The Case of the Missing Mascot (A Sherlock Shakespeare Mystery Book 1) (2 page)

Ricardo Montague just grinned at me and looked me over with that out-of-focus gaze of his. "With your man away, you've got to be getting lonely. I can help with that."

Did that tired line actually work on anyone? If I didn't despise him on a cellular level, I might've been able to appreciate his slim body, tanned Puerto Rican skin—or was he Cuban?—and wavy black hair that fell nearly to his collar. But he perved on me every time he saw me, so any charm or good looks other people might see were totally lost on me.
 

"I'll be sure to let him know when I see him this weekend."

"Going to get your Charlie Brown fix, huh."

"You know his name is Tom."

"Right."

A typewriter sound from my phone distracted me from the wolfish way he was looking at me. "As fun as these little chats always are for me, my ride's here." I gathered my paperwork hastily, gulped down the rest of my drink and grabbed my bag from under my chair.

Before I could make my escape, he had a hand on my elbow. "You should know I love when you play hard to get, Shakes."

I ripped my arm away from his light touch and left without stopping to say goodbye to Irene. I just wanted as much space between me and the perv as possible.

Jamie, as usual, was a gloomy cloud of doom when I got into her spotless black coupe. "Today has been the worst day of my life, Sherlock. The. Worst."

"Oh, did you just get harassed by a skeezy pervert too?"

But she didn't hear me. She rarely did. She was already giving me the play-by-play of this morning's National Honor Society meeting. It was going to be such a long drive to Austin.

It was late when we finally got to the campus in Austin, but not as late as I thought it would be. I was looking forward to vegging out in front of the TV in our room for a little while before bed. Since my parents had never quite understood the allure of television, I tended to binge-watch anything I could whenever I was out of the house.

Jamie had other ideas.

Instead of walking out of the bathroom in her pajamas, she looked like she was ready for a night on the town. Okay, she looked like she was ready for a night on the town if it involved heading to a job interview at the campus library. Her long black hair was pulled back into one of those flawless ponytails that always reminded me of what a disaster my thick brown hair was and she was dressed in brown slacks and a muted beige blouse that would probably look more at home on my grandmother than the lithe Asian teen in front of me.

Actually, Nana wouldn't be caught dead in anything so age appropriate.

"Why aren't you dressed yet, Sherlock? We've got places to be."

I loved Jamie—self-absorption and all—but I couldn't stand the way she over-pronounced her 'WH' words. Why was hu-why and when was hu-when. It would be even worse if she chose now to hu-whine at me about being social for a hu-while.

"Frat party?"

Her eyes narrowed in a way that usually only occurred in poorly acted martial arts movies, not real life. "We've got to make the most of our time this weekend. I need to start checking out the layout of all the buildings tonight so that I'm ready for tomorrow."

It didn't surprise me in the least that she wanted to study for tomorrow's campus tour as though it were a test. When we were little, she'd made me walk our trick-or-treating route with her every day for a week so that we could beat all the other kids in town to the best candy.

I shut off the TV and reached for my sneakers. "As much as I'd love to take a pre-tour tour of the college with you, I think I'm going to head over to see Tom."

Her face contorted as though someone had just served her a baby's used diaper for dinner. "You're kidding, right? How do you expect to get into this school if you can't answer any of the tour guide's questions tomorrow?"

Simple. I didn't expect to get into this school. My SAT scores were good enough to get me into the local college in Angels Grasp because my parents both taught literature there, but that was about it. I wasn't Jamie. I didn't have my pick of big name schools.

Besides, Longhorn orange would never look as good on me as it would on Jamie and Tom. I was more of a Llama green girl. Wait, I guess make that Pig green now.

"I'm only here this weekend because you signed me up for the tour and told me I had to come with you."

"I was trying to be helpful." She removed her ID and some cash from her purse and slid them into her pocket. "I thought you weren't supposed to see Tom until tomorrow night."

"Wanted to surprise him."

"Ugh. Your hormones run you, don't they? I can't believe we haven't even been here an hour and you're already running off after some jock."

Her accusation was insulting, but I didn't bother to respond. It was probably better for her to think I was some kind of sex-crazed tramp than to know the truth. Walking around the campus with her would just let her start talking about how much she wished that a driven Asian couple had adopted her. Damn those easygoing white folks who didn't even care enough about her overachieving tendencies to enroll her into some kind of special weekend school from the time she was a toddler. Why, oh why, hadn't they forced her to take cello and violin lessons after morning kindergarten let out?
 

Blah, blah, blah-bity blah. I'd heard the rant so often that I sometimes had to stop myself from lip-syncing it while she complained. Seriously, I wasn't completely sure whether this was how she naturally was or if she'd just decided to act this way so that she could take the driven Asian stereotype to the next level.

When she didn't get the response she wanted from me, Jamie flounced out of our room in a huff. I spent the next ten minutes studying a map of the campus so that I wouldn't have to carry it with me to Tom's dorm. I may be terrible at standardized tests and small talk, but I had a great memory and a decent sense of direction. After a quick peek out the door to make sure Jamie wasn't still waiting for the elevator, I left the room.

September nights in Texas were pleasant sometimes and this was one of those times. The sky was cloudless and the stars were bright and beautiful overhead. Lots of people were hanging out in green spaces, so I didn't feel the least bit nervous about walking around by myself on a strange college campus late at night.

