Addicted(61)

I freeze—I can’t help it. I feel like the whole cafeteria is staring at us, and when I go to glance around Ethan, it turns out I’m not that far off base. He’s definitely making a spectacle of the two of us.

“You want to join us, Ethan?” Ro invites, scooting over to make room on our side of the table. It’s an invitation that took some time in coming—for the first couple of weeks, the guys were so in awe of Ethan all they could do was trip over their own tongues when he showed up. Of course, it didn’t help that he spent a lot of his time glaring at them like they were competition. But eventually things smoothed out and I’m glad to see that those two weeks when we weren’t together haven’t altered the group dynamic.

“I’d like to, man, but I’ve got a meeting upstairs. Keep an eye on my girl for me, will you?”

“I’m perfectly capable of keeping an eye on myself,” I tell him, a little annoyed at the endemic sexism of his remark.

“Is that one of your party tricks?” he asks, dropping one of the strawberry smoothies he’s carrying next to my plate. “Because I’d like to see it.” He gives me another kiss, this one on my cheek, before he starts backing away. “Don’t forget to drink that. It’s got an immunity boost in it to help with that cough you’ve got going on.”

“I don’t have a cough.”

“You had one for most of the night.” He gestures to the smoothie. “Drink it. An ounce of prevention and all that.”

Then he’s turning and walking away and it takes every ounce of self-control I have not to yell “Yes, sir” after him and follow it with a smart-ass salute. But that would only call more attention to me and that’s the last thing I want.

I turn back to the table to find my friends smirking at me. Even Austin has managed to tear his eyes away from the opening kickoff of the World Cup long enough to say, “You better get to drinking that smoothie. I don’t want to have to tattle on you to your boyfriend.”

I flip him off, taking a very deliberate bite of my salad instead. He just laughs, and things quickly go back to normal—or as normal as they can be when Austin is literally spellbound by the action on the television. As for Ro and Zayn, they look pretty interested in the game, too, despite all the shit they’d given Austin.

Which leaves me to amuse myself because while I had been winding Austin up, I’d also been telling the truth when I told him I didn’t understand the point of soccer.

I eat my salad in relative silence, broken only by the curses and cheers that pay proof to the fact that it’s not just my friends—much of the still crowded cafeteria really is watching the World Cup semifinal.

On the plus side, when I start coughing about halfway through lunch, only Ro is paying enough attention to me to notice.

“Not a word!” I snap at him, reaching for the damn smoothie and downing half of it in one long sip.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answers with a wicked grin that does nothing to set me at ease.

I’m trying to think of a suitable retort when a report on MSNBC catches my eye. It’s footage of Brandon Jacobs—Ethan’s Brandon—standing behind a podium, while being framed by both an American flag and a flag for the state of Massachusetts.

Before I recognize I’m doing it, I fumble my phone and earbuds out of my pocket. It takes me a moment to open the right app and then tune to the frequency listed below the TV, but in under thirty seconds I’m listening to a story about Brandon Jacobs winning the Democratic primary in the fair state of Massachusetts just days after his twenty-fifth birthday. He’ll be running for the seventh district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives this November and he’s doing it with the full support of his old money father, socialite mother and famous, biomedical CEO and philanthropist half-brother. Or at least that’s how the story goes. And judging from how friendly Brandon and Ethan look at the fund-raiser Frost Industries threw for him, I can see where the anchor is getting his story.

Brandon’s victory speech is filled with political rhetoric, very rah-rah Boston and America. He talks about the importance of taking care of our new crop of veterans and the role biomedical companies play in doing that. He even goes so far as to say that funding research at innovative corporations like Frost Industries can make all the difference in saving our soldiers’ lives—on the battlefield and at home.

I don’t hear much more after that. Instead, I’m caught up in the fight I had with my brother the other day, his words playing over and over in my head like a CD that keeps skipping.