“Come on. I’ll take you home.” He helps me to my feet.
“Hold up,” Avery says, stretching before standing up. “I have something for you.”
A snore erupts from the overstuffed chair and Aaron jerks awake. With the light reflecting off his glasses, none of us noticed he was asleep. “Y’all leaving?”
“Yeah,” I giggle.
“Don’t get up.” Leo pats his shoulder and follows me to the door.
Once we have our jackets on, Avery gives us each a baggie with a black candle and herbs. “For your homework,” she reminds us, with the caveat that I don’t do the ritual alone.
Outside in the stairwell, the cold slices right through me and snow coats the steps. It’s going to be a bracing walk home. At the top of the stairs, I turn toward campus, but Leo takes me gently by the elbow and nudges me the opposite way. He fumbles with his keys, making the lights of a nearby car blink.
“I bought it off Robin,” he says.
“Oh.” Briefly, I wonder why Robin didn’t need it, but who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth? If it has a heater and can get us to Newberry faster, I see no reason to ask questions.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Leo stands behind me,patiently waiting for me to unlock Newberry’s side door. Shyly, I ask, “Do you want to come in for a bit?” It’s only ten o’clock and I’m not ready to give up his company just yet.
“Is your roommate out?”
“Probably. Why?” The handle gives and light and warmth greet us in the open doorway.
He smiles sheepishly before ushering me ahead of him through the door.
I laugh. “She doesn’t bite.” Most of the time.
“So you say?—”
He follows me the short way to my room but doesn’t step inside until I wave him in. His eyes fall on Liv’s empty, still-made bed. “How’s she dealing with the whole sorority thing?”
I toss my coat over my desk chair and sink onto my bed, explaining in as detached a manner as I can Liv’s Sweetheart predicament.
Leo frowns. “You mean, without you, she just doesn’t matter?”
“It sounds even worse whenyou put it that way.”
“But that’s the truth.” He twists out of his jacket and lays it neatly over mine.
“I hope not. Maybe they’ll get it all squared away tonight.”
“So that’s where she is? At O-Chi?”
I nod. I don’t need to tell Leo what an awkward situation it is for Liv and me; it seems he already knows. “Sit,” I say, patting the space beside me. It’s making me nervous, how he’s just standing there rubbing his jaw.
I kick off my shoes and scoot back on my bed until my back is against the wall alongside it. Leo does the same, keeping his shoes on until I go all mom on him and order him to take them off. He laughs and obeys, his Doc Martens thunking on the floor like ten-pound bricks.
“Are you still tired?” I ask him.
“Not as much. I think the cold air helped.”
I agree. “Very bracing.”
“Will you tell me more about the ritual? What you saw?”
“I didn’t see anything. I only felt stuff.” I don’t particularly want to revisit the experience, but I will for Leo. For no one else but him. I detail the entire meditation, from the moment I felt the energy seeping into me until the instant I opened my eyes.