This whole thing was actually sort of exciting. Getting to see my boyfriend for the first time in just over a month almost made dealing with Jamie's craziness worthwhile. Sure, I'd be seeing him next Friday when he came back for the Homecoming game and dance, but this was different.

Tonight, I'd have Tom Brown all to myself. No sharing with the million friends he had waiting to see him back home. Instead of having to be perfect for everyone else, we could just be ourselves for once.

When I finally got to Tom's dorm, I checked my recent texts from him to get his room number. I'd actually expected some type of resistance about going up to a guy's dorm room so late at night, but no one seemed to care. I found his room without any problems and knocked forcefully on the door so that he'd be able to hear me over all the noise from a party at the far end of the hall.
 

The door opened as soon as my knuckles connected with it. I poked my head in with hesitation, just in case his roommate was having a little solo sexy time in bed or something. "Tom?"

A gorgeous blonde wearing booty shorts and a tank top so tight it could've been made of paint and body glitter glanced up at me from the bed. "He went to get me another drink, but he'll be back soon."

I stepped fully into the room since I didn't want to wait for him in the hall and tried to be friendly. "Am I interrupting a study session or something?"

"Or something," the blonde purred up at me, still not bothering to get off my boyfriend's bed. I knew it was his bed because the other side of the room was covered in motivational cat posters that I knew Tom would sooner set fire to than read.

Before I could make another awkward attempt at conversation, the door opened and Tom entered backwards, his hands overflowing with bags of junk food and two red plastic cups that probably weren't filled with lemonade. "Are you ready to have some fun, babe?"

"I'm always ready for fun," I answered before the blonde could purr out a warning.

Tom froze in mid-step and then turned around slowly, a forced smile balancing on his lips. "I didn't think you were getting in until just before the tour in the morning."

"Clearly."

"You should've called when you got here."

No, I should've been mad as hell to find another girl in his bed instead of completely unsurprised by the discovery. "Well, I know how much you love surprises."

The blonde finally climbed off his bed and sauntered across the room to take her drink from him. "You didn't tell me your sister was coming to visit this weekend."

"Probably because his sister is three." I tore my gaze away from Tom's lying green eyes and turned my full attention to the lingerie model standing in front of me. "I'm Sherlock. His girlfriend."

My words didn't seem to faze her. She gave her blonde locks a quick toss and took a drink of whatever before flashing a bright smile at me. "It's nice to meet you. Tom talks about you all the time." She shot a glance in his direction. "Funny. I always thought you were just one of the guys." She freed a bag of chips from his grasp, gave him a lingering kiss on the cheek and left the room, saying, "Call me later, Brownie."

I wasn't sure whether I was more annoyed that she had a pet name for him when he'd spent two years vetoing every single one I tried or that she had no problem putting her lips on his face in front of me. What I did know for sure was that Tom had barely twitched a muscle since he realized I was here. I wanted to believe that our relationship was solid enough to survive a little distance, but the way he hadn't even bothered to deny anything said it all.

I also wanted not to be as attracted to him as I was in that moment. He'd always been kind of a jerk, but something about his muscular body and the way his straight dirty blond hair would hang in his eyes when he was trying to get me to agree to something had always done it for me. It was probably why I'd agreed to go out with him in the first place.

I mean, it's not like we'd ever made any kind of sense as a couple anyway.

"You should go after your
friend
before someone from the party picks her up."

I tried to shove past him to get out the door, but he leaned his shoulder into my path. Apparently, I didn't even merit dropping a bag of chips for. "It isn't what it looks like."

"I would be shocked if you had any idea what any of this looks like to me."

When he didn't move or respond, I turned my body sideways to get around his muscular frame and out into the hall. Part of me wondered whether he would do anything more to stop me than the half-assed shoulder move. The rest of me knew he wouldn't come after me. Putting my head down and pulling my hoodie a little more tightly around my torso, I passed the party people spilling out into the hallway unnoticed.

Maybe I should've gone with Jamie to study for tomorrow's tour after all. Everything would've been fine if I hadn't just walked in on that. But now?

Guess it was a good thing I was waiting for the last minute to buy a Homecoming dress.

I'm not sure how long I walked the campus, but I eventually found myself in front of a burger joint that I vaguely remembered from the map. I went inside, headed straight to an empty stool at the counter and ordered onion rings. Some seventeen-year-old girls might drown their sorrows in chocolate or wine coolers, but I'd always been more into fried foods than sweets.

Come to think of it, I wasn't feeling all that much sorrow. More than anything, disappointment seemed to be the mood of the minute. I hadn't really minded all that much when Tom told me he was accepting a football scholarship to a school on the other side of the state. That should've been my first clue that I was more infatuated with the idea of him than in love with him. I'd just never guessed he felt the same, not when he was always the one who wouldn't let us break up when there were so many times it would've made more sense than us staying together.

My onion rings were apparently fried in molten lava, so I glanced around the room at the people filling the tables and booths to distract myself from the smells of greasy deliciousness wafting up at me. It was pretty standard. Groups of college students laughing at things that probably weren't all that funny and a few older adults engaged in quiet conversation. On the other side of the room, two guys in too-tight tee shirts stood at the end of a booth of college girls, both doing their level best to scam some action for the night.

Both failing miserably, based on the looks of utter disinterest on the faces of the girls who kept trying to go back to their conversation.

After enough time had passed that I might not burn off my fingerprints, I picked up an onion ring and started munching on it. Damn. We didn't have onion rings like this in Devils Reach. Or Angels Grasp. Now I kind of wished I'd done better on my SATs.