Need Me (Broke and Beautiful #2)(55)

The passengers around him started to deplane and he followed suit, taking his carry-on out of the overhead compartment and moving down the slim aisle with a serious effort. Self-disgust billowed off to the side and let rage take its turn. That f*cker. She was crying to that f*cker about something he did, and it was unbearable. It was goddamn unbearable knowing that. Only that guy wasn’t the f*cker. Same with Johnny Jerk Off who’d taken her to the poetry reading. It had been him all along.

When one of the flight attendants gave him a concerned look, he reined in the thoughts that were obviously showing on his face. He needed to focus. Just focus on getting to the dean’s office and making sure his screw-up didn’t have a lifelong consequence for Honey. Then he would go home. And that was all he had. Did something exist beyond today if he didn’t have her to look forward to? No more of her thoughts. No more of those golden eyes to devastate him, or burying himself in her body. What did it matter what he did or where he went if he couldn’t have those things? If he couldn’t have Honey.

Ben walked through the airport, feeling as though some cosmic Fast Forward button had been hit, affecting everyone but him. He was in slow motion while people zipped past and announcements came from overhead that were impossible to focus on. A low buzz had started in the back of his head, growing louder as he reached the exit. He saw Russell waiting at the curb, leaning against his company truck, complete with the Hart Brothers Construction logo, but Ben couldn’t lift his hand in greeting or even acknowledge him. Russell didn’t make his usual joke, thankfully, simply giving Ben a nod and returning to the driver’s side. Ben stowed his carry-on in the backseat and got into the car, painfully aware that leaving the airport meant he was going even further from Honey. Severing one more connection.

“Where we headed?” Russell asked, starting up the truck.

Ben hadn’t told Russell the full story of what happened with Honey. He wasn’t ready to say the words out loud yet. Maybe ever. Anyway, he suspected the news had already reached Russell through the supergroup pipeline. Thankfully, his friend left it alone, simply taking the directions Ben gave him to the administration building at Columbia. As they got closer, something inside him started to coil tight. His skin felt stretched, his muscles strained. The buzzing in the back of his head moved to the front, and no amount of ordering himself to relax helped.

“We need to make a stop first,” he said to Russell. At his direction, Russell drove past the administration building and pulled up outside the English department building. “Wait here.”

“You sure you don’t want some company?” Russell scratched the back of his neck. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like the poster for every revenge movie ever released.”

Ben gripped the door handle. “That’s not completely inaccurate, but I’m going alone.”

“They always say that in revenge movies.” Russell sighed when Ben responded by pushing open the truck door. “I’ll wait here. Like the fifth-billed lackey in the film.”

Before he shut the door, Ben paused. “Why aren’t you giving me a hard time? You know what happened. How much of a shit swamp I’ve landed her in. Otherwise, you’d have asked me.”

Russell looked away. “You’re giving yourself a hard enough time for the both of us.” He cleared his throat, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. “And anyway, f*ck you for thinking I’d leave you hanging because of what happened with a girl. Louis wanted to be here, too, but the community center he was fighting to keep open had to close.”

Ben absorbed that information, feeling a flash of sympathy for Louis and the kids that would have nowhere to go. But he didn’t have the strength to carry anything else just then. “She’s not just a girl.”

“I get that.” Russell looked thoughtful a moment. “Shit, I wish I didn’t get that.”

“Are you talking about Abby?” When Russell didn’t answer, Ben didn’t press. Not after the solid Russell had done him by keeping quiet about Honey. Just the thought of her name propelled him from the car toward the English building. He knew where Peter would be at this time of day because he’d just finished covering one of Ben’s lectures. Normally, Ben would be horrified by the idea of walking into this building without wearing his work clothes and jacket, but today he didn’t give a single f*ck. His hair was wild on top of his head, his jeans were creased and dusty. His T-shirt smelled like cinnamon and sugar, so he inhaled deeply as students he recognized as his own stopped to gape at him.

The door of the faculty lounge came into view, and Ben’s pace picked up. He’d managed to lower the dimmer switch on his anger until now, but just knowing he was about to see the son of a bitch’s face sent it into full wattage. Without breaking his stride, Ben yanked the door open and strode inside. Peter stood on the opposite side of the room, sipping coffee and reading through a lesson plan. Ben’s lesson plan.

Peter turned at Ben’s entrance and lifted an eyebrow. “Hey, Ben. You’re back? What’s up with the outfit—”

“Go f*ck yourself.”

The other three professors in the room stood and left. Ben briefly wondered if they’d thought he’d meant they should go f*ck themselves, but he flicked the thought aside. He had more important things to worry about, namely Peter, who was staring at him as if he’d just sprouted horns. “What’s going on with you, Ben? You take off unexpectedly. Now you show up looking like you just woke up after a bender.”