my latest window-breaking incident just before Christmas vacation, security decided to make me work it off. I’ve been moonlighting in the surveillance office, watching the feeds of the security cameras all around the academy’s perimeter. It’s been dull as tombs, until last night. That’s when it got interesting.” His eyes don’t leave mine. Don’t even blink.
Crap. I had completely forgotten he was serving in the security office, but I can’t let him see his words have affected me. If I deny, deny, deny, he’ll drop it. Won’t he?
“It sounds to me like you’re so bored in there watching those tiny video screens you’re starting to hallucinate. Go take a nap.”
Ricardo huffs, amused by my sharp, dismissive manner.
How did Genevieve put up with this guy? He irritates every cell in my body.
“Like I said, back up or lose a foot.” I swing my car door open wider, forcing Ricardo to take a step away.
“I’ll leave, if that’s what you want, but before I do, care to tell me if this was an accident, or payback? I know about the drugs.”
I can’t help it. My eyes widen in shock. Adrienne told him? My jaw clenches as my lips purse. So much for sisterhood.
He must see the look of betrayal that crosses my face, because he shakes his head. “Adrienne didn’t have to tell me anything, Char. I’m not a fool.”
“Don’t call me that. We are not friends, remember?” He knows about me buying drugs from Professor Rook? Double crap. I’ve been mean enough to him, there’s no way he’ll keep his mouth shut. It would be payback for all of the eye daggers I’ve shot in his direction over what he did to Genevieve. After he apologized to Adrienne at the end of last semester, I’d been almost ready to call a truce. But now? I don’t think so.
Ricardo rolls his eyes. “Relax. I’m not here to get you in trouble, although I confess watching you squirm is immensely satisfying.” The corner of his mouth ticks upward.
My lips bunch in disgust. “You’re a pig. I don’t know why Adrienne insists on being friends with you.”
He shrugs. “I can be charming, if you’d stop looking at me like you’d enjoy slitting my throat. Seems you’ve got your hands full cleaning up another mess, anyway.” He tilts his head toward the dented front of Cal’s car.
“Would you shut up and go away? Actually, I take it back. Go tell Adrienne I’ll be late for breakfast. I have to run a quick errand.” I might as well make him useful if he’s going to insist on being around.
Ricardo cants his head to one side. “Please?”
That does it. Ricardo is definitely going to lose a foot. No one would blame me. Even as I think it, I know it’s not true. He knows what I did last night. I can’t afford to piss him off, even if bending to his request galls me to no end.
“Please,” I grind out.
Ricardo gives an exaggerated look of surprise and stumbles backward like I’ve shoved him. “You actually said it? You must be desperate.”
“Ricardo, cher?”
Ricardo goes utterly rigid as the color drains from his face.
I look past him to see a beautiful black woman with hair in long locs, dotted with shimmering brass beads. Large, glossy brown eyes hover over sharp cheekbones and carved, hollow cheeks. I know those cheekbones. My eyes skim back and forth between the woman and my antagonist, who still hasn’t moved.
This woman is Ricardo’s mother.
I don’t know the story, really. I just know that I’ve never seen her, and the rumor is that Ricardo himself hasn’t seen her in years. But if that’s true, what is she doing here?
Ricardo’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, his eyes pleading with me not to leave him alone with her.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
I’m tempted to do exactly that, but something in the tense lines of his body stops me. I may hate Ricardo, but I hate bad parenting even more. I won’t abandon him now. I can’t.
Stepping up beside him, we present a united front against his mother.
He cuts a glance toward me, all arrogance siphoned from his expression.
“Ricardo, I knew that was you. When you were a baby, your hair came to a fine point at the nape of your neck. I used to trace it with my fingers. It’s still there.” She looks up at him with a shy smile.
Ricardo doesn’t say anything at all. He simply stares at her, not blinking.