6. The Snake

~ CARA ~

I wasn’t sure quite how it had happened, but I ended up walking through the Art and Lit building with Mack, who was being a gentleman.

It was weird.

I was only two halls into the building and admiring the architecture—I’d always loved this building with its Victorian era paneling, crown molding, and carved panel frames—when a shadow fell over me and a low voice murmured, “Good morning, Beautiful,” in my ear.

Right in my ear. So close, his breath fluttered in my hair.

I’d startled and turned quickly, surprised to find not Rig, but Mack walking next to me, grinning.

“I’m not that scary,” he said good-naturedly when I just gaped at him.

I sighed at the butterflies I got from his smile, uncertain if they were nerves or attraction. Nerves, I decided. I would not flutter over these playboys!

“What are you doing, Mack?” I asked, a little bit annoyed with myself for the fluttering.

“Just wanted to make sure your week started right—with a smile from a friend.” Apparently his apology the day before had been real.

I rolled my eyes to let him know the flattery wasn’t going to work, but my skin had warmed under his touch a few seconds later when he put a hand to my back to help me move around a couple guys standing in the middle of the hall, looking like they might come to blows.

“You look pretty,” he whispered, grinning and leaning into my ear. “Did you do something different with your hair?”

It was totally a line—my hair was in a messy bun, and I was wearing the same oversized hoodie I wore most days in fall.

I was about to burn him about trying to flatter me into bed, when a high voice shrieked from behind us, “Mack! Oh my god! Last night was amazing!”

I hesitated and Mack frowned as he turned to look over his shoulder—just as a girl barreled between us, throwing herself at Mack, forcing him to catch her or she’d fall on her ass right there on the floor.

Mack made a strange growling noise, but I was thrown sideways when the girl’s shoulder slammed against mine, throwing me into the wall.

For a blink the dark, wood carvings that I’d always admired on the walls loomed as I was shoved towards them—the points of curling leaves and carved ledges suddenly looking far more like weapons than whimsy. But I was completely off balance and couldn’t stop myself from falling.

I yelped and tried to reach out, but it was an awkward angle and my shoulder slammed painfully into the wall, my head whip-lashing to the side.

I’d had a lifetime of injuries and blows to prepare me. Time slowed as I waited for the screaming pain of the points from the carvings to dig into my temple, waited for the impact to echo in my skull like a basketball bouncing on cement.

But shockingly, my head smacked against something warm and firm—but smooth. And though there was a snap, like the crackle of static electricity, my head didn’t ring and there were no lights behind my eyes.

A quick grunt sounded in my ear, and a strong arm caught me around the middle as I almost tumbled to the floor.

But then I wasn’t moving anymore, I was just standing there, gripping the hand that held my stomach and the arm that braced me like a warm, iron bar.

“Are you okay?” The voice was deep and quivered in my hair, washing me in that heavenly scent of pine and warm earth and—

I groaned and turned to find Rig staring down at me with those incredible eyes, his hair falling over his forehead, one hand on the carved framing, right where my head had hit, gripping it, with an angry red mark on the back of his hand.

“Rig?” I asked dumbly. Like he wasn’t standing right there, grinning at my obvious discomfort.

“At your service,” he said dryly.

“What a fucking hero,” Mack muttered. But then the girl who’d thrown herself at Mack shrieked again—something about needing to see him again that night.

I swallowed hard and turned back to Rig. “I’m sorry, are you okay? Is your hand okay? I hit it hard—”

“You need to be more careful,” Rig said, his expression going dark. “You’re very… breakable.” His eyes didn’t leave mine.

My heart and stomach flipped at the same time. I bit my lip.

But Mack broke the moment by reaching for my arm. “More importantly, are you okay?”

Rig turned to his friend slowly, like he was reluctant, raising one eyebrow. “Mack. Thirty seconds too late, as usual.”

“Shut up, Rig.”

But Rig was frowning at his own hand, staring at it, opening and closing his fingers, like he was testing it for pain.

“I hurt you. I’m sorry—” I started, but Rig just shook his head. I waited for him to look up again, to lock eyes with me as he always had before, for the smolder of that gaze to heat my stomach…

“I’m fine,” he muttered. But for the first time, Rig looked disturbed. He didn’t meet my eyes again, but turned to his friend, still opening and closing his hand. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Then he turned on his heel and walked away, disappearing around a corner halfway down the hall in seconds, the eyes of the students passing in the halls following him.

I wasn’t the only one surprised. Mack stared after him too, his brows high and mouth half-open as the girl hopped and giggled and tried to keep his attention. But Mack just turned to me, smiling an odd smile.

“I… apologize for my friend. He’s an animal. No manners at all,” he said, with a curious glance back in the direction Rig had disappeared. “Seriously, are you okay, Cara?”

“I’m fine,” I echoed Rig’s response. “But what’s going on with Rig?” I asked pointedly, a little embarrassed to be so obviously concerned, but also truly worried that I’d hurt him.  

“I don’t know,” Mack said slowly, looking back up the hallway. “He’s just tired, probably,” he said, distractedly. His lips moved as if he muttered under his breath, but all she caught was “…strategy…” which made no sense.

The girl clinging to his arm made a frustrated noise, but Mack ignored her. I didn’t miss that. He’d obviously had something with this girl, yet here she was, practically throwing herself at him while he completely ignored her for me.

Speaking of trouser-snakes.

Suddenly uneasy, I made some vague excuse to Mack about heading to class and hurried away from his strangely frustrated gaze. But even when I made it to class, I couldn’t really concentrate. My head hurt a little bit… but I couldn’t stop thinking about the dark, uneasy expression on Rig’s normally handsome, flirtatious face. I kept pushing the image away, but it always crowded back.

I reminded myself that if Rig wasn’t playing a game with me anymore, that was a good thing. I needed to focus on classes, and shifts at work, not handsome players.

Still, I couldn’t shake the uneasy dread coating my stomach. I tried to stifle it. I didn’t know much about guys, but I knew that caring about how a guy like Rig felt would only end in hurt. These guys were trouble. All of them.

Rolling my shoulders and lifting my head, I made myself focus on the professor, and not Rig Landon.

Nothing good was ever going to come out of being close to him. But getting myself a degree and a decent job and my own apartment… that was only going to make life better.

So I made my notes and flicked away any errant thoughts about Rig Landon or his friends. Because in the end, they just didn’t matter.

At least, that’s what I told myself.