Her hand goes still. She digs her teeth into her bottom lip.
“Or were you after something other than money?” I whisper.
Jinx has no access to the practice room. I invested heavily in equipment to keep listening devices and hackers out of our sacred space.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Finn.” She snorts. “I didn’t take your wallet.”
I stare at her.
She sputters, “Even if I wanted to, do you thinkI’msmooth enough to pull off something like that? I can’t even steal candy from the hospital vending machine.”
J ties the gauze with a pin. Her work is much messier than Dr. Kenji’s. The gauze is sagging in some places, and the pin will worm its way out if I move my arm a couple times.
“There you go. All done.” She waves to my arm with a flourish, retaining her cheerful facade.
But her smile does not reach her eyes.
I continue staring at her.
Her watch beeps in warning.
“Don’t look at me like that, Finn. It breaks my heart.”
I nod to her protesting watch. “Feeling guilty?”
“No, I’m just…”
I wait to see what she’ll come up with.
As the watch continues beeping, J declares dramatically, “I’m hurt. I thought you knew me better than that, but I was wrong. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t treat me like a partner.”
I blink slowly.
J turns up the antics. Her voice trembles, and she blinks hard, as if to manufacture more tears. “I like you a lot, Finn, but not at the expense of my self-respect so…” She exhales dramatically. “If you don’t trust me, then you can find someone else to run the encryption.”
I lean back, my legs spread and my eyes firm on her. This is how she wants to play it?Drop this wallet issue or I won’t help you find the girls?
No wonder she had Redwood Prep wrapped around her finger. She knows exactly what cards to play to keep control.
Silence creeps into the room, underlining the finality of her threat.
J looks up at me. She hasn’t been able to generate any tears, but there’s a red flush creeping over her cheeks as she cocks her head to the side.What will it be?
It feels like a million bees are buzzing under my skin.
I really,reallylike this game.
“The janitor found my wallet early this morning.” And J was in the hospital all night, which means that she didn’t get what she wanted. I may have made a fool of myself, but she still lost. “Everything was there. No damage was done.”
“That’swonderful.I’m so glad it worked out.” J clasps her hands together. “Stay right there. I’ll put some medicine on your lip.”
She prances to the other side of the room, rummages around the medicine cabinet, and comes back with an antibacterial cream and a cotton swab.
“So glad we cleared that up.” Her fingers dig into my chin, and she tilts my face up to the light to inspect the cut on my mouth.
Her face is incredibly close. When I look at her, her blue-green eyes seem to shift with the light, blurring in and out of turquoise and sky-blue, impossible to pin down.
“I trust you even if you don’t trust me, Finn,” J says, pressing toward me.
