Taoree: Taoree Trilogy #1 Read online

  “Will you let me play for you when you come home for Thanksgiving?”

  “Of course! I would love that,” I answered honestly.

  “When are you coming home?” she asked, suddenly sounding serious.

  “I’m not sure yet, but I’ll be there before Thanksgiving dinner.”

  We talked for a few more minutes. Mostly about all her ten-year-old hobbies and her little friends that I didn’t really know, and I told her I loved her before we hung up.

  Once I finally made it to Who Cares?, I was pretty damn cold and ready for a beer. I was only eighteen, but nowadays, anyone from the college was allowed to drink alcohol. It was a rule all of us took full advantage of.

  I looked around before noticing Cal waving at me from a table across from the bar. I made my way over and plopped into a seat next to him when I got there.

  “Finally,” Cal said, “took you long enough.”

  “It’s been less than thirty minutes,” I grumbled and elbowed him in the side. I turned to look across the table and nodded to my other companions. “Hey, Nol. Colt.” They sat on the other side of the table with Colt right across from me. Colt could be an ass, but he sure was fun to look at. I didn’t mind one bit being across from him and his intense blue-green eyes. His blond hair was curly, so he kept it cut short on the sides and a little shaggy on top. It usually looked messy-but-styled at the same time, though right now he had that same blue hat on that he’d had for years. Whatever he did, hat, no hat, crazy hair, styled-up hair, it didn’t seem to matter, it was always sexy. Not that I would ever tell him that.

  “Hey,” Nolan said quietly.

  Colt didn’t say anything, he just held out his fist to bump, so I complied.

  “Whatcha guys been up to this week?” I asked Nol and Colt. All of us went to the same school, but I hadn’t seen either one since last weekend.

  Colt came to the great Rylla University last year, and this year the three of us followed. Not because we wanted to follow him, but because there weren’t that many colleges left anymore and our parents made it clear that they wanted all four of us to stick together. I guessed they figured that if we had to leave home, we could at least have each other’s backs in case there’s ever another, you know, alien invasion or anything. I couldn’t say I blamed them, and I honestly wouldn’t want to go anywhere without my friends anyway, even if I usually wanted to punch Colt in the face most days.

  Colt just shrugged, but Cal spoke up, “This girl in my American History class went crazy this morning.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Cal was strangely excited about this. “I mean, she literally lost her mind in the middle of class. We were listening to the lecture and she just stood up, walked to the front of the class, and started screaming at the top of her lungs and holding her head. Then she stood up straight and started yelling in another language or something. The professor called security and it took them a full five minutes to restrain her and get her out of the classroom. She was probably only five feet tall, but apparently had one hell of a punch.”

  “That’s really weird,” I said.

  “Weird doesn’t even cover it, J.” He added, “She’s not the first person to lose it like that this week.”

  “Someone else lost their mind?” I asked.

  They’d evidently already had this conversation before I arrived because Nolan said, “Apparently in Cindy’s math class yesterday, another girl did basically the same thing. Screaming and speaking in another language. I don’t know, but that’s what Cindy told me this morning.” Nol’s crush was Cindy Lalum. He’d been obsessed with her since the first day of school this year. I was surprised he’d actually talked to her about it.

  “Wait, she’s in your history class too, right?” I asked Cal.

  “Yeah, she was there for both freak-outs,” Nolan confirmed. I glanced at Colt and saw him worrying his bottom lip with his teeth and furrowing his eyebrows. He looked upset.

  “Huh.” I sat back, ignoring Colt and thinking about that weirdness for about thirty seconds before flagging down the waitress for a beer.

  As the guys continued talking about crazy people, I looked around the bar. It was pretty dark in there, but I could still see across the entire place. There was a large bar that ran the length of the wall across the room from us with double doors behind it leading to the kitchen. Along the back wall there was a DJ in the corner and doors to the bathrooms with the dance floor in the space in front of the DJ. Then there was rows of tables along the walls and scattered between us and the bar, and the front of the place had the entranceway. Since it was after dinnertime, there were different-colored lights flashing to the beat of the music. It seemed like a run-of-the-mill bar and restaurant, nothing really special about it.

