Page 65 of Badd Ass

Brock hesitated a moment, glancing at me, then at Claire. “Um. I feel like maybe we need to have this conversation when Claire and I aren’t…you know…mid-coitus?”

“Good point,” I said, and continued stumbling toward my room. “Wake me up when you’re done fucking.”

I closed my door, collapsed on my bed, and tugged the pillow over my head, because I could hear Claire and Brock slamming the couch back against the wall, and Claire moaning, and Brock groaning, and I didn’t need to hear Zane’s brother having sex.

I fell asleep, fighting memories of Zane.

I was woken by Claire shaking my shoulder. “Mara, wake up.”

“Hnnnggg.”

“We need to talk.”

“Sick.”

“I know.” She smoothed my hair away from my face, tugging a strand out of my mouth. “But I think you’re gonna wanna hear what Brock has to say.”

“No.”

“Mara.” She slid to kneel on the floor so her face was in front of mine. “I really, really,reallythink you want to hear Brock out.”

“Fine,” I groaned. “But in here. Sick. Can’t move.”

“Okay. Stay here. Be right back.”

“Claire.” I forced one eye open, and Claire stopped with her hand on my doorknob. “Brock is a great guy.”

She smiled at me. “I know.”

A few minutes later, Claire came back in, Brock in tow. She sat on the bed beside me, pulled me so my head was lying on her lap, and Brock took a seat on my desk chair.

Brock started to talk, stopped, sighed, and then started over. “So, Zane has been a fucking mess without you.”

“And you’ve been a fucking mess without him,” Claire said.

“So?” I mumbled, my stomach roiling.

“So, I kind of made a detour to San Francisco on the way here,” Brock said.

I frowned. “San Francisco is, like, not even remotely on the way to Seattle from Alaska. It’s way, way, way out of the way, in fact.”

He nodded. “Yeah, obviously, but Zane asked me to fly him to San Francisco. So I did.”

I blinked, my heart managing to skip a beat at the same time that my stomach lurched into my heart. “But I’m here.”

“He texted you, and then called you, but you didn’t answer.”

I swallowed hard. “I lost my phone, and my contract was up anyway, so I got a new phone and a new number with a different provider when I moved up here.”

“Well, Zane is in San Francisco, looking for you.”

“But…I’m here.”

“And Zane was so upset when you didn’t answer your phone that he threw his against the wall and smashed it.”

“Zane went to San Francisco? To find me?” I asked again.

Brock nodded. “Sure did.”