Liam Davis & The Raven Read online

  I pushed up my glasses again. “Of course I do. I schedule that in at shower time.”

  Quinn paused for a moment, his green eyes clouding in confusion. He bit his lip to smother a smile. His voice lowered. “Schedule?” He hummed. “That sounds far too practical to be any fun.”

  “It works for me.”

  “And do you have a girlfriend that you think about—”

  “You know by now I don’t have a girlfriend.”

  “Fine. Favorite model? Actress?”

  “You are extremely curious about this.”

  He sat up, tucking one leg under him and folding his arms. His gaze could only be described as greedy. “Oh hell yes, I’m curious. It might help me solve this Liam puzzle.”

  I knew what he was trying to get at, but he was barking up the wrong tree. “I fantasize. Okay? Now, excuse me, but I have to get some work done. You’ve distracted me all evening.”

  “I distracted you? I was quiet as a button, man.”

  “It had nothing to do with you being quiet.”

  “Then, pray tell,” he said with an arch of his brow, “how did I distract you?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.” I leaned forward to grab my laptop, but I never made it because a cushion hit the side of my face.

  “Christ.” Quinn chuckled. “What do I have to do to get details out of you?”

  I twisted toward him. His white T-shirt really wasn’t thick enough. I could make out his muscles beneath it. “Is this the sort of stuff friends—I mean roommates—usually talk about? Because it seems like a strange discussion to me.” I fiddled with the corners of the cushion.

  “Yeah,” Quinn said softly. “Friend thing. At least, that’d be . . . all right.”

  His sudden shyness had me rubbing my arms. I could—would—do this friend thing.

  “Seeing Hunter really makes you want to cry?” I asked.

  He looked guiltily at his knees and picked at a loose thread. “Yeah.”

  “That’s it?” I arched my brow. “What do I have to do to get details out of you?”

  A soft laugh. “It’s just,” he said, “I remember him before the chair, and”—he gestured toward his chest—“stuff gets stuck inside when I think of all the things he said he wanted to do that he can’t anymore. And . . . and sometimes I’m relieved that I got lucky. That it never happened to me, and then I feel like crap.”

  Speechless, I just nodded. The silence held, but this tentative . . . openness we were having was drawing thinner and thinner. Afraid it would snap, afraid I would fail, I groped for something to share, something that might show him that this friend thing would be all right by me too.

  I scratched the back of my head. “So lately, when I’m in the shower, I fantasize about winning the BCA competition for best article of the year.”

  Quinn blinked and looked at me, his gaze running over my lips as if expecting me to say something else. “The what now?”

  I shrugged. “It’s a competition I submitted three of my articles to. The results come out next month.”

  “Are you saying,” Quinn rested his head on the back of the couch and stared toward the ceiling, the side of his mouth curling, “that you literally get off on work?”

  I hadn’t thought about it like that before. But, I guess—“Yes. Seems I do.”

  I stood, because I couldn’t figure out what to do with myself. I needed to focus on something constructive so I wouldn’t feel so—exposed.

  Quinn didn’t pull me back, but he touched the side of my knee. “You’re something else, Liam,” he said quietly. “And I’m going to figure out exactly what that something is.”

  CHAPTER 9

  My lashes fluttered away from my comic to meet the view of hummingbirds, and then Hunter in his wheelchair, arms crossed.

  “I invite you here for coffee, and you just sit there and read?”

  I glanced around the almost empty Crazy Mocha Coffee as I carefully set the comic on the table next to the tea I’d barely touched. “The only reason you invited me here was so you didn’t have to wait for Mitch on your own. You are not alone, are you?”

  He wheeled forward enough to snag the comic. “Booster Gold? You’d rather have his company than mine?”

  “Booster will still be there when Mitch finally arrives and you give me my cue to leave.” I sipped my tea, and my mind skipped from Booster to our campus vigilante. Where was he right now? Who was his daytime persona? Was it someone I’d recognize?

