AM must have picked up on the unspoken words between Noah and me. She looked at me hesitantly and then, in a tiny motion, took a step closer to me as if declaring her allegiance. I gathered AM close to my side and over her head I saw Noah give me a nod of approval. This was a keeper, he was saying.

“I need to talk to Ellie,” AM protested as I tried to hustle her out the back door.

I held back a sigh and said, “I’ll get her. Stay here.” I took off before she could protest. I spotted Ellie hanging out with Phil and Finn at the pool table. “Finn, can you take Ellie home tonight? Make sure she’s okay?”

“No problem,” Finn said. “That okay with you, Ellie?”

Ellie took a moment to look me over, as if measuring my worth. I must have passed some internal barometer, because she nodded her agreement but cautioned, “Take care of my girl.”

“Always,” I replied. Her eyes flared wide at my use of the word, but I didn’t correct whatever assumptions she’d made. They might have been right. Something in me had shifted when I saw Finn talking to AM. They were just laughing and joking, but I realized that I wanted to be the one to make AM laugh and feel at ease.

Always. Maybe I wasn’t so uncertain. The question was whether I could overcome AM’s reservations.

Chapter Eleven

BO

I RETURNED WITH A MESSAGE. “Ellie says I should take care of you.”

“No woman left behind, you know?” AM said awkwardly.

“No explanations necessary. It’s smart,” I reassured her. “Finn will make sure she gets home safe.”

I put one hand on her lower back as I guided her through the crowd to the bar’s rear entrance and held open the door with the other.

“Shit, did you bring a coat?” I pressed the remote starter on my car and hurried us to the vehicle. Even though it wouldn’t be heated fully, inside the car was warmer than out here in the cold.

She shook her head and pulled my sweatshirt tighter around her even as she asked, “Do you need this back?”

“No, I’m fine.” I wasn’t, actually. My Texas blood wasn’t well suited for the cold. But there I was in the frozen Midwest, ass-deep in snow at times, with a coat in my closet made of the wool of at least five sheep and wearing two pairs of socks at a time inside my old Marine boots. I once saw some dude tromping in the snow wearing shorts and boots and wanted to go punch him in the face. Wearing the wrong gear in bad weather doesn’t make someone look tough. It makes them look stupid.

“What is this car?” AM asked, trailing her fingers across the smooth hood of my sports car. I followed behind and opened the passenger door for her.

“Audi TTS. Three-sixty horsepower. V-eight. All-wheel drive.” I ticked off the important components of the car as she swung herself into the seat. When I climbed inside, she was taking deep breaths and stroking the soft leather.

“It feels very luxurious.”

“Drove this puppy all the way from San Diego. Got three tickets, got out of three more.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“Still had my Marine Corps sticker on the back. Some of the state troopers either were former Marines or knew someone who was and let me go with a warning. Still, insurance is a friggin’ bitch.”

“Hmm. I may have you drive me everywhere from now on.” Her voice had a dreamy quality to it, like she was imagining something really good.

I wondered if AM had any idea how suggestive that sounded. I was guessing no, but if she didn’t stop stroking the leather seat, I might have to pull over. Changing the subject before I proved to her that I was only one step above the pig I’d described myself as, I asked her, “You ever get in a fight? Learn some self-defense moves?” I wanted to know exactly how the rumors about her had started, if she’d been attacked or something, so that I could figure out how slowly I needed to take things with her. And who I needed to hunt down and destroy.

“Not really. I know they offer some on-campus classes, but Ellie and I have never gone.”

“Do you know what a pressure point is?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s a weak point. Place pressure on it and a girl like you could take down someone twice your size. Like Zhang Zhi.”

“Who?”

“Chick from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” At her blank face, I added, “House of Flying Daggers?”

“I never would have pegged you for a Chinese art house film buff.”

“I’m not. I’m a fight film buff. Chicks throwing down? Even better.”

“So I could bring down a guy your size if I knew pressure points?”

“Right. Like this Clay Howard the Third.”

At his name, a silence filled the car and I could only hear the muted roar of my 360 horses eating up the pavement between the bar and AM’s apartment.

“How do you know his name?” she finally asked. I didn’t tell her I’d wrung it from Mike along with her address. Dude did know everything.

“I heard that he hurt you.”

“Do you think that Clay raped me?” Her voice sounded far away, and I snuck a quick glance in her direction. AM’s face was averted, looking out the passenger side window.

My muscles tensed at the word and the image it evoked of AM helpless under some guy’s power. “Did he?” I asked through clenched teeth. At the thought of it, I wanted to crush his head between my hands until it popped off.

AM’s reply was a short humorless laugh. She said nothing else the entire drive, preferring to look out the window. The smallness of the car’s interior placed her close to me, but it felt like we were yards apart. Despite the heated interior, a chill hung in the air—much like the tiny crystals of ice formed on the window by the condensation from her breath. I swung into her apartment complex and parked the car in the farthest back corner, where the lights couldn’t reach us. I wanted to hear the truth from AM’s mouth because until we had it out, she was never going to let me in.

I didn’t turn off the engine and AM didn’t jump out like I thought she would. I’d been prepared to chase after her.

“No.” The reply was succinct.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Why are you scratching at this?” She was upset, her brow furrowed and her mouth pressed in a thin, tight line.

“Because I want to know you,” I said.

“What do you think is going to happen if you know the truth? You going to punch everyone at Central who says one bad word about me?”

