled, and then he called out, “Fitzy!”

  Fitz, my bodyguard-slash-driver, stepped in from the other hallway. “I heard.”

  Matt narrowed his eyes at my security guard, raising his coffee again. “I’m assuming you know what to do.”

  The subtext was to let Kash know my decision and probably to set in motion letting whoever else needed to know about my reentry into school, but I kept quiet about my other plans. For those, I figured it worked out best if Matt was the one coming with me, and not Kash himself.

  “Okay.” Matt saluted me with his coffee, right before he finished drinking it. “Meet you out front in twenty minutes?”

  I nodded, reaching for and then downing my orange juice as he got up, going to his room.

  It was really good orange juice.

  NINE

  Bailey

  Turns out, it was a Wednesday and smack in the first week of February, so that meant classes were a go. That also meant my advisor thought I was nuts. She said it herself. Ms. Wells shook her head but went to work on her computer. “Okay. Are you sure you want to take last semester’s finals this week, and then also try to catch up?”

  “Yes.”

  I was firm. I was adamant.

  She stopped typing and looked over my shoulder to where Matt was standing. He shuffled over, coming to sit next to me. He shrugged, shaking his head, and folded his arms over his chest. “She woke up with a mission today. Don’t look at me to talk sense into her. She’s the genius, not me.”

  “Have you—Was this run by your, er, Mr. Colello?”

  I flushed. “I don’t need permission from my boyfriend to start school again.”

  “I called him and he wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. He said if she wants to learn, let her learn,” Matt said, as if I hadn’t spoken.

  I heard another tone in his voice and slid my eyes sideways, but he wasn’t looking at me. His gaze was firmly locked on my advisor’s and the two seemed to be reading each other’s minds. She confirmed this a second later. “Uh-huh. I see.”

  Typing it up, she handed me a note to take down to the registrar’s office, and after we did that, I was reenrolled. Classes started tomorrow. Which, crap, I didn’t have my books. But going through my list, I saw that only two required a textbook. The rest were online, and I smacked Matt’s chest as we were walking through campus. “We gotta run by the school store fast.”

  Matt grunted, his chest deflating a second. “Ouch. You hit hard, woman. And what are you talking about?” He took my class list out of my hands, reading it. “MIS 545 Operations Management. MIS 516 Security Risk Management.” He read my other two classes and frowned, absentmindedly rubbing where I’d hit him. “Just the titles of your courses give me a migraine. I don’t get how you, Cy, and Dad are into this, and that you guys almost salivate over it.” He handed the paper back to me. “You guys are super nerds. Not just nerds; super nerds.”

  I snatched it away. “Well, don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’ve got a feeling you’ve got super nerd powers of your own, just haven’t found ’em yet.”

  Matt threw his head back and laughed. “You serious?”

  I frowned.

  Fitz was walking ahead of us, and one of Matt’s guards was behind us. We had two others covering us, but walking far away so students wouldn’t automatically associate them with us. It didn’t matter anymore. I was past wanting to be invisible. This was how life was going to be. Guards. People would recognize us, but as we were going back to my usual building, I realized that only a few people had paid attention to us. And even those people had just stopped, stared, frowned, and then continued on.

  A few were glancing at Fitz and the other guards, but it wasn’t the spectacle of last semester.

  As if following my thoughts, Matt said, “We’re old news.”

  “What?”

  He gestured around us, his hands sliding into his back pockets. “You’re looking around, right? Noticing no one noticing us?”

  “Yeah.”

  He inclined his head. “We’re old news. You’ve been gone, mourning your mom, and Kash isn’t letting anyone take his picture. There was a spread of him and me at Naveah a while back, but you’ve gone to ground and so has he. People moved on. Some celebrity posted an image of himself and you could see his dick. Everyone was in an uproar about it.”

  Well.

  That was nice.

  Felt nice.

  Normal.

  And I was almost crying, because it was reminding me of a time before the first kidnapping attempt.

  That was making me think of Chrissy, and yeah. No “almost” anymore. Huge tears were rolling down my face.

  Matt looked over and cursed under his breath. “Come here.” He put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into him. We kept walking, but I was half tucked under my brother’s arm, and by the time we got to my building, the size of the tears had shrunk. He patted my arm. “There you go. Look at you, learning the Francis way and getting in control of your robot side.”

  I laughed.

  The tears were almost gone as Fitz held the doors for us and we stepped through. I used the backs of my hands to wipe my eyes clean.

  That’s when we ran into Hoda, my on-and-off nemesis from school.

  Who used to work at Naveah, and who was the one to release an image of Kash and me in a compromising position. That Hoda.

  Who was friends with our blogger nemesis.

  I had a lot of nemeses.

  She was coming out of an office, looking down at her phone.

  Matt stopped and frowned. “Hey, isn’t that—”

  Hoda’s head whipped up, saw us. Her eyes went wide, and she tried to go back into the office she’d just left.

  “Hey!” I zipped out from under Matt’s arms.

  Hoda was still scrambling for the doorknob.

  “Hey!” I grabbed her arm just as she got it open and started to go through.

  I pulled her back out.

  “What are you doing?” That was me, in her face. I was more confused, though. I thought we’d been okay before.

  “Sorry.” She moved aside, but she still seemed agitated. “I don’t know why I did that.”

  Matt raised an eyebrow. “Conditioned response?” He flashed a cocky grin. “Makes me feel good that you instantly fear us.” He smoothed a hand down his chest. “We’re doing something right.”

  I stifled a grin.

  Hoda glared at Matt. “So not funny.” She looked at me. “And I am sorry. I was just, uh—” She realized she was still holding her phone, and she looked at it. Her face got beet red. Her hand jerked; she started to put it in her pocket.

