A grim smile tilting his lips, Braxton handed the valet attendant a ticket. “Figured you wouldn’t mind if we jacked Barrick’s Jeep. You’ll have to drive, though. I’m not up to this traffic with this damn prosthetic.”
“I don’t mind driving,” I murmured.
Some of the strain left his face, and I began to relax a little myself by the time the attendant pulled up the white Jeep in front of us.
Chapter 19
Barrick
Lyla’s town car pulled up in front of her dorm, and I jumped out of the back before it completely came to a stop.
Waking up alone in bed had caused my heart to stop. I couldn’t feel Mia, and instinctively, I knew she wasn’t in the suite. When I left our room, it was to find her brother the only one still left. He told me Braxton had gone with Mia back to her dorm, then ripped into me for breaking his sister’s heart. I couldn’t blame him, but I didn’t have time for him to bitch at me.
He’d barely gotten started before I was running out of the suite, searching for my valet ticket. But it was gone, and when I got downstairs, it was to find that Mia and Braxton had taken my Jeep. No taxi or Uber would take me all the way back to campus, so I had no choice but to call Lyla.
I ran to the front door, but I couldn’t get in without Lyla’s keycard to unlock it for me. Thankfully, she was right on my heels and swiped it quickly. The elevator was just opening when we got to it. Impatient, I pushed in even as a group of girls was attempting to exit.
“Move it!” Lyla growled at one girl who just stood there dazedly gaping at me, blocking her entrance.
The girl jerked and then rushed off the elevator as I stabbed Mia’s floor number.
When the elevator opened again, it was to find half a dozen other freshmen standing in the hall whispering as they looked toward Mia and Lyla’s room. Pushing past them, I stopped when I saw what they’d been so interested in.
Boxes of Lyla’s things were sitting outside their door, which was propped open. Clothes, pillows, bedding, and even toiletries were stacked on top of each other, spilling out of the tops of the boxes.
“Shit,” Lyla muttered. “I didn’t think she would be pissed at me.”
As I got closer to their room, Mia walked out, another box in her arms. She’d changed clothes and pulled her hair into a fresh knot on top of her head. Her face was pale, and her eyes were red-rimmed. Seeing me, she clenched her jaw, but when her green eyes caught sight of Lyla, she threw down the box in her arms and marched up to her roommate.
“I trusted you,” she seethed. “I thought you were my friend.”
“Mia, we are,” Lyla tried to assure her. “Just because I was guarding you doesn’t mean we aren’t friends.”
“You lied to me,” she whispered, but Lyla flinched like she’d shouted in her face. Hurt radiated off Mia in waves so powerful, they made me ache, and I reached for her, only to have her slap my hands away. “I don’t want you here,” she told Lyla, her voice stronger now. “Figured since you didn’t want to be here to begin with, you could either move in with your brother or stay with Howler.”
“Mia—”
“You live with me,” I interrupted my cousin, pulling Mia’s attention back to me.
“I live here,” she informed me in a voice coated with ice. “Braxton went to get my things.”
“No way. He can just take them back.” I reached for her again, but she backed away from me and then walked into her room.
Groaning, I followed her, only to have the door slammed in my face before I could cross the threshold. The sound of the lock clicking into place set my teeth on edge. “Mia! Open the door. We have to talk.”
“Go away, or I’m going to call security,” she threatened.
“I am the fucking security! Now, open the door before I break it down.”
With an angry huff, she jerked the door open. “You are not my security any longer, asshole. Take yourself and your backstabbing cousin and get lost. I don’t want to see either one of you.”
The elevator opened down the hall, and I glanced over the spectators’ heads to find Braxton walking our way with Mia’s huge case towed behind him in one hand and a box in the other.
“Take it back,” I growled at him.
“Nope. Sorry, cousin, but you aren’t calling the shots anymore.”
Mia pushed at my shoulders, but I didn’t even budge. I wasn’t moving out of the way to let him take her stuff into that damn room. The only way I was leaving was with her beside me.