Page 15 of Keep Me

“Perfect,” she said, leaning into his side. “Now feed yourself before you starve trying to look like a gentleman.”

“So,” Blair said, her brown eyes cutting across the table to me as she picked up her wine glass. “How’s the actual school part going? Are you surviving the workload, or are you still letting Zane do your homework?”

“I do my own homework, thank you very much. Well, I do now, anyway,” I said, a small laugh escaping me. “Zane just handles the logistics of making sure I actually leave the apartment to turn it in.”

“She’s doing fine,” Zane corrected, his hand still on my thigh under the table, his thumb rubbing a slow, heavy line through my jeans. “Better than fine. She’s ahead on her reading list for next week.”

“Show-off,” Austin muttered around a mouthful of seafood. “Some of us have to work for a living, Seren.”

We stayed at the table for another hour, the oysters disappearing into a pile of empty, pearlescent shells on the silver tray. The sky outside the windows shifted from a bruised purple into a glassy black, the lights from the boats out on the water stretching into long, shimmering lines on the surface. By the time Austin threw his platinum card onto the leather presenter without even looking at the total, my head was spinning slightly from the noise, but my chest felt lighter than it usually did when strangers surrounded me.

“I need the restroom before we hit the road,” Blair announced, sliding out of the booth first. She looked down at me, flicking her head toward the back corridor. “Come with me, Seren?”

“Don’t leave me out here with him,” Austin grumbled to Blair, nodding toward Zane. “He doesn’t talk enough. It’s creepy.”

“Figure it out, Portwood,” Blair said over her shoulder, already guiding me toward the quieter hallway near the back of the restaurant.

The restroom was massive, all white marble and heavy mirrors, smelling strongly of expensive lavender soap. It was completely empty. Blair walked straight to the long counter, leaning her hips against the stone as she pulled a lip gloss out of her small clutch. She didn’t look in the mirror; she just looked at me.

“You look good, Seren,” she said, her voice dropping the sharp, teasing edge she used out at the table. It was just her, direct, and completely real. She sounded so much older than I held her as in my memories. “I mean it. The air suits you down here.”

“Thanks,” I said, leaning against the sink next to her, watching her apply the gloss with a practiced hand. “It’s… better, here. I like it. I don’t miss West Bridge at all.”

“Good.” She capped the tube and dropped it back into her bag, turning her full attention to me. She reached out, her fingers catching the cuff of my sweater, giving it a gentle tug. “Austin worries about you. He won’t say it because he thinks it makes him look weak in front of Zane, but he does. He checks his phone every couple of hours, waiting to see if you’ve called.”

“I know,” I sighed, “I’m trying to be better about calling him. I just… sometimes my brain gets crowded. He doesn’t need to worry about me. I’m okay, now.”

“I get it,” Blair said simply. She didn’t offer a lecture or a therapy line. She just reached over and smoothed down a stray piece of hair near my temple, her touch surprisingly light. “Just don’t disappear on him. I don’t know what he would do without you, honestly. I think you two are forged together for life.”

I smiled, a real one that reached my eyes. “I won’t disappear.”

“Okay.” She turned to the mirror, checking her reflection one last time before heading for the door. “Let’s go back out before Austin tries to start a fight with the valet just to prove a point.”

By the time we got back to the apartment building, the city had settled into that quiet, late-night lull where the only sounds were the distant hum of the freeway and the occasional click of our boots on the concrete walkway. Austin lagged back a step, letting Zane and Blair slide ahead of us toward the glass entryway. He didn’t say anything, just hooked his arm around my neck, pulling me into his side under the yellow glow of the parking lot lights. He was heavy and warm; a mass of leather and tobacco smoke that had held me through every single storm I had ever been through in the last three years.

“You’re quiet tonight, love,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a lower tone.

“Why does everyone keep saying that to me? I am not quieter than I usually am,” I smacked his arm.

“Well, hate to break it to you, kid, if people are saying it, maybe it’s true,” Austin tilted his head at me. “You okay?”

“Just been thinking,” I said, looking down at our shoes hitting the concrete in tandem. “About Zane, about you. About my dad. Everything.”

Austin’s grip on my shoulder tightened, a brief, heavy squeeze that felt more like a reminder than an embrace. “You gotta give Tom a break, I’ve been telling you that for years. The guy’s lonely, but he’s doing the work. You just have to let him. And when it comes to me and Zane, what’s there to think about? You think you could ever shake either of us off? Nah. Get real.”

I laughed. “Yeah, at least Zane stays out of love. You’re just a parasite built to annoy me, one that I can’t get off. Won’t leave me alone.”

“I mean it,” he told me, stopping just before we reached the glass doors. He turned me slightly so he could look down at my face, his eyes protective. “You’ve got Briggs, you’ve got me. You can breathe.”

“I know,” I whispered again. “Thanks, Austin.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, a lazy smirk returning to his mouth as he tapped the side of my head with his knuckles. “Don’t make it weird. I have a reputation to maintain.”

Austin lived in the same building us, an apartment with the exact same layout, a detail he’d insisted on when Zane and I first signed our lease. He claimed it was for logistical efficiency regarding his business trips, but we all knew the truth, Austin didn’t like being more than a ninety-second sprint away from my front door.

“We’re going up,” Austin announced as the elevator doors slid open on his floor. His arm was still wound securely around Blair’s waist. He looked exhausted, the dark circles under his eyes catching the harsh fluorescent light of the elevator carriage, but he still had that stubborn grip on her hip.

“No, we aren’t,” Blair corrected calmly, reaching out to press the door-open button before the carriage could move again. She looked over at me and Zane, her expression soft in the dim light. “It’s past midnight, Austin. Seren’s eyes are practically glued shut, and you have to be on a flight to Orlando in six hours.”