Page 16 of Try Me

“She should’ve taken you with her.”

“She said Mom’s not paying her to cart around a tween.”

I groaned, looked at my watch, then groaned again.

“Sorry,” she whispered, her voice going tiny and pitiful. Even if it was an act, it worked.

“Shit, no, that wasn’t for you, Carrie, it was just… You know what? Stay put, I’ll be there in an hour to pick you up, and I’ll get you there.”

“But what about your internship?”

“I can make it. Plenty of time,” I lied. “Just have your stuff ready to go, all right?”

“Okay.” She paused a beat. “Thank you.”

“It’s all good. Lemme get back to work, and I’ll see you in an hour.”

I could do this. I’d spent the past three years juggling schoolwork, side jobs, and work-study. I was a fucking multitasker extraordinaire.

6

Mark

Isat reluctantly across from the U’s head of campus police, stomach tap-dancing over eggs and bacon I’d scored off Jesse earlier.

I didn’t want to be here, but I’d already been back to the tower, scoured the grass nearby, retraced the path I was pretty sure I’d taken home the other night—twice—and nada. No phone.

I’d walked into the building with a sliver of hope that I could just ask for my phone at the front desk and receive it back, but the receptionist had pointed me down the hallway and said Officer Nomes wanted to talk to me.

Nomes was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t think I’d ever spoken to him directly. He was tall, with what had probably once been well-honed muscle over a linebacker stature softened by years behind a desk. His flinty eyes looked me up and down in shrewd assessment. “Were you involved in an altercation Friday night, Mr. Farrow?”

Guess he wasn’t gonna waste any time with pleasantries. “It was just some roughhousing, sir. No harm done,” I said in my best Upstanding Student voice.

Nomes chuckled, his gaze calling bullshit without him even having to say a word. He reminded me of my dad that way. On his desk sat my phone. “Who was the other guy you were with?”

“A friend,” I ventured, fighting to make it more of a statement than the question it started off as. My inability to classify Chet in my own mind wasn’t helping. Nor was the fact that even thinking about him right now caused the tiniest frisson of arousal to percolate through me. It felt like a betrayal of the highest order—bodily speaking—considering what an ass Chet had been that night. Well, aside from the part where he helped me escape campus police, an unhelpful voice in my head reminded me.

“That so?” Nomes narrowed his eyes. “Then why didn’t you stop when security asked you to?”

“I was hammered and…uh, made a poor judgment call.” I wasn’t sure if I could get a public intoxication charge after the fact, but shit, they clearly already knew it was me. And that I’d run. Fuck, my parents would be livid if they found out.

“You know it’s against school policy to defy orders from an officer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And that a charge of public intoxication can come with a hefty fine and goes on your record.”

“Yes, sir.” A sour taste filled the back of my throat. I straightened in the chair, trying not to sweat. The leaden regret I’d felt upon waking slammed into me all over again. I’d gone fuckingmonthseasily avoiding Chet, and here I was back to doing idiotic shit.

“You need to remember that next time when you get any stupid ideas like that.” Nomes slid my phone closer to the edge of the desk, and I blinked at him, relief washing over me. That was it? All right, cool. Finally, a break.

Then he closed his hand over it and my stomach flip-flopped again. “As a trustee of this institution and mayor of Silver Ridge, I don’t think your father would appreciate that kind of behavior from his son.” Of fucking course. There it was. I should’ve known. I said nothing and reached for my phone, but Nomes slid it back a couple of inches. “I need to know the other guy’s name. Who were you with?”

“How did you know it was my phone?” It occurred to me belatedly, but Nomes’s reaction said he was surprised it’d occurred at all.

He shrugged one shoulder. “I told Siri to call ‘Mom.’” He spun the phone around on top of the desk. “I thought it best to keep the nature of the incident to myself for now, but I’d like the name of the other guy.”

I pressed my lips together. Chet was on a partial scholarship, I thought, and definitely in the work-study program. And while I wasn’t sure exactly how they handled those here, or what the behavioral requirements were, it probably wouldn’t mean anything good for him to be scrutinized by campus police.