Unloved: A Novel (The Undone)

It’s a quiet Thursday night, my favorite kind, because I’m watching Oliver and Liam.

I never mind watching Sadie’s brothers, but tonight I’m downright excited about it, because Sadie is spending the night with Rhys Koteskiy. I’m giddy for her, as if I’m the one with a hot date.

The boys are stretched out between the sofa and the pillow pallet on the floor watching whatever animated movie Liam chose tonight; Oliver gets to pick next. There are coloring and craft supplies tossed around, a messy and welcoming sight. It feels like a home.

A knock at the door has all of us looking at each other before I finally head to check the peephole—eyes lighting up at the sight of Matt Fredderic on the other side of my dorm room door.

“I come bearing gifts,” he says, lifting up the pizza box in his hand as he smiles at me the moment I open the door.

“Freddy.” I slump against the doorframe, biting my lip. “Now’s not a great time.”

His cheeks pink while his entire demeanor deflates like a kicked puppy. “Oh, right. Sorry, I didn’t know you had someone—”

“You ordered pizza?” Liam asks, coming around into the frame and staring up at a wide-eyed Freddy. Liam cocks an eyebrow at me after finishing his quick examination. “Did you scare the pizza man? Sadie always scares the pizza man.”

I laugh and shake my head. “No, this is my friend Freddy. Freddy”—I grab Liam around the shoulders and pull him toward me—“this is Liam, Sadie’s brother.”

“Hi.” He grins sheepishly.

“Do you want to come in?”

“Yeah.” He blows out a breath, stepping across the threshold.

Following Liam toward the living room area, I quietly eavesdrop as Freddy answers all the six-year-old’s bubbling questions—Are you on the hockey team? Is Rhys your bestest friend? Do you score all the goals?—the last one followed quickly with, “No way you’re better than my brother. His name is Oliver.” He points to his sibling unnecessarily.

Freddy smirks at the stoic twelve-year-old. “Yeah? What position do you play?”

“I used to play wing, but I’m on the D-line now.” He shrugs. “I’m the biggest on my team.”

He isn’t arrogant, just stating a fact.

Liam bursts in with, “Yeah, and Coach Max says he’s got—um, what did you call it again?”

“Protective instincts.” Oliver blushes a little with a frown still emblazoned across his face. He looks like Sadie, dark brown hair and gray eyes, but even more with his lightly freckled skin flushed in embarrassment and the wrinkle in his brow.

I grab a stack of paper plates off the high shelf in the kitchenette and join them in the living room, where Freddy is leaning over Liam, who is now sitting on the pillows we laid on the floor, to open the pizza box.

Every flavor of pizza, different-sized slices shoved together to make a mismatched whole pie.

“What’s with the hodgepodge pizza?” Oliver asks, lip curling a little at the entirely random assortment of slices in the box.

“Nice word, Ollie,” I quietly praise as I pass by.

“It’s the leftovers from the hockey team dinner at Koteskiy’s,” Freddy says, clearing his throat. “I thought it was sweet, but now that I’m looking at it, it’s just weird and kinda gross.”

His hand curves around the back of his neck, scratching and fussing with golden waves. He sits with his wide back toward the kitchen, Liam to his right, Oliver grabbing another water bottle for his brother.

I can’t resist touching Freddy, reaching as I set the stack of plates on the coffee table to mess with his hair and shoo his hand away.

“Very weird and kinda gross,” I repeat teasingly. “I love it.”

He relaxes, almost preening up at me.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” I nod. As I start to step away, his hand trails up my exposed calf, squeezing gently before letting me go.

The goose bumps trailing after his touch linger long after I’ve settled onto the floor pillows on my side of the coffee table, grabbing the remote to start the movie back up.

Liam falls asleep less than an hour later, slumped slightly onto Freddy’s bicep. The usually fidgeting hockey star doesn’t move a muscle until I stand and offer to take Liam.

“He can sleep in Sadie’s bed for now. I haven’t rolled out the mattresses.”

Freddy wrinkles his brow slightly before whispering, “Is it okay if I carry him?”

But he isn’t asking me, he’s asking Oliver to his right. The elder of Sadie’s brothers nods, and my throat catches a little as Matt Fredderic tucks his palm against the back of Liam’s head and angles him to his front so he can stand with the six-year-old already cradled in his arms. He pads lightly to Sadie’s room, shifting his little cargo to open the door with ease.

I turn to say something to Oliver, but a loud, incessant knock on the door interrupts me.

“Probably the RA?” I say to Oliver, who has hiked his shoulders up in response to the abrupt sound. It shouldn’t be the RA, though, because I tutored her all last year for free in exchange for “no questions asked” about Sadie’s brothers’ frequent stays.

“Ro.” A low moan echoes through the door as I approach. A voice I know well enough for my stomach to bottom out.

Oliver is at my shoulder, hand on my upper arm to stop me. “Maybe we shouldn’t open it.”

The banging starts up again, and I try to plaster on a convincing smile for Oliver’s sake.

“It’s fine, Oliver. Promise. Why don’t you go check on your brother?”

