by Kat Colmer
Cora came to a dead stop in the Cs of the fiction section and pulled Justin Cronin’s The Passage from the shelf. “I’ve been meaning to read this.”
“It’s good. Bit like The Stand meets I Am Legend, with vampires. Your kind of read.” She didn’t share my taste for high fantasy, but we both devoured anything post-apocalyptic. I already looked forward to the inevitable post-read discussion. Those always presented plenty of opportunities to jab at that cool and composed outer layer of hers.
Cora nodded and stashed the book in the crook of her arm, slightly crumpling the printout of the New York Times article she was holding. “Scholler’s our only connection to this cursed love letter thing. Talking to him is the logical next step.”
Could be she was right. But other than giving us details about the translation of the scroll, which wouldn’t be any help in uncovering the identity of the person who’d sent the letter, I didn’t see what the professor could tell us that would be useful. No point in telling Cora that. She’d follow this through to its logical conclusion, which meant a visit to the good Professor Scholler.
Cora placed her library card under the scanner of the self-checkout and was greeted with a flashing error message. Brow crinkling, she peered at the screen. “I think I need to reactivate this or something.”
I followed her over to the main circulation desk and browsed the nearby “New Releases” stand while she did what she had to. I didn’t need any new reading material—the pile of books on my bedside table was tall enough to get me through the end of January if not the whole summer holidays—but the latest Tim Winton grabbed my attention.
“Cora?”
The guy’s voice sounded familiar. I looked up and lost all interest in the new releases.
“Markus?” Cora turned, a smile flooding her features. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled back and held up a stack of books in his arms. “Returning these.”
Beth wasn’t kidding; the guy had cleaned up. His stringy brown hair was gone. So were the nerdy T-shirts. And judging by the size of his biceps, he was working out.
A muscle twitched in my jaw.
“I’m glad I ran into you.” The idiot was still smiling. You’d think his body’s energy supply depended on light hitting his tooth enamel.
“What? Forgotten my number already?”
Is she flirting with the guy? That jaw muscle quit twitching and clenched.
He grinned and recited her phone number by heart.
Dickhead.
My jaw full-out spasmed. I put Tim Winton down and marched over to the circulation desk.
“Actually, I was going to call you tonight,” Markus said, “to ask if you were free sometime this week. Maybe for a movie?”
Yeah, time to break this up.
“Nice reading material.” I pointed at the romance paperbacks on top of Markus’s book pile. Both he and Cora glanced down at the same time. His face was a satisfying shade of red when he looked back up.
“Ah…they’re my mother’s.” He couldn’t drop them into the return chute quickly enough. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Cora glaring ice picks at me. I ignored her.
When Markus was done dumping the books, he turned to face me. “It’s Jonas, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Markus Tanner.” He held out a hand.
“I remember.” Firm handshake for a reformed geek.
Sliding his hands into his pockets and bouncing a little on the balls of his feet, Markus turned back to Cora. “So, there’s that new Peter Cade movie. What do you think?”
“I’d like that.” Cora smiled at him again. “I can do Wednesday.”
The guy beamed like a fricking lighthouse. “Wednesday. Cool. I’ll pick you up around seven?”
“Perfect,” Cora said. Then they stood there, grinning at each other.
I heard a crack. Might have been my jaw.
“I’ll wait in the car.” I made for the exit, something unfamiliar burning a hole in my gut, something I could have named if I’d tried hard enough, but instinct warned me to leave that something the hell alone.
Chapter Ten
Cora
I climbed into the passenger seat and creaked the Mazda’s door closed behind me. “Did you have to embarrass him like that?” Markus had looked ready to die.
Jonas grunted something and turned the key in the ignition. “Bet they weren’t his mother’s books.”
I pinned him with a glare, but the car’s cabin was too dark for him to feel the full force of my annoyance. “You’re a dick, you know that?” Was he like this with Beth’s male friends? If he was, then we had a serious problem. I wasn’t putting up with crap like that.
