Page 13 of Wicked Ends (Hellions of Hade Harbor #4)

Arianna

I got through the rest of the morning somehow, pushing worries about Marcus and the other night out of my head for the most part. I was good at compartmentalizing. I’d had tons of practice.

A knock at my classroom door later in the day had me scrambling to my feet.

Had Marcus come back to talk to me? Had he reported me?

Guilt and fear made me tense and brittle.

For weeks I’d had nightmares that I’d open the door of whatever motel I was staying in, and the police would be outside, ready to grab me.

Now, I had a shiny new fear. Being frog-marched off campus by security for engaging in inappropriate relations with a student. Great.

“Hellooo!” Kenna called, sending relief flooding through me.

I turned too quickly toward the door and knocked the half-filled mug of cold coffee I’d been nursing all morning off the desk. It shattered in pieces as the door opened.

“Damn, we’re not interrupting, are we?” a smooth voice called to me.

Kenna hurried down the steps toward me, trailing two men in her wake. Both handsome, a little older than me, or a lot older, I had no idea. I was clearly terrible at judging ages.

One sported a novelty tie with music notes scrolling down the middle. The other had a sweater wrapped around his shoulders and glasses perched on his nose, looking for all the world like he’d come from a casting call for a debonair professor in a Hallmark movie.

The one with the musical note tie jogged down the stairs, grabbed the trash can from the corner, and crouched beside me.

“Here, be careful not to cut yourself. We musicians need our hands,” he said and smiled at me.

“Yeah, let Bill clean it up. You need your fingers.” Kenna leaned a hip on my desk. “Oh, this is Bill, he teaches composition, and this is Wade, he’s English Lit.”

Bill was on his haunches next to me, one hand stacked with mug shards, the other held out to me, despite mine being dirty with coffee.

I tentatively shook it. “I’m Anna.”

“So I’ve heard. I’ll have you know that you’re usurping my position as the youngest faculty member. Very rude, you know,” Bill said with a mock seriousness.

It had me questioning his friendliness, until he winked at me.

“Kidding, we need new blood in here, and according to Kenna, you’re quite the piano prodigy.”

“What! No, not at all,” I blurted, horrified at the idea that Kenna was going around and talking me up. The last thing I wanted was attention, especially now that I had a wild card like Marcus in my class, holding my fate in his hands.

“Oh, take the compliment. What is the fashion with women refusing compliments these days? You know, in the medieval courts of Europe, knights and troubadours would lavish flowery praise on noblewomen, to the point of nearly competing for the most flattering comments, and the women encouraged it.” The other man, the one with model good looks, and who certainly knew it, approached us as he finished talking and watched us pick up the broken mug.

“If it became a competition, then surely it was more about demonstrating their wit and performative refined masculinity.” Bill turned a shit-eating grin on the man. Wade, Kenna had said his name was.

The other teacher frowned at him, clearly annoyed by the pushback.

“Is that right? Read much medieval romance literature, have you? Perhaps Chrétien de Troyes?”

Bill stood and dusted off his hands, walking across the room and returning the trash can to the corner. “Not lately, but Don Giovanni demonstrates my point perfectly, if you fancy getting your nose out of a book and listening to an opera now and then to broaden your horizons.”

Wade stared at his friend pointedly, then smiled at me. He held out his hand.

“I’m Wade Straiton. I teach English Literature, as Kenna mentioned. We talked Kenna into going to the dining hall with us, and she insisted we had to get you first.” Wade’s hand lingered a beat too long on mine. “I’m glad she did.”

I blinked at him, stumped for words.

Kenna appeared at his side and elbowed him sharply.

“Wade can’t help hitting on the opposite sex. Don’t worry about his feelings, and turn him down quickly, it’s kinder that way.” She linked her arm through mine. “You’re going to come to lunch with us, right?”

“I-I am going, I will go, but you don’t have to wait for me,” I said quickly. Staying in my classroom felt safer than wandering around and potentially running into Marcus.

“Of course we do,” Bill insisted. “Without a buffer, all we do is argue, as you can probably tell for yourself by now. Besides, you can’t go to the dining hall on your own on the first day.” His eyes widened comically.

“I can’t?”

Kenna laughed and shook her head. “They’ll eat you alive in there. Come on, get your things. We’re going.”

HHU was a huge campus and as such had more than one dining hall.

We went to the one closest to the music department, and it was packed.

I grabbed a tray, and we skipped the line, apparently a perk of being a professor.

I apologetically picked out a few things, feeling awkward and new.

I stuck out like a sore thumb. I also felt as if I had a great big flashing neon sign over my head that read “Student Fucker.”

