Mad Boys (Blue Ivy Prep, #2)(72)

“Fine, give me one year.” Cocky? Maybe. But I really wanted to add the image of her eyes. I—loved them. There was just something wholly captivating about them. Darkness and light collided in them and I never seemed to grasp what she was thinking.

The mystery alone compelled me, but it was so much more.

“One year,” Dad agreed with a nod to the calendar. “I’ll do it for you next year on New Year’s Day if it’s what you want.”

The rest of my stay had been peaceful, and I finished a second tattoo for him, but I didn’t have his gift for free hand art. As long as he did the detail stencil for me to work from, I could do it.

KC was already back on campus, her things scattered over the coffee table when I came in. As much as I didn’t mean to pry, I found myself drifting over to look at the sheets of music.

These weren’t ones I gave to her. One of her guitars sat propped in a cradle, like she’d just gotten up from where she’d been working to step out. I glanced around, half-expecting to see her exit her bedroom or come in the door.

But the suite was quiet and felt empty. Sitting down, slowly, I folded my arms to keep from picking up the musical sheets. There were easily a dozen, some half-completed.

I could almost follow the flow of music, but there was a disjointedness to it, like she’d skipped around without adding any bridges. After another five minutes passed and I’d read everything I could reach, I picked up a top sheet and straightened it before picking up the next. Then I reorganized them to lie out in the only order that seemed to make sense.

A scattering of lyrics on the pages answered my unspoken question. She was piecing it together. There was a rich sense of narrative to the song. More, she had a very sweet and powerful motif that repeated in lower keys and then climbed back to the original key as the song moved toward a crescendo.

The notes leapt up at me, and I could see where she was going. More, I could see the pieces that were missing. The fragments that would fill in the gaps and build the bridges between hope and sadness, desperation and resignation, as well as the need to celebrate the moments.

It was a really beautiful piece that she was putting together. Fingers twitching, I glanced around the table for a pencil and spun it around in my fingers as I debated the wisdom of messing with her creation.

She certainly hadn’t asked me. If she’d been back even for a day, we hadn’t discussed our schedules for arriving on campus. I made it ten more minutes, then I began to pencil in the key, the notes, and filled in those spaces she’d been writing around.

I’d just gotten to the last page when the door opened. “I told you not to try running with a hangover,” KC said in a sardonic, if amused, tone. “You should have just hydrated.”

“I wasn’t hungover,” Lachlan argued, as he followed her inside. They were both in running gear, faces reddened with hints of chap around their eyebrows. It was a sunny, brutally cold day out there. The fullness of his attention shifted from KC to me as I rose. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

My irritation with him evaporated when KC turned around as she pulled off her knit cap and let her long blue hair spill out. It was braided, but the braid’s end hit her mid-chest after curling around and falling over her shoulder.

“Hey!” She grinned and that smile beckoned for a response. “You’re back.”

“I’m back,” I agreed, then switched my attention to my brother. “Is he bothering you?”

“Every day,” she said with a laugh as she stripped off her jacket and her gloves. “But someone still wanted to go for a run and I needed the break.” The whole time she spoke, she narrowed the distance between us and glanced down at the music I’d organized.

Guilt plunged through me as she picked up the first couple of sheets.

“I—” I hesitated.

“You did this?” She glanced up at me then back at the music as she toed off her shoes, but then she sat down. Even the hint of sweat couldn’t diminish the sunshine and citrus tickling my nostrils. It had to be her shampoo.

“Probably should have waited for you,” I started, keeping one eye on Lachlan who wore a smirk. “Why are you still here?”

“I was walking her back. Campus has been mostly empty and I wanted to make sure she got in safely.” His tone was almost snide, and I rolled my eyes.

“She’s safe,” I told him, folding my arms. “You can go.”

“I think I’m fine right here. We’ve had a nice few days without you babysitting, little brother. Trust me, Ace has this.”

“Don’t be a dick,” KC informed him. “And Jonas is right, I’m safe. You need a shower anyway.” Then she wrinkled her nose, and it was downright adorable. “Me too, for that matter. Which means you definitely need to go.”

“Awww,” Lachlan protested almost playfully. I shifted my weight and moved to cut off his view of her.

“She needs a shower and you need to go,” I told him.

“Or what? You gonna toss me out on my ass?”

“Yes,” I said. “Happily.”

KC chuckled. “You don’t have to throw him out, he’s going.”

Was he? I raised my brows, but Lachlan let out a long sigh. “Fine, I promised to not be insufferable today.”

“No, you lost the bet, which means you can’t be insufferable today.” The ease with which she shifted tones and handled Lachlan worried me.