We drove in loaded silence for a while, but the twitch in Jonas’s jaw, along with the furtive glances he slid my way when he thought I wasn’t looking, were a dead giveaway he was holding back some sarcasm-laced comment.
I didn’t have to wait long; he only lasted until we stopped at the next intersection.
“You think it’s a good idea to date a guy who reads stuff like that?”
Date? I had no intention of dating Markus. But Jonas didn’t know that. Besides, where did he get off telling me who I should or shouldn’t date?
“Yep. Definitely. At least when the lights go out he’ll know what to do with his hands.”
I was surprised Jonas didn’t give himself whiplash the way he flung his head around to gape at me. Several emotions flashed across his comically wide eyes, too fast for me to get an accurate read on all of them. But shock was there. Along with disbelief and something else. Something that made my skin tight all over.
A horn blared behind us. Jonas put the car into gear and mumbled under his breath as he pulled out into the flow of traffic. He didn’t say another word until we stopped in the Leanders’ driveway a good ten minutes later.
“You still coming over?” Voice cautious, he peered at me sideways through some dark blond strands of hair. I fought the urge to push his bangs off his forehead. Get a darn haircut, Jonas.
“You planning on making any more idiotic comments about who I choose to go out with?” He rolled his eyes at me. Rolled his eyes! The guy was lucky I didn’t deck him one then and there. “Well?”
“No,” he bit out.
“In that case, I’ll go tell Dad I’ll be next door.” I jumped out of the car and rushed across our driveway, the need to put some distance between us suddenly overwhelming.
Not much later I sat cross-legged in one of the Leanders’ comfy armchairs, waiting with Jonas, Beth, and Leo for the pizza delivery guy. How any of us could eat pizza again after yesterday’s cleanup was beyond me.
“When you think about it, this is genius.” Beth pointed to the headline of the newspaper article I’d given her to read. “I mean, it takes creativity to take something like this and use it as a means of revenge against your ex-boyfriend.” She turned on the couch and punched her brother on the arm. “And here I thought you only got it on with airheads.” She wriggled her eyebrows and waved the paper in Jonas’s face, earning herself a scowl in response.
I took the article from her before Jonas flipped his lid. “We’re going to see this Scholler guy tomorrow.”
“And how exactly is seeing this Scholler guy going to help?” Leo asked from his cross-legged position next to the large ottoman.
Jonas flung his long legs onto said ottoman. “That’s what I said.”
“What is wrong with you people?” I couldn’t believe their negativity. “This man is the only connection we have to the letter Jonas received, which makes him the one person who can point us in the direction of a solution.”
Taking Jonas’s lead, Leo stretched his own legs out in front of him. “Isn’t it enough that you’ve worked out it’s probably one of Jonas’s exes who sent him that letter? It’s not like th
e professor can give you a name.”
“How do you know that?” I leaned forward, then sat back again, exasperation making it difficult to sit still. “Maybe Jonas dated one of the professor’s classics students.”
“And he’s just going to hand you a list of his students’ names?” Leo might as well have had the word “skepticism” stamped across his forehead. “I don’t think so.”
Okay, so he had a point. In all likelihood, the visit to Professor Scholler would be nothing more than an interesting venture into the world of Latin classics. But now I was hooked, darn it, and I wanted to follow the clues until they ran out. I didn’t leave things unfinished.
The doorbell rang, sending Beth off the couch. “I’ll get it.” But she didn’t move far. Instead she glared down at Leo. “A little help would be good,” she told him and sauntered off to get the door and presumably our pizza.
Leo expelled a sigh and heaved himself up off the floor to follow her.
Once they were out of earshot, I turned to Jonas. “Okay, what’s up with those two?”
“Beth and Leo?” Jonas got up off the couch and grabbed the remote from the top of the widescreen TV. “What do you mean?”
I huffed. “Are you blind? There’s something brewing between them. I just can’t decide if it’s a warm, log fire kind of heat, or the foul-smelling compost type.”