  When I returned my attention back to the table, I noticed Colt staring at me. I looked pointedly at him. “What?”

  He seemed to snap back to attention at my snippiness because he whipped his head back and suddenly sat up straight, mumbling, “What? Nothing.” Then he took a sip of his beer before looking down at the table.

  I rolled my eyes at him even though he couldn’t see me. He was starting to get on my last nerve with his whole mumbling-not-talking-to-anyone act. What the hell is his problem lately?

  “Anyway.” I turned my attention to my actual friends. “You guys are going home for Thanksgiving, right?”

  “That’s the plan,” Cal agreed.

  “Yep,” Nolan said.

  Colt ignored me. He was staring at his beer and playing with the label. I chose to ignore him back.

  “Okay, so how we getting home?”

  Cal looked at his brother, but Colt was either oblivious or ignoring him, too. I felt Cal kick Colt under the table and Colt finally snapped out, “What?”

  Cal asked, “You’re driving us all home for Thanksgiving, right?” Colt was a sophomore and therefore allowed to have his SUV on campus.

  Colt glanced at me before answering his brother, “Sure, whatever.”

  Cal flicked a piece of napkin at Colt before turning back to us with an easy smile. “Problem solved.”

  I held my tongue. As much as I wanted to go home, I really didn’t want to be stuck in the car with Mr. Moody for eight whole hours—nine if we stopped or hit traffic—but I guess I didn’t have a choice. While flying was an option now that the Taoree ships were all grounded, it was really expensive and not really something I wanted to do. So I held back my comment about Colt driving and let it go.

  Nolan wasn’t normally a big talker, especially to anyone other than myself or Cal, so I was surprised when he asked Colt, “When would we leave? Wednesday night or Thursday morning?”

  Again, Colt ignored us and didn’t answer. Cal leaned forward and smacked Colt in the cheek. “Dude, where are you right now?”

  Colt glanced around. He was so distracted that he didn’t even retaliate against Cal, instead saying, “What? What did you say?”

  “Dude, Nolan asked when you want to leave to drive home,” I informed him, fed up with his inability to even act like he liked us a little. “Do you want to leave Wednesday afternoon or Thursday? We all have classes until, I think, two o’clock on Wednesday.” I glanced around and got nods from Cal and Nol telling me I was correct.

  He looked around at each of us like a deer caught in the headlights before finally saying, “We can leave on Wednesday around three.”

  We all nodded, but I kept my eyes on Colt. He was acting even more strange than usual. I finally gave in to my curiosity, and, okay, my small amount of concern, and asked, “You okay, Colt?” Nol and Cal were still talking together.

  He actually heard me, and when he looked at me, his eyes went wide like he couldn’t believe I asked him that question. He blew out a breath and rubbed his hand over his face before answering, “Yeah, it’s been a long day.”

  “Wanna talk about it?”

  His eyes shot over to mine again, wide with surprise. He just shook his head lik
e he was afraid to say anything. He’s such a weirdo sometimes.

  “You sure? Might make you feel better.”

  He rolled his eyes and shook his head, mumbling something under his breath that I couldn’t hear over the music.

  “What did you say?”

  He looked at me with those blue-green eyes that used to be filled with such mischief, but now just looked sad, but still beautiful. I was caught in his gaze, unsure of what I was seeing there. He looked sad, lonely maybe, but there was something else too, something that looked a little like fear. But then his eyes softened and changed completely. The fear was gone and replaced with something I couldn’t read, something that could’ve been—

  The back of my head was whacked, causing me to lose eye contact. Cal’s voice came through, “Dude, what are you doing?”

  I turned and looked at my best friend. “What do you mean?”

  He glanced between me and Colt before shrugging. “Never mind, just pay attention. We’re making plans for tomorrow. You still wanna go to that festival thing?”

