“I have someone waiting for me at home.” I bend down to give her a quick hug. “I’ll text you soon.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Kevin says, standing up, too.

“Oh, actually—my car is right back there.” The parking lot is on the other side of the wooden-slat fence. I had to walk all the way around the building to go in through the front door. “I think I have to go fifteen feet.”

“Still. Better not to go alone.” Kevin comes with me through a low gate in the wooden fence. He stops when he sees that I’m getting into a vehicle with two muscled security guys. “You get a ride here?”

“Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice light. The explanation for the security guards is too long, and too complicated.

“Cool,” he says, but it’s clear there’s a question in his voice. He doesn’t sound judgmental, though. “Well, it was great to meet you, Jane. I hope we see you again.”

He and Grace could be my friends. It would be so easy to keep meeting up with them. So easy to form our own little group. Who cares if we have different majors?

“I hope so, too. Bye, Kevin.”

I wave goodbye to him and climb into the back seat. He paces back to the gate and watches as the car drives through the lot, giving me one last wave before I’m on my way back to Beau.

Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Beau Rochester

I’m not paranoid about Jane going to this meetup or whatever the hell it is. I have a reasonable concern. She didn’t think she’d stay very long. I didn’t expect her to stay very long, especially not after those pricks approached her at the pub. If any of those people show up to interrupt her group meeting, I’ll have them expelled.

But I don’t text her.

I don’t call her. I don’t do any damn thing to ruin this for her.

I want to call her, believe me. I want to call her every five minutes. But the point of all this is for her to make a real decision about how she wants to attend college. Not what she thinks I want her to do, but what she wants to do. This can’t be something she does to keep me happy. Those kinds of decisions never last. People end up resentful and unhappy and I’ll be damned if I make Jane unhappy again. Sending her to Houston once was enough.

I make it to ten thirty, and then I call Liam North.

“North,” he says, answering on the first ring.

“I wanted to check up on Jane.” I try to sound cool and collected and totally unconcerned.