Wynter's Horizon Read Online Free Page B

sweater.
    “I know. I slept in. Just couldn’t get up,” I explained. That’s what nightmares of cars flipping over did. Kept you up all night and exhausted during the day.
    “You better be careful. Bergman keeps track. Chatham missed, too, so I was alone. He definitely noticed.” Jason and I had been sitting together in history classes since freshman year.
    “I know, but I’ll be okay.”
    “Look at you. Planning to go down and see him? Give him some special services?” Professor Bergman had a reputation for hitting on the girls. It was rumored he had taken a leave of absence one year for getting caught sleeping with one of the students. Since returning, he had been more discreet, though was now divorced.
    “Funny. I left him a voicemail. He called me back, and I told him I wasn’t feeling well.”
    “You really are playing it up. Going for a late-night visit?”
    “Sure. Me and a sixty-five-year-old professor just LTD.”
    “I bet it’s a wet dream for him. Anyway, you look nice.” He was in a good mood, not that that meant anything. Jason’s moods changed like the wind—one minute nice and charming and the next a fucking bear, brutal and nasty. I’d been used to his nature when we were just friends, able to walk away or tell him off when he was being a bastard. But since sleeping together, the ground had shifted. I needed him more and he needed me less and the moodiness had only increased. When he was actually charming, it was almost worse—he made me forget the bad, think that we were back to normal, when sexual tension and joking made up our relationship, not guilt and secrets.
    “Thanks. You going out tonight?” A stupid question, given it was Friday night.
    “Maybe. Where are you girls off to?” He stepped into my space, and my heart beat faster.
    “Jim’s. You should come by.” I fiddled with the money in my hand.
    “Maybe. I saw you running today.”
    “Yeah?” He nodded, smiling at me and then, reaching out, he swiped some loose strands of hair away from my face. It was a pretty intimate move for him, especially out on the sidewalk.
    “If I don’t make it to Jim’s, I’ll text you later.”
    “Okay.” I turned and ran up the steps of my dorm, glancing back once. He continued down toward the student center, but he turned and smiled at me before I slammed through the door. The night suddenly had possibility.

Chapter Seven

    Beck—Jim’s Bar

    I spotted Quinn across the room: at six-foot-two with a frame to match and a head of dark hair, he wasn’t hard to miss. Forever the jovial Irishman, he laughed and conversed with everyone he passed, shaking hands and smiling. His enthusiasm for life, especially after all we had been through, amazed me.
    “Well?” He slapped me on my shoulder, seating himself on the stool next to me.
    I raised my eyebrows back at him. “Well yourself.”
    “How was the damn trip? Your first since you-know-what.”
    I shrugged and ignored the reference to Colombia. “Fairly good. I got paid, so that’s a bonus, and a promise of more to come, so, all in all, a success.”
    Jim slid another Guinness down the bar, and Quinn caught it and raised the glass in appreciation then turned back to me. “You should smile if it was a success.”
    “I am smiling.”
    “Really? It looks a little more like brooding on the verge of anger to me.”
    I motioned with my head to the drunk next to me who had returned for a fresh beer. He swayed ever so slightly, bumping into me. Unbeknownst to him, I heard his non-stop muttering clearly. Apparently, his wife, Nancy, had found paradise with the manager at Stop and Shop. “I liked my quiet hole-in-the-wall bar.” I explained, moving my arm out of the drunk’s way.
    “I love this. Look at them all enjoying life, getting drunk, some already hammered, hormones flowing as much as the beer. It makes me want to join them.”
    “You’re just jealous because we never got to do that, and now we’re too old.”
    “Too old?