Wild Life by Gem Frost

Author:Gem Frost [Frost, Gem]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Daylily Publishing
Published: 2020-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

Brannigan

“Is Gus around?”

My head jerks up. I’m sitting in the library, and I’m supposed to be researching Renaissance sculptors for an art history paper, but instead I’m reading Lord of the Rings. Not on Kindle, but the big leather-bound copy Au gave me when I turned thirteen.

Usually I don’t carry it around with me, because the thing weighs a freaking ton. But today I just felt like bringing it along, for some reason.

April is standing in front of me. Her ever-changing hair is turquoise right now. Kind of a pretty color, not that I’d tell her that. It makes her eyes look bluer than ever. She’s looking down at me, frowning.

“He went home,” I say shortly. I got a terse text from him last night: Went to WI to see my parents. Back Sunday night.

I was a little taken aback he hadn’t asked me to come along. Only not really, because he’d hardly spoken to me in a week. Whatever I’d done to screw things up, it obviously made him uncomfortable enough that he didn’t want to be stuck in a car with me for hours. Which made my throat tighten, whenever I thought about it.

So I didn’t think about it.

“Oh, right.” Her face lightens a bit. “Yeah, he said he might.”

The fact that Au told her and not me is like a spear to my chest. I wince, and something in her face softens a bit.

“Hey,” she says. “You want to get lunch?”

I blink at her, bewildered into silence. April has never, ever asked me to do anything with her. Sure, I’m always hanging around the edges of the group, but she’s Au’s friend, not mine. She doesn’t even like me. And yet here she is, asking me to have lunch with her.

“Ummmm,” I say, closing my book and tucking it carefully into my backpack. “Sure.”

We decide on Pelican Pizza, which is only a five-minute walk from the library. We stroll there more or less in silence, but once we’ve ordered and sat down, she looks at me, and there’s a sharp look in her eyes that informs me she’s about to start poking her nose into my business.

“So tell me this. What’s going on between you and Gus?”

I look at her steadily for a long moment.

“Don’t know what you mean.”

“He’s been…” She sighs. “Unhappy for a couple of weeks now. Really unhappy. And you guys haven’t been hanging out together, the way you usually do. So what happened?”

I stare at her some more before I answer.

“Why do you care?”

“I care,” she says, sounding annoyed, “because I care about Gus.”

“So do I.”

“Do you? Do you really?” She glares right back at me, and I have to look away, because too much eye contact makes me uncomfortable. “If you care about him so much, then why did you upset him? Why is he walking around looking like his dog just died?”

Something in my chest spasms, but I keep my voice level. “That’s not my fault.”

“Oh, of course it is. I know you did something.

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