Page 4 of Savior
“Anything.”
“Have you seen Gavin around? I need to talk to him.”
His smile falters just a little. “Yeah, I think I saw him go into the storage room. I can call him up here if you want.”
Already pushing from the counter, I wave over my shoulder. “That’s okay, I’ll go hunt him down. Good to see you!”
His response is cut off by another customer.
I’m well acquainted with the large storage room off the back of the bookstore. On multiple occasions, we’ve made use of the space behind the towering shelves full of supplies with Gavin whispering words dirty enough to make me blush. The thought almost puts a little warmth back into my icy stomach.
I push through the throngs of students, who are too busy searching for last-minute testing study materials to care, and head to the large gray doors with black rubber trim. I don’t bother looking around to see if the manager is watching or if anyone is going to stop me. I’ve practically become part of the staff and have gotten to know everyone during the long, often dull, summer hours I sat around with Gavin.
Thoughts about Gavin only remind me how eager I am to find him to allay my worries about Carly, so I shoulder open the door. I skid to an immediate stop, like I’ve run into an invisible wall.
My gasp draws their attention, and they break apart with an audiblesmack. Face is frozen in horror, feet epoxied to the floor, I can’t even summon words to express the sudden bottomless pit my stomach becomes.
“Piper!” Gavin extricates himself from the arms of another woman and takes a hasty step back. “What are you doing here?”
“I should go,” the girl says before she makes a hasty exit.
The loud slap of the double doors shutting shatters the ice freezing me solid, and I take a step back even as Gavin moves forward.
“I can explain,” he’s saying, but I just keep moving backward as he keeps moving forward. I hold up a hand and shake my head, trying to clear my thoughts.
“What? Did you accidentally shove your tongue down someone’s throat?”
He winces, and finally stops moving toward me. I’m thankful for that. I’m not sure what I would have done if he had managed to reach me. “You’ve just been so busy.”
“Busy.” My voice is flat. Hollow. He thinks I’ve been too busy, and this is what he does? I feel strangely removed from the situation, as if I’m watching it from above or from someone else’s point of view.
“Ya know. Wrapped up in yourself. School. The future. We never have fun anymore.”
I’m not immune to my faults. Whenever I get lost in tasks, Paige is there to pull me out and remind me to have some fun. I’m very goal oriented, some would say blind to others when it comes to my own aspirations. I can be single-minded and forceful in my own opinions, but I would never even consider cheating on Gavin.
“Fun,” I repeat. The word sounds strange, not because I don’t have fun anymore, but because he’s using it as an excuse to cheat on me. “We don’t have fun.”
He shrugs, and I’m so consumed with the urge to wrap my hands around his throat, I have to turn around. With quick, clipped steps, I force myself to walk out of the storage room and back through the heavy doors. Compared to the dark, intimate lighting in the storage area, the LED bulbs are blinding. I shove my way through displays and racks of Florida Southern University gear until I reach the automatic doors.
“Piper!” Joseph comes around the corner of the checkout counter, and his mouth pulled into a frown. His head swivels when he spots Gavin storming out of the storage room.
“Thanks for your help!” I wave to Joseph and barrel through the door before it’s even completely open. I try to I lose myself in the afternoon crowd, but when I look back, Gavin is right behind me. He is reaching for me as if to grab me, but I don’t let him. Whirling around, eyes flashing, I spit out, “Don’t touch me!” in a voice more brittle than I’d like.
The crowd around us slows to watch, and I swear I can hear theclick,click,clickof a shutter as he steps forward with his hands in front of him. My teeth are ground together as I shake my head. I do not want him to freaking touch me. When he steps toward me again, I step off the sidewalk, just needing to get him away from me, and a car honks. I don’t know how close I come to being hit, because almost as soon as it happens, someone is pulling me to safety.
Joseph’s warm brown eyes hold my blue ones and for a second I am thankful he’s there. “Are you okay?”
Then I hear Gavin’s shouts and I push away, needing the space. “I’m fine. Thanks.”
The crowd continues on its way now that the drama is dying down. Gavin tries to elbow his way through a couple burly dudes, but they’re too distracted with hitting on a couple of sorority sisters to care. I use the few seconds he’s distracted to bolt in the other direction.
Joseph jogs to keep up with me. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I don’t know what happened between you, but you shouldn’t run off mad like this.”
The light changes and traffic starts, so I stop at a crosswalk and stab at the button. “I’m okay, I promise, but I appreciate your help back there.”
“Anytime.”
My phone buzzes against my thigh, causing me to jerk. With a self-depreciating laugh, I pull it out and find a text from Paige. I curse under my breath, remembering I forgot to update her after my class about Carly.