The Shameless Hour (The Ivy Years #4)

Her face got tight, and her eyes began to redden. When she spoke again, her voice had an edge of hysteria. “But I can’t get it off.”

“I’ll help you get it off,” I promised. “Just don’t do that.”

She inhaled through her nose. I saw her fighting for control, and my throat got tight. I’d been operating on pure adrenaline up until this moment. But now it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room and replaced by sadness.

Bella droped her head. Then she let out a sob so raw my gut clenched at the sound. And I wanted to maim whoever caused her to make that awful noise. She hunched forward, her towel slipping. Her back rose and fell with sobs.

I lunged for the blanket at the foot of her bed, which I wrapped around her body. Only then did I reach for her. Grabbing her shoulders, I leaned her against me.

She didn’t fight me, but her shoulders continued to shake. I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to me. I just wanted to make the shaking stop. “Shh, cariña. You’re going to be okay.” Dios, what meaningless words. But I didn’t know any better ones.

She didn’t acknowledge me. She turned her face away from mine and I could still feel every silent sob wracking her.

That would not do.

I swept her wet hair off her face and wiped the tears away with my thumb. “Shhh.”

Bella had always struck me as a tough cookie. There was just something so buoyant in the way she held herself. Even now, I watched her slow down her breathing, forcing herself to get calm. She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, blinking back unshed tears. “Sorry,” she whispered.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Do you have any rubbing alcohol?”

She shook her head.

“Okay. What about nail-polish remover?”

Bella gave me the side eye. Then she shook her head again. “Not my style.”

I tucked the blanket around her and then slid out from under her. “I’m going to go get us some breakfast and coffee. And find something to get that ink off.”

Bella looked up at me, measuring me with her gaze. “You don’t have to.”

“Back in a jif.”

It took me thirty minutes to visit the pharmacy and the dining hall. Soon enough I was trotting back up the entryway stairs, passing my own door to climb to Bella’s.

“Knock knock,” I said outside. My hands were full.

She opened the door wearing sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt. “You didn’t have to do this.”

I ignored that comment and walked in, setting all the booty down on her desk. “Do you want the bagel with smoked salmon, or the egg burrito? Or we could go halfsies.”

Bella cleared her throat. “The bagel?”

I passed her a cardboard clamshell container and a coffee cup. Then I moved a stack of books off her desk chair and sat in it, opening my own coffee.

There were a couple minutes of silence while we ate. I’d run something like six miles that morning, then carried Bella up the stairs. I was desperately hungry.

Across from me, Bella nibbled at her breakfast and snuck looks at me. “Nice work getting take-out from the dining hall,” she said eventually. The Beaumont House dining room was eat-in only, except for coffee.

“I work there.” I shrugged. “I know where the takeout containers are hiding.”

“That’s handy. And I guess you can’t beat the commute.”

“Sure. But it’s really all about the paycheck. The dining halls are unionized, so I get fifteen bucks an hour.”

“Not bad,” Bella said. “That’s more than I get as the hockey manager.”

I doubted that Bella actually needed the money. “It’s almost twice what an office or library job pays. And the weird thing is that very few students take dining-hall jobs. I guess people don’t want to be the guy in the paper hat, serving their friends.”

“But for twice the pay…” Bella took a sip of her coffee. She was looking more and more like herself now.

“The money is good. I’m not usually on the serving line anyway. I’m a prep cook, which means I chop vegetables, mostly. It’s the same job I’ve been doing in my family’s restaurant since I was ten. But now I get paid.”

“I don’t know how to cook,” Bella admitted. “But it’s on my to-do list.”

“Yeah?” I finished my egg burrito and got up to put the empty carton in her trash bin. Then I plucked the pharmacy bag off the floor and took out a bottle of nail-polish remover and a bag of cotton balls. I punctured the bag and tried to remove a couple of them, but a bunch more came along for the ride, scattering in my lap and onto the floor.