Jonas flicked the rubber buttons on the remote with a fingernail as he thought for a moment. He shook his head. “You’re imagining things,” he said, turning the TV on. Scenes from some sitcom flashed on the screen before he clicked over to movie mode. “There’s no way Beth would develop any warm fuzzies for Leo.”
I uncrossed my legs and slid forward in the armchair. “What makes you so certain?”
“He’s not her type.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at me. “Plus Leo doesn’t date.”
Yes, Jonas, hearing that loud and clear. “What’s the story with that anyway?”
Eyes focused on his fingers, Jonas took to flicking the rubber buttons again. “Don’t know for sure, but I reckon some girl screwed him over back home, and that’s why he’s sworn off dating for a while. Can’t say I blame him. Anyone who’s crashed and burned like that would be stupid to get involved again and risk a repeat performance. So there’s no way he’s interested in Beth.” He scrunched up his face in distaste. “Besides, it’d be screwed up having one of my friends date my sister.” He looked up then, eyes finding mine, lips thinning the tiniest bit. “Although not as screwed up as one of my friends dating a guy who reads women’s eroti—”
“Shut up already!” I should’ve set him straight, tell him it wasn’t like that with Markus, but seriously, where did the guy get off?
He gave me a repeat of the scrunched-up face. “Markus Tanner? Really?”
I’d had enough. “Watch it. I’m not above thumping some manners into you.”
My threat had his eyes widening momentarily, but his dilating pupils warned me it wasn’t in fear. Then his lids narrowed.
“I’d like to see you try.” His voice, no more than a low rumble deep in his throat, caused my skin to tighten all over again.
Thank God Beth and Leo chose that moment to come back.
“I’m not watching a zombie movie, Leo.” Beth led the way, a large bottle of soft drink in one hand, glass tumblers and paper towels in the other.
Leo followed, carrying the pizza boxes. “It’s a zombie chick flick. Honest. It’s either Warm Bodies or I’m leaving. That’s my compromise. I’m not sitting through another schmaltzy rom-com. I had nightmares after the last movie you picked.”
Beth made a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl. “I have nightmares every time I see one of your stupid T-shirts, so we’re even.” She handed Jonas and me a tumbler before throwing herself down on the couch.
“Warm Bodies?” I knew the movie. “That’s the one loosely based on Romeo and Juliet, right?” Beth perked up at the mention of romance.
“That’s me out, then,” Jonas said from across the room. “I’m not watching anything to do with that idiotic play.”
Leo put the pizza boxes on the ottoman and plonked himself down next to Beth. “Dude! It’s got zombies in it. Come on! United front, remember?” He sent Jonas a help-me-out-here look. “Otherwise she wears us down, and we end up watching another puke-worthy Nicholas Sparks adaptation.”
Beth swiped the back of Leo’s dark head with the palm of her hand.
“Ow!” He rubbed at the spot. She ignored him and grabbed a slice of pizza. I didn’t care what Jonas said—something was up with those two. Maybe he didn’t see it, maybe Beth and Leo didn’t even see it, but it was there. I’d leave it alone, for now. Just observe and gather more intel.
I picked up the soft drink bottle from the floor and poured some into my glass. “It’s not a bad compromise. Good balance between schmaltz and gore.” From memory it had enough romance to keep Beth happy without grossing the guys out.
“You sure?” Jonas walked over and held out his tumbler for me to fill. “It’s your first movie night back. Thought you’d want to do a doomsday favorite. I was thinking Contagion. Or if you’re in the zombie mood, how about Twenty-Eight Days Later?”
I blinked up at him. The guy was harder to work out than the Enigma machine. One minute he was pissing me off about Markus, the next he was putting my movie preferences first. I couldn’t keep up. And I was a sucker for a doomsday movie. Especially the ones with a global pandemic scenario. Add a nerdy scientist to the plot, and I was in movie night heaven.
Eyes on me, Jonas sipped his drink as he waited for my answer.
“Thanks, but I don’t mind,” I said. “Leo seems keen on the zombie Romeo and Juliet, so let’s do that.” I looked at Beth, who shrugged an okay.
