The Pretender - Cora Brent Page 0,47
out the door on time. “Nothing so tragic.”
Frankie stops squirting grape jelly on his breakfast and eyes me. “Seriously, what’s wrong?”
My kid brother doesn’t need to know all the sordid details. Still, I feel like I need to confess to someone. “There’s a possibility I might have overreacted about something.”
He snorts. “Impossible. Teenage girls never overreact about anything ever.”
I throw a dishtowel at him. “Says the fifteen-year-old expert.”
He grins and cocks his head. “If it’s bugging you then make it right.”
“I’m not sure I can.”
Because the truth is, if Ben and I can’t get through a single day without erupting into a furious argument, then we don’t stand a chance.
And anyway, what kind of future is there with a guy who says you can’t ask him any questions?
Frankie throws the dishtowel back at me. “You need to try. Okay?”
It’s funny that he really has no idea what my problem is and yet he can offer outstanding advice. “Okay.”
After Frankie leaves I wash the dishes, check on Adela and then walk to the bus stop with a mix of anxiety and hope. Maybe it’s all for nothing and after yesterday’s spectacle Ben has decided that I’m not worth the trouble. But Ben never shows up at all. Since the morning he swaggered up to the bus stop on his first day at BMA I don’t think he’s ever been absent.
This might have nothing to do with me.
Maybe he just wanted an extra day of vacation or woke up with the flu.
But by mid morning I’m sunk in a Bah, humbug! level of grumpiness while everyone around me is on a holiday high. So I decide to seek out someone who might have an answer.
“Trina!” I catch up with my friend en route to the cafeteria.
“Hey.” She takes my arm. “You’re not eating in the newsroom today. The new issue is live. It’s time to celebrate. Come and dine with the rest of us slobs.”
“I’m not hungry. But I need to talk to your boyfriend for a minute.”
She doesn’t seem surprised. “Is this about Ben?”
There’s no reason to lie. “Sort of. Yes.”
She grins and tugs me along. “Let’s go find my boy then.”
Kent Dresher isn’t tough to locate. He’s sitting on top of a table in the middle of a bushel of BMA jocks. I don’t really want to get close to that viper’s nest, particularly when I spot the repellent Todd Bellinger, but Trina drags me right over there. When I get closer it looks like Kent is only talking to Corby King and some other guy who’s holding a hockey stick in one hand and a cheeseburger in the other.
Kent hops off the table and grabs up Trina for a quick feel while I stand around in all my awkward glory, knowing that at least a few pairs of unfriendly eyes are checking me out.
Trina giggles but then shoos her boyfriend’s hands away from her ass because she remembers that I’m waiting. “Stand down. Camden needs a word.”
Kent hardly looks at me. “What’s up?”
“Over there,” Trina says and gestures to the only empty table in sight. “Too many open ears in this corner.”
She’s right. Todd Bellinger and his boys have momentarily quit comparing dicks or whatever it is that guys of their ilk talk about. Todd is watching us with a predatory gleam in his eye.
He and his friends are still watching when I take a seat at the table with Trina and Kent but at least now they are too far away to hear anything. Kent is more interested in trying to prod Trina into giving him a lunchroom lap dance than in having a conversation but she rolls her eyes and motions that I should start talking so I blurt out a question.
“Do you know where Ben is today?”
Kent stops slobbering on his girlfriend and blinks at me. “Beltran? No. He isn’t here?”
“Do you see him?” Trina pokes her boyfriend in his mammoth muscles. “Obviously he’s not here.”
Kent shrugs. “Well, I’m not hiding him in my pocket.” Then he focuses on me and there’s a spark of understanding as he remembers something that must have slipped his mind. “Why don’t you know where he is, Galway? You’re his girlfriend.”
I straighten up. “I am not Ben’s girlfriend.”
And then, a distant, hopeful part of me asks, Or am I?
“Oh.” Kent frowns.
“Wait, did he tell you that I’m his girlfriend?”
“I think he did.” Kent yawns. “Yeah, he told me yesterday.”
I am not expecting this news. It changes the picture I had