  Hunter laid the comic on the table and wheeled closer to my side. He gripped my shoulder. “Dude, don’t leave right away when he comes, okay? I invited you here because you’re always so busy. If I didn’t have a reason to meet, you’d have had something else to do. That’s why I said I wanted you to wait until Mitch came.”

  “Oh.” He wanted to spend time with me? “In that case”—I slipped Booster Gold into my messenger bag—“enough of him then. What about The Raven, the campus vigilante. Have you ever heard of him?”

  With Hunter’s hand still on me, I felt him stiffen, his fingers tight on my shoulder.

  “I take that as a yes?” I pulled out my notebook and pen from my pocket. It wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about leaving his identity a secret. I would. At least from the masses. But the thing was, every time I watched Hunter wheeling his chair, it reminded me how lucky I was and I wanted to thank The Raven in person.

  That, and—to be entirely honest—I was curious. I itched to solve the Raven mystery almost as much as I itched to hear the BCA results.

  “What about this vigilante?” Hunter pulled back from me and maneuvered to the opposite side of the table.

  “Have you ever seen him?” I asked, scribbling down Hunter’s first reaction. “Or heard about him?”

  Hunter shook his head firmly and grabbed his coffee. “Nah. Just what we all hear in Scribe.” He shrugged. “Have you ever seen him? Do you know who it is?”

  Like with Quinn, I got the feeling he wasn’t telling me everything. The question was: why not?

  I took a long drink of tea. “He saved me from Freddy Krueger a month back.”

  “Freddy Krueger?”

  “It was a nightmare and The Raven saved me from it.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” he blurted. “You’re not gay, and—” He shut up suddenly and swore.

  I held my pen poised over my notebook and wondered why he was squeezing the life out of his wheelchair arms.

  “Am I missing something here?” I asked.

  “Ah, shit.” He drained his coffee and then reached over for my tea as if he could drink his way out of the moment.

  “Hunter?”

  He set the tea down. “Fine. Look, I may have noticed a few things about this vigilante, like the fact that he only rescues gay guys. At least, up until you.”

  “Is that what you were hiding?”

  “Look. It’s embarrassing, but I sort of root for the guy, okay? I wish—” He cut himself off and ran a hand though his hair. “I just root for him.”

  I flipped back a few pages in my book to the list of guys who had been saved by The Raven. “All gay victims? Garret Tucker?”

  “Gay.”

  “Dylan MacDonald?”

  “Gay.”

  “Marcus Livingston?”

  Hunter blushed at that name. “Oh yep, he’s gay.”

  I listed all the names, and sure enough, Hunter responded “gay” to each one.

  “All of them. See?” Hunter checked who was coming through the door. “Except for you.”

  I thought back to that night. How Freddy had attacked me right outside Mitch’s apartment—“Your theory holds water.”

  Hunter raised a brow. “Something you’re not telling me, sweetheart?”

  “Mitch kissed me when I dropped him home.”

  Hunter scowled. “Right.”

  “He was quite inebriated, I doubt he remembers it. But shortly after that, Freddy”—I couldn’t help a shiver—“made his appearanc
e.”

  Wheeling around to me again, Hunter threw an arm round my shoulders. “I’m sorry, man.”

  I looked at him hard and long before nodding. “Me too.”

  Something painful flickered in Hunter’s eyes as he glanced to his legs. He quickly dismissed it, dropping his arms. “So, is Mitch a good kisser then?”

  “I’m sure you’ll find out for yourself.”

  “If he comes.”

  I checked my watch. Mitch should have been here twenty minutes ago. “I’m sure he has a good reason to be late.”

  Hunter laughed and thumped the arms of his chair. “I’m sure he has.”

  It seemed ages passed before Hunter tore his gaze away from the edge of the table and turned to me. He reached out and gently pried my pen from me. “Enough clicking. You don’t have to say anything. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m here with you, right?” Dragging my notebook to him, he found a fresh page and started writing. “How about we work together on finding The Raven?”

  “How’d you know I want to find him?”