  I glanced at Colt, but he had gone back to peeling the label off his beer bottle, so I answered Cal, “Sure. I hear the music’s good. What time you wanna go?”

  “Noon.”

  I nodded, then looked back at Colt. “You coming too?”

  Colt’s hands froze on his beer bottle and he slowly looked up at me. “Why would you want me to go with you?”

  I shrugged, trying not to let that asshole comment get to me. “I was just asking if you were going too, whatever, man.”

  Instead of answering me he said, “I gotta piss.” He got up and walked away.

  I turned to Cal and Nolan. “What the fuck is his problem?”

  They looked at each other before Cal said, “I don’t really know, J.”

  I shrugged and took a sip of my beer, feigning that I didn’t care, even though Colt’s actions were getting to me. It wasn’t like we never invited him to stuff, so I didn’t understand why he was weird about it. Or why he had to call me out on it, anyway. I wasn’t the same little kid that used to try following my best friend’s cool older brother around. What-the-fuck-ever.

  When Colt came back a few minutes later, he didn’t even sit back down. He was moving his feet back and forth and worrying his bottom lip again. “I gotta go, guys. I gotta go meet with… someone. I’ll talk to you later.” He looked right at me and opened his mouth to say something, but must’ve thought better of it because he snapped his mouth shut, turned on his heel, and walked toward the front door.

  I watched him go before commenting, “Cal, your brother is acting stranger than usual.”

  Cal took a sip of his beer, looking at where Colt disappeared to. “Yeah, he’s been…” he trailed off.

  I prompted, “He’s been what?”

  Cal shook his head. “Nothing. He’s just a weirdo.”

  I could tell that Cal wanted to say more, but I didn’t push it. Instead I found the waitress and ordered another beer and some food, then I talked to my two best friends for a few hours and watched some people dance. I wasn’t in the mood to dance tonight, but Cal definitely was. At one point he was dancing with three different girls at the same time. He was a player and probably the biggest flirt I’d ever met. I had no interest in any of it, but it was entertaining watching him. Plus, I always had Nolan with me who was too shy to dance anyway.

  Chapter Two

  The next day, I was surprised when I walked over to Cal’s dorm and saw Colt’s SUV parked in front of the building. I stopped by the front doors and called Cal to let him know I was there. When he told me he’d be down in a few minutes, I decided to walk over to Colt’s SUV. I looked up and down the street, but I didn’t see him anywhere.

  As I got closer to the car, I realized he was sitting in the driver’s seat. I kept walking and before I could stop myself, I knocked on his window. He jumped so high, I couldn’t help but laugh. He rolled down the window with a tight smile.

  “Hey Jeremy, what’s up?” I was always Jeremy to him, never just ‘J’ like I was to everyone else.

  “Hey,” I said as pleasantly as possible. I was still annoyed with him for last night. “What are you doing just sitting out here in your car?”

  I swore his cheeks started turning pink. What in the hell? Is he blushing?

  “Um…” he started, sounding nervous. “I’m waiting for you guys to go to that music festival?” He said it like it was a question.

  “Oh, I didn’t know you were coming,” I stated.

  His brows furrowed. “You invited me.”

  “I know, but you didn’t answer me,” I said it more harshly than I intended and he looked a little shocked.

  His voice was quiet when he replied, “I don’t have to come.” He looked away from me.

  I stood up straight and took a deep breath before bending down and leaning against his door to look through the window. “That’s not what I meant, Colt. If you want to come, you should come.”

  He turned back to me and caught me in his gaze again, whispering, “Do you want me to?”

  “I—”

  “Oh good, you found my brother,” Cal’s loud voice rang across the parking lot.

  I offered a small smile to Colt before standing up and turning toward Cal with Nolan behind him. They lived in the same building, so I figured Nolan would be right there. “Hey guys, ready to get your rock on?”