  Matt swooped in, plucking it out of her hand. “What’s this?” He began reading her screen, then stopped abruptly.

  Everything changed.

  His slightly joking demeanor vanished and the air grew charged.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, right as he lifted his deadly serious and stormy eyes, locking on Hoda. “You want to explain this shit?”

  She ducked her head, heaving a long dramatic breath. “Damn.”

  “Yeah,” Matt clipped out. “Damn.” He went back to the phone, clicking through it.

  “Hey!” She tried for it. “That’s private property.”

  He held it out of her reach, backtracking. “Not when you’re texting with our enemy.” He looked at me, gesturing to Hoda with his head. “She’s still hanging out with Camille Story.”

  Camille Story, the blogger nemesis on whom we still needed to exact revenge, because she’d done all sorts of bad stuff against us.

  “Good!”

  He frowned at me.

  Hoda twitched, doing a double take at my gush. “What?”

  “Yeah.” Matt’s eyebrows pinched together, and he threw Hoda a scowl. “What?”

  “No. That works out.” I took the phone from him.

  “Hey—hey!”

  I moved away from Hoda, shrugging her off, and Matt stepped in, blocking her.

  Hoda was still talking to Camille.

  Hoda was still in a good relationship with her.

  I read over their exchanges. It was normal messages between friends. Venting. Excited exclamations. Some OMGs and Oh God!s. They talked about guys. Whoa. Wait. They were talking about Liam. I threw Hoda a frown. “You have a thing for Liam?”

  Liam was the jock nerd in our class.

  He wasn’t really a nerd, but he was a jock, and we’re all big computer people, so the phrase stuck.

  Her face was bright red now.

  She was up against the wall, but Matt was still blocking her from leaving. She made a grab for her phone. Matt simply didn’t let her move. She moved one way, he was right there in front of her. She went another way, he moved that way, too. He was enjoying that a bit too much, and Hoda threw him a dark look before falling back against the wall in defeat. “Yes. I mean, yeah. And he and I are going to move in together. It was his suggestion.”

  “His suggestion?” Matt’s eyebrows arched high. “Did you hypnotize him one night or something?”

  She flushed again, but by this point it was getting hard to tell. “No! Not that it’s any of your business, but I can’t stand Camille. That’s me holding up my end of our promise.” She turned to point at me. “You said you’d close out all the spying on me if I got you in her room. I tried, I really did, but she’s so pretentious. I can’t stand living with her. She’s horrible. I’m allowed five times to use the bathroom and I can only use it for fifteen minutes in the morning, to get ready for the day. I have to sneak a shower after she leaves the apartment, and I swear she’s got cameras inside the place, because she always gives me this look like she knows I showered. But she can’t call me on it because then I’d question how she knew, because I wipe down every single time!”

  She rolled her eyes, her hands going into her hair and fisting both sides before letting them drop back down. “So, yeah. That’s me being fake, and I reacted because it was just instinct. No!” She slapped a hand to Matt’s chest. “That does not mean I instantly fear you. I, just, I don’t know. Wait!” She stopped, realization and horror coming to her face. Her mouth dropped before she caught herself. “Oh my God. Your mom. You’re here. What are you doing here?” She was scanning my face, studying me more intently. “You look good. You look like yourself again.”

  Matt snorted.

  She threw him another scowl. “You’re really annoying. Has anyone told you that?”

  “Just Kash, usually. And that’s because I annoy him on purpose.” The cocky smirk was back. He was giving her bedroom eyes. “If a chick calls me annoying, it’s because she wants me but doesn’t want to admit she wants me.” He leaned against the wall. “How about it? You want me?”

  Her phone buzzed in my hands.

  Liam: Are we still on for the apartment?

  I answered for her. “Uh, no. Remember.” I showed Matt the phone. “She’s got a thing for Liam.”

  He read the text, but his smirk didn’t lessen. “The guy’s in for a world of hurt.”

  She cursed, grabbing the phone this time. “You guys are both horrible human beings,” she replied, then remembered. “Oh, shit. I didn’t really mean that about you, Bailey. Just him.” She threw Matt a look.

  I didn’t care.

  I waited until she was done texting with Liam and had put the phone away, giving Matt a cautious look before sliding it all the way into her pocket. Once she was done, her shoulders straightened. She looked relieved.

  “Great! Now we’re going to go and get a drink somewhere and you’re going to tell us all about Camille Story,” I said.

  She paled. “I am?”

  I moved forward, linking my arm with hers. “Yep, and then we’re going to figure out a way for you to get her out of her apartment and us into it. And we’re doing it tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  * * *

  Turns out Hoda sucked at being a spy.

  She didn’t know anything about Camille Story, aka Matt’s obsessive past reject, aka psycho stalker of the world. I always thought Hoda was smart. She certainly had proclaimed herself to be in the past. But sitting across from her and taking in everything she could report on Camille Story, I had two theories—she was either incredibly real-life stupid or she was lying to us. Based on the fear on her face and the loathing that flared in her eyes when she talked about her current roommate, I was going with option A.

  She was just real-life dumb.

  I leaned forward, my hand on the table. There were three drinks between us. “You suck at this type of work.”

  She flushed again. And this time I could tell, because she had settled back, her body returning to her normal color. She rolled her eyes, shoving back against her chair, and folded her arms over her chest. “I didn’t exactly sign up to join the CIA with this job. I was bitter and jealous.”

  Matt grinned, picking up his whiskey. “See where that got you?”

  Her eyes narrowed at him, and if looks could kill, Matt would’ve been a pile of dust, and whoosh, the wind would’ve swept him clean already.

  He didn’t care. “So let’s get this straight. She reached out to you because you hated my adorable sister for a time.” He bumped his shoulder next to mine.