  “Because I do too.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to his camera. “I don’t want to expose him, but I wouldn’t mind getting some great shots of him in action. So, what do you say?”

  “I say let’s do it. Let’s work on this together.”

  “Great.” He slapped the table as if he carried a gavel, and then wheeled himself toward the exit. Looking over his shoulder, he beckoned me to catch up. “Every minute I spend sitting in here is like pouring more salt in the fucking wound.”

  “I thought you’d be a slob,” I said, peeking around the corner into Quinn’s man-cave. Clothes lay strewn on the floor, the closed red curtains gave the room a ruby glow, and the air was thick and tepid. “Guess I was right about that.”

  Quinn shifted under his blankets, one big shivering lump.

  He coughed, rough and raw, and feebly lifted a pillow and tossed it toward me.

  The cream pillow made it only halfway, landing on Quinn’s jeans that still clung to the leather belt threading through the loops.

  I pushed up my glasses, rubbing at the bridge of my nose. “I wrote down your schedule in my calendar, and unless I got it wrong, you have a class at eight.”

  A muffled groan. “I’m not feeling well.” He cleared his throat of what sounded like a tough bit of phlegm. I stepped back.

  “Wait—you put my schedule into your calendar?” Quinn asked.

  I nodded, although he couldn’t see me the way he was hunched over. “Of course. If for any reason I need to get in touch with you, I’ll have an idea where you are. For that matter, if you have any emergency contacts you’d like me to know about, I’m preparing a list.”

  Another coughing bout followed by a mumbled curse. “I have a paper due today. I’m not finished. God, my throat burns.”

  I glanced down at my watch. I should have rushed for class ten minutes ago. What was I meant to do with a sick roommate? Could he be left alone?

  I glanced toward the door, to my literature lectures and my meeting with the chief.

  What would a friend do? I wasn’t willing to mess this possible friendship up over a trifling cold!

  Quinn squirmed, snaking his arm out from the sheets to reach a bottle of water.

  The bottle toppled over and out of his grasp.

  With pitiable effort, Quinn lodged himself over the edge of the bed and snagged it.

  Anyone who looked that pathetic probably needed some help.

  I backed away from the room and moved to the couch, perching myself on the end of it as I rummaged through my messenger bag, took out my phone, and made a couple of calls.

  When I was done, a pale-faced Quinn shuffled through the living room draped in his thick bedding. He gave me a cursory, runny-nosed nod, and slumped his way to the bathroom.

  Cough! Cough!

  Right. Sitting here wasn’t helping him any.

  I held my breath and darted into his room to grab his laptop.

  I hurried back into the living room, plugged the laptop in, and opened it up. Of course it was password-protected. I stared at the ceiling as if it might provide some inspiration.

  Instead, it provided the sobering fact that I still knew so little about Quinn. I couldn’t even conjure an obvious password, like his favorite pet’s name or his birthday. The laptop hummed, warming my thighs.

  Quinn emerged freshly showered but still moving with that pitiful slump. He trudged to the armchair coddled in a blanket—no doubt a sweat-drenched blanket. I shifted a few inches to escape the path of his contaminated breathing.

  “What are you doing with my laptop?” He rested his head like I just had and closed his eyes.

  “What’s your password?”

  One eye peeled open. “I want to know why. But since I have nothing to hide, I’ll give you a clue.” He angled his head toward me and closed his eyes.

  “You’re sick, and you want to play games?”

  “I’m sick, and if this is the only entertainment I’m going to get . . .”

  I ran the tips of my fingers over the keyboard. “Okay. Clue.”

  “It’s a comic book character.”

  I typed, hit Enter, and just like that I was in. “Thanks. Might want to make it a tougher clue next time.”

  “You got it already?”

  “Sure. It was either Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne, both of whom you like without their costumes on.”

  Quinn laughter morphed into a bout of coughing, and I slid further down the couch.

  “Where would I find your paper?” I asked, confronted with a mess of files on his desktop.