  That made them laugh a little, which was the point of my ridiculous comment, and Cal said, “I guess you already called shot gun. C’mon, Nol, you’re in the back with me.” Cal winked at his brother when he walked past him. I watched as they had some kind of silent brotherly conversation.

  “You know, I didn’t—” I cut myself off when Colt looked at me. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings and also, more leg room, so I just walked around the SUV and got in the front passenger’s seat with Cal right behind me and Nol next to him. I stared straight ahead and noticed Colt’s blue hat sitting on the dash. I was actually surprised it wasn’t on his head.

  “You know where you’re going, Colt?” Cal asked from the backseat as Colt pulled out of the parking spot.

  Colt answered, “GPS.”

  He has such a way with words. I snorted at my own thought, earning me a glare from Colt. I ignored it and turned to look out my window at the passing college.

  Not one for uncomfortable silences, Cal asked, “Did you guys hear what happened?”

  “Nope,” I replied lazily.

  Cal smacked my shoulder. “Don’t you wanna know what happened to those three girls I was dancing with last night?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “No, I really don’t need to hear it, but thanks.”

  “No, man, I didn’t take any of them home last night, remember? They left early,” he reminded me.

  I took the bait, “Okay, so what happened, then?” I pulled down the visor and looked at his smug smile in the mirror.

  “They went crazy.”

  Nolan spoke up, “What do you mean? Like those girls yesterday?”

  “Yeah, apparently all three of them started screaming and goin’ nuts outside their sorority house last night. Campus police had to haul them away,” Cal said it like it was an awesome thing to happen.

  I could see Colt tense up out of the corner of my eye. His knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. I asked Cal, “How could you possibly know that?”

  “I did leave with that redhead last night. She was from the sorority across the street from those girls. When I walked her home, there were police interviewing some other girls that live in the house with them.”

  Colt cleared his throat. “Real police or more campus guys?” I stared at Colt, surprised that he was actually participating in our conversation.

  “Real police,” Cal said. “I wonder why they would’ve been called in? It’s not like any of the girls did anything wrong.”

  “Hm,” Colt grunted.

  “So that makes, what? Five girls in le
ss than twenty-four hours?” Nolan asked.

  “Five that we know of,” Cal said cryptically.

  “That’s really… unfortunate,” I mumbled before turning back to the window.

  It took us forty-five minutes to get to the festival. In that time, Colt didn’t say another word. Cal and Nolan talked in the backseat and I listened to them and the radio. Several times throughout the drive, I felt Colt’s eyes on me, but whenever I would turn to look at him, he would just look away and ignore me. He was making me fidgety.

  After Colt backed the SUV into a parking spot, we all got out, I shouldered the backpack that had a blanket—we didn’t feel like carrying chairs everywhere—and water bottles in it, and we walked up to the ticket booth. Colt got there first and I was very surprised when he handed us each a ticket.

  “Thanks,” I said, reaching into my wallet for some cash. I saw Cal and Nol pay him back, so I held out a ten to him.

  He pushed my hand away. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I furrowed my brows. “But you just drove, too.”

  He looked me right in the eyes. “It’s fine, Jeremy. I got you.” Then he headed for the entrance.

  I looked at Nol and Cal and said, “I don’t get it. He took your guys’ money, right?”

  They looked at each other and started laughing, like total crack-up laughing. Then they just followed Colt to the door, leaving me standing there even more confused than I was last night at the bar. What the hell is going on?

  I put the money back in my wallet, pocketed it and followed behind my friends.

  Once we were inside the festival, we decided to walk around and check out the venders and food before finding a place to sit. There was a band playing, but it wasn’t one that we knew, so we weren’t too worried about watching them.

  We walked around for about fifteen minutes before Colt led us toward a stand that sold cotton candy and popcorn. As we got in line, he asked me, “You like kettle corn, right?”

  “Uh, yeah, I love it,” I replied. Kettle corn was one of my all-time favorite foods.

  “That’s what I thought. Wanna share a bag?” he asked me.