“You know you don’t have to say anything, Mads. Just ignore them.”
If Maddy gets bullied because of me or gets into a fight because she feels like she has to defend my honor, I don’t know if I could forgive myself. Even though I know it wouldn’t be my fault, exactly. Not directly, anyway. But my sister’s the only family I’ve got left, and I promised Mom I’d take care of her no matter what.
“I don’t care about me!” she blurts out, sounding much younger than her nineteen years. “I care about you! I want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’ll look after myself, Mads, I promise. You know me—I always keep my wits about me.”
“Yeah, I know you do.” She giggles, and the tightness in my chest loosens a little. She’s heard stories about all the bar patrons I had to put in their place over the years, and she knows I always kept mace and a taser on me when I walked home alone at two in the morning.
“No comas this time,” I promise her. “We’re both going to be okay.”
But her classmates sure as hell won’t be okay if I get ahold of them. Fucking assholes. Unpredictables are just as good as anyone else, and making my sister so worried and upset just gives those douches extra bad points in my book.
“Okay.” Maddy sighs. “I just worry.”
“Well, I worry about you too, so it’s even. I think maybe that’s how families work.”
She laughs. “Yeah. Maybe so. Um, hey, I gotta go. I’m going out with some friends, but let me know if anything else crazy happens, okay?”
“Of course.”
“And say hi to the guys for me.” There’s a definite teasing note in her voice, and I remind myself I’m going to have to grill the men over what exactly happened with them and Maddy over the summer.
In other words, I want to know exactly how many embarrassing stories she told them about me while I was passed out and couldn’t defend my honor.
“Har, har, har,” I reply. “Say hello to all your very annoying friends for me.”
“You don’t know they’re annoying.”
“They’re friends with you, aren’t they?”
“Har har, very funny. I love you.”
“Love you too, Mads. To the moon and back.”
We hang up, and I toss the phone aside, just lying in my bed and taking a few deep breaths. Fucking hell. I never asked to be an Unpredictable, or to be the target of Johnson’s bigoted, violent behavior. Now I’m like some weird spokesperson for Unpredictables, like the poster child for “our kind”, and I don’t like it.
I especially don’t like what it could mean for Maddy.
The door to our dorm room opens, and Asher steps in, shrugging off his backpack. I prop myself up a little. “Hey. Where are Cam and Dmitri?”
“Stuck at the library working on their exegesis of the Necronomicon.”
“Let me guess. They procrastinated, and it’s due tomorrow.”
“Maybe.” Asher gives a lopsided grin that tells me I nailed it and comes over to sit down next to me. “How’re you doing?”
“I should ask you the same thing. You were in that class with me.”
“I didn’t mean that, I just meant… with everything.”
“I’m not going to faint on you, don’t worry.”
“Worrying is kind of a part of the package.” He catches my ankle with his hand when I try to poke him with my foot, his thumb brushing back and forth along the thin, delicate skin there. My breath catches as tingles race up my leg. “I’m finished with my homework, if you want to relax or something.”
“Yes, please! I could use a distraction from ancient runes.”
We pop in one of Cam’s lighthearted action movies. Dmitri tends to like those super serious and dramatic films that are nominated for Oscars, and Asher has a soft spot for romantic comedies. I’m more like Cam. I don’t care if the plot is bad, just give me explosions. And maybe giant robots.
We’ve got this large, well-worn couch set up in front of the television. The cushions are so soft you sort of sink into them like a beanbag chair, and I’m not sure how it even got into this room. The guys aren’t sure either—although I suspect Cam’s lying and it’s actually his—but in any case, it’s super comfy. Asher and I flop down onto it as the movie starts, our sides pressed together pretty much from ankle to shoulder.
It’s… distracting.
More distracting than I’d planned.
I’ve known from the second I saw these guys that I was attracted to all of