ELLE
“So…”
I glance at Sutton as we weave through the Primordial Forest, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu even though it’s still light enough out to see. Awareness pricks at my skin like the tiny bites of microscopic parasites waiting to devour us.
Ashadowpasses between the branches, sending me a little closer to Sutton. I’m trying to keep my distance because of suspicions that already exist, but this creepy fucking place makes it difficult.
“So?” I prompt, waiting for him to finish the question. I can still feel him between my legs, and I’d be embarrassed if the rest of my body wasn’t so elated that he came after me.
That he wanted to talk and didn’t let me off the hook with shutting down. That he still wantedme.
“So,” he repeats, hiding a smirk. “Boyfriend, eh?”
My eyes widen, warmth drizzling across my face like honey. “I swear, I didn’t mean anything by that. It just slipped out.”
“Would it be so terrible?”
Pausing midstep, I stop completely, my feet crunching on dry, dead leaves in the dirt pathway. “You want to be my boyfriend?”
He lifts a shoulder. “If that’s what you want.”
My pulse grows erratic. I start walking again, falling into step with him. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before.”
“Never?”
“Not a real one.” I shake my head. “Back home, everyone was too scared of my dad to ask me out. Not too scared to slip backstage between rehearsals for a quickie but too afraid to risk being seen with me publicly. Then when I moved to LA, well…acting and moonlighting at whatever gig I could grab for extra cash took up most of my time.”
He doesn’t say anything, processing quietly.
The silence makes my skin itch. “You got to explain why you are the way you are, kind of, so I just also wanted to make a case for myself. You know, in the event I say something mean and hurt your feelings. I’m new to this.”
“I like when you’re mean,” he says matter-of-factly.
“You know you’re, like, severely repressed, right?”
He tosses me a grin that makes my chest flutter like a swarm of butterflies, and I spend the rest of our walk studying him from the side, trying to commit his entire profile to memory.
I consider asking about the Blackwater family. From what I can tell, there’s not much interaction between the Duponts and them, especially given the death of their only son last semester.
Or onlyknownson.
Instead, I keep the questions to myself and meet up with Lexington in the Obeliskos later that evening—except he’s not alone. Asher and Lucy are lounging about on the thirteenth floor with him, while Aurora and Meg sit in the corner charting mushrooms for some fungi class they share.
I take the empty seat next to Lexington, lifting my brows in surprise when no one else pops out of the shadows. “No ball and chain tonight?”
He grins, flexing his biceps in the thin T-shirt he has on, leaning against the table. “Don’t ask what he’s up to. All I heard was fireworks and Sabrina and figured it was best if he stayed away.”
“Is he…setting off fireworks or making his own with her?”
He levels me with a look. “I didn’t ask. Don’t need to know.”
“Okay, here’s all the shit you asked for.” Asher slams down a stack of thick, cloth-bound books in front of me, blowing some hair out of his eyes. “Can I take my girlfriend and go now?”
“You don’t want to stay and help me sort through these? It’s your heritage too, you know.”
“Unlike you and Q, I don’t really give a shit where we came from. All the past seems to do is get people into trouble.” He shoves his hands inside his jacket pockets, shaking his head. “I’d much rather focus on the future.”
“Aw, my baby brother: ever the optimist.”