  “In the right hand corner, just above the trash symbol.”

  I clicked into it. “That’s no way to organize your work.”

  For the next few hours, I stayed in the living room, steadily inching toward the other end of the couch with every one of Quinn’s coughs.

  Arches of light stretched over the floors and onto Quinn dozing in the armchair. He snored lightly with his blocked nose, nuzzling his ear against the red-and-gold upholstery.

  I fished out my notebook and pen, and let the words soak into the paper in the same heady, drowsy manner as the sun soaked into Quinn.

  Ethereal. Calm. A golden king claiming his throne even in sleep. . . .

  Sliding the notebook into my pocket, I read over Quinn’s paper one last time. It had been mostly written, save for the conclusion, so reading it once had provided enough information for me to finish writing it for him. His main issue was poor grammar. I would have to sit him down sometime and introduce him to the comma.

  Quinn stirred, his tongue clacking against the roof of his mouth as if parched. He blinked at me, his eyes unfocused, and said croakily, “Do I distract you today?”

  A sound, something like an attempt to laugh, warbled from him.

  “You seem to have a way of doing that, Quinn. Even when you’re this sorry looking.”

  He frowned, and then shook his head as if to clear it.

  “Your paper is ready to be sent in.” I stood up and passed the laptop to him, stretching my arms out to maintain a good distance.

  A tired smile tugged at his lips.

  Ding-dong!

  Finally!

  I rushed to the intercom and buzzed Hunter and Shannon in. Two minutes later, they were rolling out of the elevator and into our apartment.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said, jamming myself against the wall to let them pass. “I have no clue what to do with him.”

  Both sets of blue eyes skipped from me to Quinn. Hunter chuckled, “Looks like we have a case of the man-flu, Shan.”

  Quinn raised an elegant middle finger.

  Hunter rolled into the room, shoving his chair right up in front of Quinn—

  “Travis!” Shannon grabbed his chair and pulled him back. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

  Silence.

  I was sure if I spoke, my voice would echo coldly like it did in the pre-Quinn days.


  Trying not to get involved, I managed to slip and come to a crashing thump on the ground. I picked myself up. In the gap between Hunter and Shannon, Quinn quirked a brow my way.

  “Sorry.” Shannon stepped back from Hunter’s chair abruptly.

  Hunter didn’t reply, pivoting his chair. The calm way he rolled across the room was belied by the flicker of a muscle in his jaw. Coming past me, he said, “I’ll come back later. Keep doing whatever you are doing. Quinn will man-up soon enough.”

  “Hey!” Quinn managed in an awkward attempt to lighten the heavy air.

  Hunter left, and Shannon just stood there with blue streaks of hair hanging over her shoulder and curtaining her face from view.

  Quinn tugged her hand. “He’ll be fine, Shan. He’ll get over it.”

  “Yeah,” she said, as I wondered where to put myself. In the kitchen where I could overhear them? Perhaps just disappear into my room? Stay put and say something to break the tension?

  “Why do I keep doing that?” A hiccup rose out of Shannon and she took a steadying breath, her hands fisted at her sides. “Excuse me.”

  With long, steady strides, she marched to the front door and presumably chased after Hunter.

  Lifting the blanket sunk onto his lap, Quinn covered his shoulders. “She finds it tough.”

  I stopped clicking my pen and snapped my gaze to his.

  “She thinks it’s her fault,” he continued.

  I perched on the arm of the couch and crossed my ankle over my knee. “What’s her fault?”

  Quinn gestured to the spot where Hunter had been. “She was supposed to pick him up from basketball practice that evening. She was late. . . .” He shifted suddenly, pushing himself into a wobbly stand. “I need to piss and, since you haven’t offered, make myself some honey tea.”

  I stood abruptly, edging around the coffee table and keeping my distance. “Okay. Just sit on the toilet. I don’t trust your aim in this state.”

  Three days and a remarkably-improved-Quinn later, it was my turn.

  I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. No matter how hot I turned the dial, the water wasn’t hot enough.