Page 50 of Heartbreak Kings
Chapter 20
Sabine
The next day,Daniel took a shift as my night’s bodyguard. He insisted on taking me out to dinner before we settled in for the night. I supposed he considered it gentlemanly, but with everything that was going on, I would have preferred to order in a pizza and eat in the warm, familiar sanctum of my dorm room.
“Have you thought about what you will tell your mother about the lot of us?” he asked me gently as I carefully sipped a glass of white wine. The slab of salmon on the plate in front of me was about twice what I could eat, but Daniel was tearing into his fish like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
I laughed in embarrassment and quieted it with a sip of my wine. “Um. No? I would be shy about telling her about one boyfriend. I can only imagine what she’s going to think about how things are developing between us.”
It wasn’t a formal agreement. They had agreed to court me without jealousy, but I was setting the pace here, and I was feeling things out as I went along. I knew from my reading that polyamory could get complicated fast, especially without enough communication. It intimidated me, but I couldn’t choose between the four guys I had dated so far, and I didn’t want to.
Daniel’s smile went a little mischievous. “I suppose that is understandable,” he purred. “Though I hope you’re not ashamed of us.”
“No.” It was more a fear of Mom judging me, not them. “I’m not ashamed of you. I’m just still getting used to all of this myself. I haven’t even figured out how to explain to her I’m not a virgin anymore.”
That really was going to take some explaining. Mom was Catholic, but she was also very practical, and she had been to college herself. She knew that even if sex wasn’t inevitable, exploration of it was. But we had never had that talk once I had qualified to come here for college. Not much of one anyway. She had been too worried about guys like Carmody to even talk to me about guys like Daniel.
“Is it necessary to tell her? I lost mine years ago, and I never announced the matter to my parents at all.” He bit another chunk of salmon off his fork.
“I don’t have to tell her. But eventually, we have to figure something out. If more than one guy comes to visit me over summer break, and you all seem to know one another, she’s going to have questions.” I smiled at him wryly as his amber eyes danced. “Any pointers?”
“Well, we’ll just have to impress her and be very respectful, then. The burden shouldn’t just be on you.” He winked, and I relaxed a little. “But I seriously doubt any of us will want to back down on the time we spend with you so you can pretend to be monogamous.”
“I wouldn’t do that to any of you,” I protested.
He smiled and nodded. “No. I didn’t mean to imply that. You seem rather open-minded for someone with so little dating experience.” His smile went lopsided again as I glanced away shyly. “I meant it as a compliment.”
“Well,” I admitted, “at least it meant that I didn’t have to choose between any of you.”
“No, you didn’t. And I’m glad of that. I fear that if we had had to fight over you, it might have torn us apart as friends.” He gazed at me hungrily. “I know I would never have backed down.”
I laughed. “You wouldn’t?”
“Never. Believe me, I could stand up to even Blake with ease. Or Blake and Marcus.” He seemed to consider how such a fight would go for a moment. “I wouldn’t want to do it, though.”
“It shouldn’t be necessary.” I took a few bites of my salmon, then realized Daniel had gone quiet.
I glanced up and saw him staring over my shoulder at someone, his smile gone. He muttered something in German, sounding annoyed.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Carmody.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” I growled, turning around. I wasn’t afraid, even after everything. No matter what he had stirred up the campus idiots to do, Carmody had never had the balls to confront me directly without a crowd at his back.No. I was pissed.“He’s stalking me now? Against the damned protection order? I thought his mommy would have pulled him out of school.”
“According to Blake, she hasn’t been answering her phone,” Daniel sighed as I stared at Carmody. His eyes avoided mine as he squirmed in his seat instead, his battered, wet trilby pulled down over his eyes.
“I’m calling him out,” I growled, getting up. I knew he had received notice of the emergency protection order I had filed, and here he was, violating it already. Daniel immediately stood to back me up, and we walked right over to Carmody’s table.
He immediately got up and hurried out so fast that he knocked over his chair. I whipped out my phone and took a photo of him fleeing. “He just violated the protection order.”
“That would explain his fleeing. But I find it rather interesting that he will only confront you as part of a group or through proxies.” Daniel pulled out my chair for me at our table, and we sat back down. “He almost seems frightened of you.”
“He’s chickenshit,” I muttered, stabbing at my salmon with a fork. “Marcus said Carmody didn’t lift a finger during the beating, just had the other guys do it while he stood back and watched.”
“Yes, and now Carmody is on the hook for both the disturbance and the mess. If you report the protection order violation, he’ll be in even worse trouble. Which I would love to see right about now.” Daniel didn’t discourage me, which surprised me. Instead, he was disgusted as I felt.
“Yeah, that’s what the protection order’s there for.” I was perversely excited at the prospect of seeing Carmody led away in handcuffs. Blake had set so many conditions on my getting the police involved that I was resenting it—especially after Marcus had gotten hurt. “I just don’t understand why he’s acting even worse after the order came down and his actions got him banned from pledging again.”