After paying, I followed Wade and Bill to a table and sat.

“What are you having? Don’t tell me you’re the healthy type?” Bill complained as he took in my tray.

In my panic of not wanting to rub the line-skipping in anyone’s face, I’d opted for the closest things to the register, which turned out to be a dry green salad, without dressing, a plain chicken breast, and a small fruit salad.

My hunger faded at the sight of it, but there was no way I was going back into that line.

“Not really. This is pretty healthy for cafeteria food. My college usually rotated fries, nuggets, and pizza, and that was about it.”

“Same. But HHU has a powerful athletic department. The hockey team in particular needs to eat right—so they can win for all of us,” Bill said.

“Damn straight. With Martino home again, we’ve got a shot at a spotless season.” Wade looked at me. “Do you watch hockey?”

“Yeah, it was a prerequisite to enter town, wasn’t it?” I ventured.

He paused and then chuckled. I relaxed an inch. I couldn’t maintain being this nervous. I was wearing my nerves out, and it was only my first day.

“That’s right, it is, as it should be. If you live in Hade Harbor, you are a Hellion supporter—or you need to leave town.”

I nodded and took a bite of my terrible, plain salad. Yuck. Still, I didn’t want my stomach growling later in class, so I forced it down and listened to the others talk about HHU.

It was nice, I realized. If they hadn’t come into my class for me, I’d have probably bought a snack and run back to class to eat it alone.

I wouldn’t be surrounded by conversation in a busy, vibrant lunch hall.

I’d be alone, like I had been for so long.

Even all this noise and chaos was preferable to the silence and the voices inside my head.

Kenna breezed over and sat, peering at my tray and wrinkling her nose.

“What happened? The chicken rice is good here,” she said, taking her bowl and scraping half of its contents onto my plate. “Here, have this.”

I didn’t bother protesting; it would be pointless. Instead, I took a bite of her rice and found she was right. It was good.

While Bill and Wade argued about the merits of classical literature versus opera, with Kenna chiming in now and again, I gazed around the room.

My eyes were drawn to the feeling of being watched. It only took me a few seconds to find him.

Marcus Bailey, hot bartender by night, my student by day, stood against a pillar, staring right at me.

He appeared casual, nonchalant, for all the world, but his eyes never budged from mine.

He had a shiny red apple in his hand, tossing it up and catching it with effortless precision.

The hockey jersey suited him; it looked like he’d been training, his wavy dark hair damp and pushed back from his forehead. It made him seem younger somehow.

Jesus. What had I done?

He smirked, and I silently freaked out, worried he could read my condemning thoughts even across the room.

He brought the shiny red apple to his lips and took a huge bite, his strong jaw flexing as he bit down. There was something suggestive about the movement, something that felt intimate and reminded me of the other night.

He chewed slowly, showing off the strong, tanned column of his neck, and then brought his thumb to the corner of his mouth to catch a stray drop of apple juice.

“Anna?” Bill asked.

For a beat, I didn’t realize he was speaking to me.

In my previous life, everyone had called me Arianna, except for Kenna.

Anna had been her nickname for me. When I’d gotten my fake documents, a little nugget of wisdom the forger had given me was to stick with a name similar to my real one, as it would make it easier to adjust.

“Hmm?” I cleared my throat and turned to Bill.

He now glanced in the direction I’d been staring.

“Oh, don’t mind him. That’s Marcus Bailey. He’s hot stuff around here. A Hellion, and I mean in that way that all the girls love.” Bill sighed. “And straight, of course, so boring.”

“Not everyone can be gay for you,” Wade muttered.

Bill shrugged. “But he could be queer, that’s all I ask. Anyway, Anna, you’ll want to stay away from him and his friends. They aren’t the sort you want to get on the radar of.”

“Why not?” I asked nervously. I couldn’t exactly tell my new coworkers that I’d already gotten on Marcus’ radar.

“Because… they aren’t just regular students around here. They make their own rules, and they don’t follow anyone else’s. And Marcus Bailey is particularly dangerous.”

“He is?” My heart sank.

“Couple talent with a huge fan club, a shit scary family, and a penchant for playing twisted games… and you have our goalie for the Hellions. I’m pretty sure he’s a psychopath.” Wade sat back and folded his arms over his chest, watching Marcus and a pretty cheerleader who stopped to chat with him.

“You mean sociopath,” Bill corrected him and shrugged. “And you’re probably right. Like I said, stay clear.”

“Understood,” I said and pasted a smile on my face that felt as if it were made of paper.

Holy shit, what have I done?