I’d like to, I thought, but that wasn’t the right answer. I struggled for a better one. “You aren’t going to give me a chance if I don’t know it all.”

She knew I was right, but the question was whether she wanted to give me a chance. I was asking her to do more than reveal a painful memory. I was essentially asking her for something more than a random one-night hookup. I wanted her to trust me. I wanted her to be more than just a lab partner, more than just another warm body between the sheets. I wanted to matter to her. These were foreign desires to me, but sometimes my gut was entirely right. Trusting in my instincts had saved my life more than once in Afghanistan.

As the silence hung in the car, my breath seemed to stall in my chest. I feared any movement might startle her into bolting from the car. The quiet became oppressive, and I was afraid it would topple down like a boulder of snow and suffocate us. Maybe the weight of it was too much for AM as well, because she took a deep breath and began to talk.

“I don’t remember much about the night. I was invited to the Delta Sig rush party by one of the Thetas. I was thinking of rushing with them. I drank. A lot. I remember taking some guy home with me to my dorm room. I told him it was my first time. We had sex. I don’t really remember it. The next morning I was sore. He was gone. There was a tiny bit of blood on the sheets. It wasn’t what I’d thought it would be.

“I was so drunk, I didn’t know who he was. Only that he was on the lacrosse team. I don’t understand why I don’t remember him. Maybe I just intentionally blocked it out.”

I tried to regulate my breathing, promising myself I would beat the shit out of someone or something later. Getting angry now was only going to scare her.

“I just figured nothing would come of it. It was a drunken party event, and I chalked it up to college. You know?”

She was crying now. I don’t think she noticed, but there were tears leaking out of the sides of her eyes, running down her face. The silent but tangible proof of her pain made my heart clench.

“Yeah, I’ve done my share of stupid things while drunk.” My voice was hoarse and raspy. She didn’t notice, wrapped up in the torment of her memories. And I’d led her down this path. I couldn’t tell her to stop now, that it was too painful to listen to.

“Right.” She absently swiped at her tears, dashing them away as if they were nothing more than a pesky mosquito that had landed on her cheek.

“A month or so later, I was walking home alone from a Greek Street party. Ellie had wanted to stay longer, and I was tired. I told her another girl on our floor was going to walk me home. I didn’t think, you know, that anything could happen. I got near the Health Center. It’s dark there. Clay was coming from the opposite direction with a couple other guys. He stopped me and the other guys went on.

“I didn’t know him very well. He backed me up to the brick wall of the Health Center. I can still feel it. The brick was rough against my fingers.” She clenched and unclenched her hands. I had to touch her, to pretend like I was providing some kind of comfort. I placed my hand gently over hers, and she collapsed into me.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, unhooked her seatbelt and tossed it aside, and dragged her over the console and onto my lap. Releasing my seat so it moved as far back as possible, I tucked her face against my chest and wrapped my arms around her. I wished I could enfold her entirely into me and absorb her pain.

“He backed me up,” she repeated, as if she could barely believe it had happened. “I’m not sure how he even knew who I was. We didn’t have classes together. I don’t think I’d even ever met him before. But he said he’d heard I was loose. He stuck his hand on my leg. I had shorts on. He pushed his hand up.

“I pushed it down. He asked me what was wrong. His breath was sour, yeasty, as if he hadn’t brushed his teeth that day and tried to wash away the stink with a dozen beers. He tried to kiss me, and I turned my face. He laughed at me and said he didn’t know why I was pretending, because his buddy had told him that I was loose. I wasn’t a virgin, he said, because I was too loose.”

Her face burrowed harder against my chest, and her legs curled up. It was like she was trying to crawl inside me. As I rubbed her back, I cursed the sense of helplessness that rode over me.

“Did he hurt you?” What a dumbshit question, I thought. Of course he’d hurt her. But she understood that I meant physically and replied.

“No, his buddies called for him. I don’t know if he expected me to have sex with him against the wall of the Health Center or he was waiting for an invitation to my room, but I said nothing and he left.

“So he didn’t rape me. He didn’t do anything invasive. I actually feel guilty about that,” AM confessed. “Like I didn’t have a reason to be upset or fearful because nothing really happened. But after that, the whispers started. I didn’t realize it at first. I went to class, the library, and parties all fall without realizing that everyone thought I was a slut. It wasn’t until someone wrote ‘lacrosstitute’ on my door in permanent black marker. Someone had pulled the plug in the dam, and after that, I heard it all the time. I couldn’t go to a party without some guy trying to feel me up. I was like, meat, or something. Like a cup that they could just pass around.”

“Christ, AM, why didn’t you leave?”

“I couldn’t tell my mother. What would I say? Everyone thinks I’m a slut at the school where Dad’s entire family went, so I need to transfer?

“It wasn’t the losing my virginity in a drunken stupor. It wasn’t being creeped out by a laxer in the dark. It was the lies. The rumors and lies. And you can’t combat them. Every guy I spoke with thought I was an easy mark. Every girl thought I was a tramp trying to steal their man. I wasn’t good for anything or anybody.”

She was full-on sobbing now. Her words were punctuated by catches in her breath as she struggled to get out her story through her cries. I ground my molars together to stop myself from shouting in anger. I wanted to leave right then and there and go to the D-Sigs where most of the lacrosse players were and beat the ever-loving shit out of them. I’d shove their dicks so far up their assholes that they’d only be able to fuck themselves for the next four years.

My muscles were aching from holding her so carefully that she didn’t know how much I wanted to bend a steel bar in half. But I wouldn’t have let her go for anything.