“Then zombie Romeo and Juliet it is. Here”—Jonas threw the remote control to Leo—“you drive.” Jonas stood only a meter or so from the couch, but Leo still somehow managed to fumble the catch. The remote smacked him in the face. Beth shook her head. I hid my cringe. Poor guy.
When the opening credits started rolling, Jonas flicked the lights off, plunging the room into a shrunken semi-darkness. He grabbed a slice of pizza and made for the empty armchair on the other side of the room, then changed his mind and padded over my way. He sat on the floor in front of me, leaning back against the front of my armchair.
“View’s better from here,” he mumbled around a mouthful of Super Supreme as he stretched his legs out in front of him.
My body froze. On the screen, the undead lurched through an airport terminal. From my armchair, I stared at the TV, unseeing, my whole body focused on the wave of earthy aniseed flooding my senses. With all the time he spent in the pool, you’d think he’d reek of chlorine. But no, he smelled like…a sweet spring sunrise.
Are you listening to yourself? You’re sprouting alliteration. Alliteration, for pity’s sake!
Disgusted with the hormonal drivel hijacking my thoughts, I swiped a now cold pizza slice from the box and forced myself to eat it. As punishment.
Madam Curie would have been proud.
Chapter Eleven
Jonas
Crossing the Sydney University Quadrangle, two things sprang to mind: even without its iconic purple flowers, the legendary Jacaranda’s crown of dark green, fern-like leaves was impressive. Plus, the Quad really did look like Hogwarts. All the cloisters and vaulted ceilings added nothing to a university’s academic standing, but there was something smart and sexy about Tudor Gothic architecture. And did I mention it looked like fricking Hogwarts?
Since it was January, the campus was quiet with only a handful of students doing summer bridging courses. In a month or so the place would be crawling with undergrads. I’d be joining them. So would Beth and Cora. Bet Cora would dig the cloisters and vaulted ceilings. The thought made me smile. Where was she anyway? We’d agreed
to meet at midday so we could catch Professor Scholler during his lunch break. It was already ten past noon.
I was still unconvinced about the value of this visit, but Cora’s curiosity was infectious. Maybe the prof could shed some light on this curse-letter thing. Worth a shot. I parked myself on the grass in the shade of the Jacaranda and waited.
Cora had spent the morning with her father. He was flying to the Outback Clinic in a couple of days so he’d taken her to breakfast, because the man had to have a serious case of guilt about the trip. Cora had barely been in the country a week, and he shoots off to the bush to look after other people’s kids. No wonder Mrs. Hammond pulled a Madame Bovary and ran off with her very own Leon.
I swear I didn’t understand Cora’s stoic mask of pragmatism where her dad’s travel was concerned. According to her, though, the trips were a vital part of his job, and his job was a vital part of him. If she wanted to get on with him, she reasoned, she needed to accept that. Unlike her mother.
Then again, could be she was hoping this current addition to her dad’s frequent flyer program would give her an opportunity to get to know Markus Tanner better. My fingers curled around a tuft of grass and I tugged, ripping it up by the roots, spraying dirt all over my shorts. I didn’t like her spending time with the guy. She’d just got back; her friends should take priority. Markus Tanner could get in line, because I wasn’t ready to share her yet.
Maybe never.
An impatient flick of my wrist sent the grass tuft flying through the air just as Cora’s familiar form hurried through the cloisters.
“Hey, sorry.” She came to a stop in front of me, puffing slightly. “Couldn’t find parking.” She adjusted the shoulder strap of her bag. “You been waiting long?”
“Not that long.” I pushed myself up and brushed some dirt off my shorts. “How was breakfast?”
Cora rummaged through her bag and produced a hair elastic. “Nice. Dad and a massive stack of blueberry pancakes. All to myself.” She grinned and raked both hands through her hair, then proceeded to pull the long, auburn strands into a ponytail. My gaze followed her fingers, then strayed to her exposed nape where her skin glistened from the midday heat.