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Talon returned her stare and gave her the truth, “No. I didn’t.”
“That’s what I thought,” Jenna said, throwing her dish towel toward the sink and grabbing her swank handbag from the counter. “Thanks for breakfast,” she said, opening the door. “Lock up on your way out.”
Talon didn’t move until he heard the front door slam, and then he set about making sure that his girl’s house was safe, even if she didn’t know she was his girl yet.
Chapter Eighteen
Count on It, Baby
Brick
“They expect you to eat this stuff?” Brick asked, poking the meatloaf on his plate with a fork.
“I told you to get the salad,” Cassie said on a munch of chef’s special.
Brick scowled at her plate, “Freakin’ rabbit food. Man can’t survive on that.”
Cassie pointed at herself with her fork, “Not a man, and maybe you’re right, but it’s still safer than that.” Cassie curled her lip at what the cafeteria claimed passed for a vegetable before she went on eating.
“Gotta agree with you on that one,” Brick muttered. “What your parents are paying for this joint, seems like they’d at least feed you.”
“There’s a Micky D’s on the way to my next class if that makes you feel better,” Cassie smirked.
“Thank God,” Brick said, pushing his tray away. He settled back to watch the ebb and flow of co-eds around them.
The building was a monster, housing the bookstore downstairs, college post office next door to that, and cafeteria taking up the top floor all picture windows and skylights.
Brick had to admit that the view of the quad was nice, but he felt like a sitting duck, exposed in front of so much glass.
Cassie stared off into space, which Brick had noticed she did when she was thinking not so great thoughts. Then she broke the silence with, “What do you think’s gonna happen to my dad?”
Brick crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged, “Probably depends on how fast we find him.”
Cassie nodded and took another bite before she looked up again. “You know Talon?”
Brick’s eyes went hooded, a habit he’d picked up for when he didn’t want someone to know how focused he was. “Yeah, known him for years.”
Cassie flipped over a lettuce leaf, “Think my mom would be better off with him or with Ryde?”
“Got nothing to say to that, Cass. They’re both my brothers. Wouldn’t be right of me to pick a side.”
“But that’s what my mom’s gotta do. Pick a side. And how do you do that? Her history with Talonmarkedher. But then Ryde treats her like a dream. How you choose between that?”
“Shouldn’t you be talking to your mom about this?” Brick asked.
Cassie rolled her eyes, “She’s so pissed at Talon for being a dick that she can’t look at the big picture.”
Brick found himself suddenly very intrigued by twenty-year-old insight. When she didn’t continue, Brick prompted, “So what’s the big picture?”
Cassie leveled him with a look, “Gonna be real with you, Brick. My dad was an asshole. Cheated on my mom and made her feel like shit. Great dad, sucked as a husband.”
Brick nodded, “I know the type.”
Cassie raised a brow and filed that but kept going, “Now, Talon’s giving her flashbacks of all the crap my dad shoveled her way, and she’ll avoid him like the plague before she goes back there again. But big picture, he might not be the dick she thinks he is. As for Ryde, jeez, the man is perfection walking. But there’s just something missing between them.”
She paused a beat and went on, “I mean if Ryde was as down for my mom as she was for Talon, he never would have backed off and said they could be friends. He would havemadethat shit happen.”
Brick found he couldn’t argue with that logic. “So you think she should hang in with Talon?” he asked.
