Page 73 of His Custody

“Got it in one.”

“Can I walk you back to your room?”

She looked around her. It was a beautiful day. They wouldn’t have too many like this left before it started to cool off and she wouldn’t be able to sit by her tree anymore.

“I’ve got some work to do actually. Would you be willing to call a truce on the tree? I think there might be enough room for both of us.”

His face lit up and for a second he reminded her so much of Gavin, she could picture him saying, “Yeah. C’mon, Tiki. You want a snack first? I’ll go make some popcorn.” Her heart would break in two and then she’d have to recant her offer, run back to the dorm and close the door in his face, lock the memories out, the good and the bad, because if she let one in they’d all come back. She wasn’t prepared to deal with that right now.

But Tyler wasn’t Gavin. He’d never call her Tiki. He wouldn’t instinctively know of her love for popcorn. He did however, make a decent offer. “Definitely. Let me carry your stuff.”

She handed over her canvas bag and he slung it over his shoulder. She pretended not to notice the hand he offered to her and which he not-so-smoothly stuck in his pocket when she didn’t take it. “So whatcha working on?”

***

Eight o’clock. His favorite time of day on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Jasper sat with his laptop open, myriad files and tabs and programs waiting for his attention, but most of his mind was waiting for the phone to ring.Ring, dammit, ring. And just when he was going to lose his mind, it obeyed.

He waited two rings before he shuttled the handset from the cradle on his desk to his ear.

“Hello?”

Why did he answer that way? He knew it was her. He should say, “Keyne, my love, I’ve been waiting for your call. I miss you, when are you coming home again?”

But he was a stupid, stubborn fucker, so “hello” it was.

“Hi, Jasper.”

He pictured her curled up on her single bed. He’d offered to get her an apartment off campus, anywhere she wanted. It was technically required for first years to live on the quad, but there were always ways around that kind of requirement. But she’d eventually said she wanted to stay in the dorms. It would make her feel less alone.

Would she be staring at the ceiling or clutching that raggedy Peter Pan doll of hers? She’d shoved it in the closet when he’d moved her in, but he’d given it two days, three tops, before the thing made its way onto her bed, even if it ended up tucked under her pillow.

“How are you, sweetheart?”

“Fine.”

Her answer tweaked something inside him. Any man could tell you when a woman says she’s fine she’s not, but if it were something with her classes or a friend, she would tell him. If he wasn’t telling her, it was something much bigger. He was tiptoeing through a leafy jungle, waiting for something to jump up and bite him in the ass.

“Are you sure?”

There was a pause and he unsheathed his mental machete. Psychic bushwhacking, not his favorite. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. He put a little Dom into his voice. “Tell me.”

“I... I met a boy.”

Jasper’s stomach dropped. A boy? It’d been almost a month of her complaining about how horrid the guys on campus were—he believed “smelly, ugly, dirty, and stupid” was a direct quote—and now she’d met a boy? But this was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? For her to experiment, for her to see what it would be like to be with someone her own age, who wasn’t such a pervert? Of course, he’d also wanted her to try it and come back to him. He’d be able to sleep at night with her curled in his arms and his cuff around her ankle if he’d given her the choice. But now that it was happening...

He wrestled his voice into steadiness. “What’s his name?”

“Jasper, we don’t have to do this. I don’t want—”

“You’ve always been able to tell me anything. You can tell me about him. What’s this”—scrawny, punk ass, know-nothing piece-of-shit who better keep his paws to himself—“guy named?”

She sighed. “Tyler.”

“Did you meet him in class?”

“No, he’s a junior. We don’t have any of the same classes. I met him on the quad. He stole my tree.”

A nasal laugh escaped Jasper. Yes, her tree. She’d described it so vividly, he could picture her lounging beneath it with her books.

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