me tell you. I never had it like that from any girl—”
“Okay,” Cooper interrupts. “We get the picture.”
I feel my cheeks burning and curse myself. Why do I have to respond like such a Goody Two-shoes to words like head? Especially around Cooper, who is already convinced I’m “a nice girl.” By going around blushing all the time, I’m just reinforcing the image.
I try to make out as if I’m not blushing, just flushed. It is warm in Doug’s room—especially since, judging from the sound of water coming from his bathroom, his girlfriend (or whatever she is) appears to be showering. I start unwinding my scarf.
“Never mind,” I say to Cooper, to show him I’m all right with the gritty language. To Doug I say, “Go on.”
Douglas, still looking smug, shrugs. “So I thought it’d be a good idea to keep her around, you know? For emergencies.”
I’m so surprised by the coldness of this that I can’t think of anything to say. Cooper’s the one who inquires, calmly examining his own cuticles, “What do you mean, keep her around?”
“You know. Put her number in the little black book. For a rainy day. Whenever I was feelin’ down, I’d give ol’ Lindsay a call, and she would come over and make me feel better.”
I really can’t remember the last time I’d felt so much like killing someone—then recall that only an hour or so ago I’d wanted to pummel Gillian Kilgore with almost the same intensity as I now longed to throttle Doug Winer.
Maybe Sarah is right. Maybe I do have a Superman complex.
Cooper glances at me, and seems to sense that I’m having a difficult time restraining myself. He looks back down at his fingernails and asks Doug casually, “And Lindsay didn’t have any complaints about this kind of relationship?”
“Shit, no,” Doug says with a laugh. “And if she had complained, she’d’ve regretted it.”
Cooper’s head turns so fast in Winer’s direction that it’s nothing but a blur. “Regretted it how?”
The kid seems to realize his mistake and takes his hands away from his head, sitting up a little straighter. I notice that his abdomen is perfectly flat, except where it’s ridged with muscles. I had abs that tight once. When I was eleven.
“Hey, not like that, man.” Winer’s blue eyes are wide. “Not like that. I mean, I’d’ve stopped calling her. That’s all.”
“Are you trying to tell us”—I’ve found my voice at last—“that Lindsay Combs was perfectly willing to come up here any old time you called and give you—ahem—oral sex?”
Doug Winer blinks at me, hearing the hostility in my voice, but apparently not understanding where it’s coming from. “Well. Yeah.”
“And she did this because?”
The kid stares at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that girls do not generally perform oral sex for no reason.” At least, no girl with whom I was acquainted. “What did she get out of it?”
“What do you mean, what did she get out of it? She got me out of it.”
It was finally my turn to smirk. “You?”
“Yeah.” The kid sets his jaw defensively. “Don’t you know who I am?”
Cooper and I, as if on cue, exchange blank stares. The kid says insistently, “I’m a Winer.”
When we both continue to look uncomprehending, Doug prompts, as if he thinks we’re slow, “Winer Construction. Winer Sports Complex? You guys haven’t heard of it? We fucking own this city, man. We practically built this fucking college. At least the new buildings. I’m a Winer, man. A Winer.”
He certainly sounds like one.
And if this was the reason Lindsay Combs had been be stowing blow jobs so liberally upon this kid, I for one didn’t believe it. Lindsay hadn’t been that type of girl.
I don’t think.
“Plus, I gave her shit,” Doug admits grudgingly.
Now we were getting somewhere.
Cooper raised his eyebrows. “You what?”
“I gave her shit.” Then, seeing Cooper’s expression, Doug glances nervously in my direction, and says, “I mean, stuff. I gave her stuff. You know, the kind of stuff girls like. Jewelry and flowers and stuff.”
Now, Lindsay was that kind of girl. At least, from what I knew of her.
“I was even gonna give her this bracelet for her birthday—” Suddenly the kid slings himself out of bed, affording us a view I’d have preferred not to have of his snug black Calvin Klein briefs. He goes to a dresser and draws a small black velvet box from a drawer. Turning, he casually tosses the box to me. I fumble, but manage to catch it. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it now.”
I open the black velvet lid and—I will admit it—my eyes widen at the slender strand of diamonds lying inside the box on a bed of royal blue silk. If this is the kind of payback Lindsay was routinely receiving for her services, I guess I could understand it a little better.
Stifling a desire to whistle at the costliness of such a gift, I tilt the box at Cooper, who raises his dark eyebrows. “That’s quite a trinket,” he comments mildly. “You must have some allowance.”
“Yeah.” Doug shrugs. “Well, it’s just money.”
“Is it Dad’s money?” Cooper wants to know. “Or your own?”
The kid had been rooting around, looking for something on top of the dresser. When his fingers close around a bottle of aspirin, Doug Winer sighs.
“What difference does it make?” he wants to know. “My money, my dad’s money, my grandfather’s money. It’s all the same.”
“Is it, Doug? Your father and grandfather’s money comes from construction. I understand that you traffic an entirely different substance.”
The kid stares. “What are you talkin’ about, man?”
Cooper smiles affably. “The boys down the hall intimated that you know your way around certain hydroponics.”
“I don’t give a shit what they intimidated,” Doug declares. “I do not deal drugs, and if you accuse me of selling so much as one of these to someone”—He shakes the bottle of aspirin at us—“my dad’ll have your ass in a sling. He’s friends with the president, you know. Of this college.”
“That’s it,” I say, feigning terror. “I’m scared now.”
“You know what? You better be… .” Doug starts toward me. But he gets no farther than a step before Cooper blocks his path, a hulking mass of muscle, anorak, and razor stubble.
“Just where do you think you’re going?” Cooper asks lightly.
As Cooper had evidently hoped he would—guys are so predictable—the kid takes a swing at him. Cooper ducks, his grin growing wider. Now he has license to beat the crap out of Winer, as he’d no doubt been longing to do.
“Coop,” I say. Because suddenly I realize things are not going at all the way I’d hoped. “Don’t.”
It’s useless. Cooper takes a step toward the kid just as Doug is taking a second swing, catches the kid’s fist in his hand, and, by applying steady pressure with his fingers alone, sends Winer to his knees.
“Where were you,” Cooper growls, his face inches from the kid’s, “the night before last?”
“What?” Doug Winer gasps. “Man, you’re hurtin’ me!”
“Where were you the night before last?” Cooper demands, evidently increasing the pressure on the kid’s hand.
“Here, man! I was here all night, you can ask the guys! We had a bong party. Jesus, you’re gonna break my hand!”
“Cooper,” I say, my heart beginning to drum. Hard. I mean, if I let Cooper hurt a student, I’ll be in serious trouble. Fired, even. Also… well, much as I dislike him, I find I can’t stand by and see Doug Winer get tortured. Even if he deserves it. “Let the kid go.”
“All night?” Cooper demands, ignoring me. “You were at a bong party all night? What time did it start?”
“Nine o’clock, man! Lemme go!”
