Chapter 88: The Phone Call

POV: Carly

The blaring ringtone yanked her out of a deep, miserable sleep.

Carly groaned, rolling onto her side, eyes squinting against the strip of sunlight slicing through the blinds. Her head felt like it had ten bowling balls stacked on top of it, pounding in slow, merciless rhythm. She tried to sit up. Her body vetoed the motion immediately, and she dropped back against the pillow with a fresh wave of nausea.

What the hell.

The last clear thing she remembered was Niko carrying her back to her room, the two of them sneaking past the security patrol like criminals.

She had made good on her promise to be sick. Niko had held her hair back, rubbing slow circles up and down her spine while she hung over the toilet for what felt like half an hour. He'd changed her into pajamas afterward, brushed what he could out of her hair, and tucked her into bed.

Everything after that was a blur, but she remembered enough to know he hadn't left. He'd climbed in beside her until she fell asleep, then moved to the chair across the room to keep watch, even though it had to have been close to two in the morning by then. Tired or not, he'd stayed exactly like he said he would.

I was safe because of him.

She blinked, registering the empty room around her.

So where is he now?

Katy's bed was empty too, which meant she hadn't made it back either.

Carly pushed her tangled, foul-smelling hair off her face and finally located her phone on the nightstand. She groaned again when she saw the name on the screen.

Of course.

She took a breath and answered.

"Hey, mom." Her voice came out rough and scraped.

"Carly, are you okay? You sound terrible."

Yeah, mom, I'm great. Just nursing the hangover of the century.

"Just a little hoarse, that's all." She cleared her throat, immediately regretting it as her skull throbbed harder. "Why are you calling so early?"

"It's nearly noon."

Carly smacked her own forehead and instantly regretted that too.

Never. Drinking. Again.

"Right, sorry, I've had so much going on I'm losing track of time." The lie came out smoother than she expected. "What's up?"

"I wanted to remind you about the sports banquet Thursday. I'll be attending. I was hoping you could help me figure out what to wear."

Carly sat up so fast her headache nearly blacked her out.

"You're coming to the banquet? You never come to things like that."

"That's because I was always busy, and my only daughter wasn't cheer captain and running half the committees on campus." Leona said, pride practically glowing through the phone.

Carly swallowed.

"It's been a while since we've properly caught up." Leona continued. "I think this would be a good opportunity. I feel we have quite a bit to discuss."

If her head hadn't already felt like it was detaching from her body, that tone alone would have made her sick all over again.

The door opened. Niko stepped in, hands full.

"Uh — yeah, I'll talk to you later." Carly said quickly, hanging up and shoving the phone under her pillow before he got close enough to see the screen.

"Who was that?" He asked, crossing toward the bed.

"Nobody. Wrong number."

He hummed, sitting on the edge of the mattress and presenting her with a couple of Advil, a bottle of water, and a granola bar.

As if I needed another reason to be obsessed with him.

"You're a saint." She sighed.

He winced. "Calling a vampire a saint feels like a contradiction in terms."

"Not when the vampire's as good as mine." She took the pill and the water gratefully.

"How are you feeling?"

"Still foggy, but better. My head weighs about a hundred pounds and I smell like the inside of a bar, but I'll survive." She rubbed her temple. "I hope I didn't say anything too embarrassing last night."

"Nothing worth remembering." He said.

She had a vague, queasy memory of an awful lot of Aurora talk being involved in that last conversation. Maybe he was just being kind.

"Thanks for taking care of me. Your friends basically kidnapped my sober buddy."

"Pretty sure that was the other way around." He smirked. "And you never need to thank me for being there, love."

That warm, uncomfortable feeling crept through her again. She brushed it off and forced down more water.

"I am, however, curious about why you lied to me about who was on the phone."

She spit water everywhere.

Damn his vampire hearing.

She sighed, fully caught. "Okay, fine, it was my mom. I wasn't trying to lie exactly, I just didn't want her to ruin your morning the way she ruined mine."

His brow furrowed. "What did she say?"

"Remember the banquet you agreed to come to? Well, my mother — who normally just mails a check and skips the actual event — has decided to grace us with her presence this year."

His face shifted into something close to alarm. He hadn't seen Leona McPherson since they'd first been paired as classroom partners. A lot had changed since then.

"I take it she still doesn't know about us?"

Carly bit her lip. "I mean, this town isn't that big. I'm sure someone's told her something by now. But she's never come to one of these in years, and now, suddenly, the year I have a boyfriend she definitely won't approve of, she wants front row seats."

"Well." Niko said. "At least we won't have to worry about falling asleep through the speeches."

They both laughed, grateful for any way to lighten the dread settling over the morning.

"I guess." She rested her head against his shoulder. "I was already dreading the long-winded speeches and rich people showing off. Now I get to dread her judgmental glares on top of it."

"Makes me grateful my mother stopped showing up to school events years ago." Niko said. "Her last few attempts were her pretending to support Reba, when really it was just an excuse to corner me. You can see exactly where Deacon learned his moves from."

Carly lifted her head, chin resting on his shoulder, studying him.

"It's funny. I never really thought about your siblings much before, and now they're all I want to know about. Do you think I'll ever meet the rest of the family?"

The way she looked at him made him want to give her anything she asked for, even when it cost him something. The thought of facing her mother again — this time as the boyfriend instead of just a classroom partner — was bad enough without adding his own family into the mix.

She asked about them often. He understood why. It didn't make answering honestly any easier.

He pressed his lips into a thin line, gave her a quick kiss instead of an answer.

"You're not missing anything." He promised. "Enough about that — get cleaned up, and I'll meet you back here in twenty to take you for real breakfast in the cafeteria. My treat."

She knew exactly what he was doing — steering them clean away from both his family and the rest of last night in one smooth move — but she let it go, especially with the promise of bacon on the other end of it.

She sealed the deal with a kiss. "Deal."