He shakes his head firmly. “I’ll just be right here.”

God. I nearly swallow my tongue. Maybe I don’t open it and just let him knock all night. That feels even more disruptive to the two kids here that need security and safety, and this little dorm is one of the only places they have that all the time.

So I pull open the door slightly.noveldrama

Tyler nearly falls into me, pushing over the threshold. He’s drunk, eyes glassy and face red, reeking of alcohol.

“Ro,” he sneers, grabbing my arms to keep himself up. I struggle a little but freeze when I remember we have an audience.

“Hey, back off,” Oliver shouts, shoving forward to defend me.

But before he can, Freddy grabs Oliver’s shoulder and pulls him back gently. Freddy steps forward, shielding Oliver and wrenching Tyler away from me and up against the now-closed door easily. Like he weighs nothing in the face of Freddy’s ire.

“Want another fight with me, huh, Donaldson?” He sighs a little, pulling at Tyler’s polo collar.

“Fuck off,” Tyler snarls, words slurring. “I’m here to talk to Ro.”

“For a smart guy, you’re really fucking stupid,” Freddy laughs before his voice turns razor sharp. “Stay away from Ro. Stop calling her, stop using fake numbers. Leave. Her. Alone. Am I clear?”

“Or what?”

Freddy pulls him forward and slams him back against the wall again, a little harder.

“Or I’m going to get a transcript of Ro’s call and text log to send to Adam Reiner for a favor.”

The mention of Bennett’s dad makes Tyler pale. “I didn’t do anything—”

“It’s called harassment, asshole. You are harassing her. I think a restraining order in this situation means you’d have to leave Waterfell altogether.”

Freddy takes Tyler’s silence as him acquiescing, guiding him by the collar like an animal to shove him out the door.

“Don’t drive, but go the fuck home. Don’t make me call campus security.” He grips his collar one more time and Tyler nearly yelps, flinching away. “I’m serious, Donaldson. Get behind the wheel of a car this drunk and I’ll kill you myself.”

He lets him go and slams the door closed within a breath. My entire body feels like it’s paralyzed—or shaking, I’m not sure. Steeling my spine, I turn to Oliver, who looks a little red-faced and can’t tear his eyes away from the door.

“You okay?” Freddy asks us both, eyes flickering between Oliver and myself. I nod quickly, letting his eyes settle on the fearsome twelve-year-old with his shoulder angled in front of me, protective as always.

“Oliver?” he asks again, stepping a little closer. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” the kid mutters.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His brow only furrows further, looking so much like the angry roommate I adore so much that my heart aches. “None of your business.”

“Okay.” Freddy nods before ducking down to get closer to Oliver’s level. “But if you need to talk about something, Rhys is a really, really good listener. And a great protector. He’ll always watch out for you guys.”

There’s a pause, Oliver silent for a long moment, before he asks, “And Sadie?”

“Yes,” Freddy and I both say together.

Freddy ruffles his hair, seeming not to mind when Oliver rapidly shrugs away from him.

“My captain is crazy about your sister. He’s very serious, and I would trust him with my life. I promise, you can trust him with Sadie.”

I watch the words hit Oliver, knowing he takes them to heart. Oliver is harder to get to know than even Sadie, both in sharp contrast to heart-on-his-sleeve Liam. Oliver is protective, has been since the first time I met him freshman year as an angry, frightened nine-year-old who scowled at me until a pillow fort that I helped build for him and a three-year-old Liam seemed to win him over.

“I’m gonna go to bed now,” he announces a little awkwardly before turning without preamble and heading to Sadie’s room.

Freddy looks at me, an unsure smile spreading for a moment before I shake my head.

“That’s just Oliver,” I say. “He’s fine.”

His face slowly melts into soft concern as his hands come up to cup my face gently. It’s half inspection, half veneration, eyes trailing over every inch of my skin.

“You’re okay.” I think he meant to ask it, but it sounds more like he’s reassuring himself.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I turn around and walk into the main room to start cleaning up. “More embarrassed than anything.”

He frowns, stopping me with a hand to my arm. “No reason for you to be embarrassed, Ro. You haven’t done anything wrong.”

I nod, deciding not to argue with him. “Thank you for coming tonight. Sorry it probably wasn’t what you were expecting.”

His hand drifts down my arm slowly. Fingers dancing together, wrapping and unwrapping until they’re intertwined. My heartbeat speeds up.

I lean toward him and he follows, like a magnet. It’s the same way I felt at eighteen in that dirty fraternity house.

Kiss me, I think, entranced by him. Kiss me. Remember the first one.

I lean back, the realization that he doesn’t remember hitting a little harder this close to him.

“Don’t apologize. It was perfect. I just wanted to hang out with you, without tutoring.”

We are standing at my bedroom door now, and it would be so easy to lean back into him. To pull him over me with floral sheets cool against the heated skin of my back.

“Yeah.” I nod, swallowing hard. “As friends.”

The word makes his brow dip, like it hurts him. But he manages my least favorite Matt Fredderic smile and hits my shoulder with his.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, his favorite catchphrase. “Friends.”