one of your contacts, he has been approved to escort you off property. Your off-campus restrictions have been removed, but you still need to be accompanied by an approved chaperone.”
I nod. Although I don’t plan on going anywhere for a while, learning that I can leave campus with Grant makes my heart hurt in a thousand different ways. Mostly because I miss him. But I’m also not ready to see him.
There are more voices on each floor of the dorm as I trudge up the endless stone staircase. Apparently, the rest of the social committee has arrived. Thankfully, I wasn’t here when their designers wreaked havoc with their drills and bolts of fabric. It was madness with just Arden’s army, so I can’t imagine what it was like with a dozen others. I plan to be nowhere near the dorm when the remainder of the students arrive for the fall.
No one attempts to introduce themselves as I pass the chatting and laughing cliques in the halls. Their voices lower when I walk by, and I can feel their eyes assessing me. I know I look like someone kicked the shit out of me … because they did—twice.
I make a point not to glance toward Ashton’s side of the hall when I finally reach the fifth floor. I enter my room and kick the door shut behind me. Inside, Brendan is laid up on my couch with a book resting open on his chest.
“Get out,” I say, dropping my backpack next to the door and kicking off my shoes. I bring the wooden box to the bed, not wanting him to notice it, and hide it beneath the mountain of throw pillows.
“I brought your pain meds,” he says. “Joey forgot to give them to you.” He reaches over his head and sets a medicine bottle on my desk.
I stare at it. “Are they really pain meds?”
He sits up, closing the book. “Why would you ask that?”
I study him. Wondering exactly how he knows Vic. And why he never told me. He made it seem like the first time he’d heard his name was when Joey and I said it in his room. Until I heard him talking to Vic on the phone and knew that wasn’t the case. Maybe he already knew Vic was his brother … he’s probably in the will too, after all.
If they’re my brothers, that means we have the same blood in our veins. That could explain why I’m so fucking angry all the time.
“Get out.”
“Yeah, you look like you could use some rest,” he answers coolly. Before he leaves, he turns back to me. “And, Lana, stay the fuck out of my room.”
Then he’s gone, and that boiling rage bubbles to the surface.
“Screw you!” I scream and throw every single one of my decorative pillows at the door despite the torrent of pain igniting my muscles. “Stay the fuck out of mine!” When my room looks like I blew it up with pillows, I sprawl across the bed and close my eyes in exhaustion.
A faint knock draws my attention.
“Lana?” The bathroom door cracks open. “Can I come in?”
“Whatever,” I grumble with my arm flung over my eyes.
“Your brother is a pompous ass,” Arden declares from somewhere near the couch. “But he does care about you, whether that helps you forgive him or not.”
“How do you know?” I ask, not moving. “You’ve been here all of a minute.”
“It’s a gift—or maybe a curse,” she says as if contemplating it.
A floral aroma fills the room. I raise my arm to peek and find her tea set displayed on a tray that’s placed on the coffee table. She sits on the couch to pour a cup.
Arden’s styled in a gorgeous pink kimono with white flowers. Her feet are bare. And her hair is gathered into a ponytail sticking straight up on the top of her head. Hot-pink lipstick is painted only in the center of her mouth like a geisha, and she’s drawn such dramatic black wings on her eyes, they look like they could take flight. She’s peculiar, but it suits her.
“Come, sit. This will help you heal.”
“Please don’t tell me that you hack into computer files too.” I cannot handle another person violating my life. I just can’t.
She chuckles. “No. Ashton told me what happened, after Lance told her.”
“Great,” I grumble.
Lance really does suck at knowing what to keep to himself.
I scoot off the bed and drag my feet to the couch. “I feel like someone stuffed