“Actually, there is,” Logan interrupts smoothly. “Section 3, subsection 7 of the student handbook. Injured students should be accompanied to ensure safe arrival at their dormitory.”
“You’re making that up,” Oliver accuses.
“Am I?” Logan’s stoic expression doesn’t change. “Feel free to check. I’ll wait.”
Oliver looks like he’s about to release steam from his ears, but instead, he takes a deep breath and turns those charming eyes back on me. “Just think on it, okay?”
“Sure,” I say, and Oliver throws one last look at Logan—a challenge, or a warning—before heading back toward the greenhouse.
“Come on,” Logan says once Oliver’s gone, and we make our way toward Phoenix Hall, a careful two feet of space between us. It’s weird to walk with him like this, so out in the open, as if we aren’t doing something wrong by being together. But I hold my head high, trying to make it look like this is perfectly normal. Just another Sunday afternoon at Blaze Academy.
I glance over at Logan, trying to get an idea about what he might be thinking, but his expression gives nothing away.
Then, after a long moment of silence, he speaks.
“How, exactly, did Oliver manage to cut you during pumpkin carving?” His tone is conversational, almost bored.
“The stem was stuck. He was trying to help, and...” I shrug. “His knife slipped.”
“His knife slipped.” Logan repeats the words like they taste bitter. “Oliver Thorne, who’s been training with blades since childhood, slipped while cutting a pumpkin.”
“His hands were covered in pumpkin-guts,” I jump to his defense. “They were slimy.”
“Pumpkin-guts-covered or not, Oliver wouldn’t have slipped unless he was distracted.” Logan’s voice drops lower, and even though we’re in public and other students are passing by, the intensity in his tone makes goosebumps rise on my arms.
“Are you upset that Oliver likes me?” I stop walking, amazed that Logan thinks Oliver could ever hold a candle to him.
“Upset?” He considers the word, like he’s tasting it. “No. Oliver Thorne is a good person. He comes from a respectable family. He has a bright future.”
Each compliment sounds like it’s being pulled from him with pliers.
“Wow, don’t strain yourself with all that enthusiasm,” I mutter.
“Would you prefer I list his flaws?” There’s a hint of dark amusement in his voice now. “Because I could. Starting with his inability to maintain basic knife safety when you’re within a five-foot radius.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being practical. Student safety is my primary concern.” The fake sincerity in his voice is almost convincing.
Almost.
“You know,” I say when we start walking again, “you didn’t have to make up a fake handbook section just to get rid of him.”
“That would be a gross misuse of my position,” he says solemnly. “I would never.”
But there’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes that makes me think he absolutely would. And when he looks at me like that, I can’t help noticing how different things are between us during the day, when we’re not hiding in the cover of night. Almost as if the sun is burning his walls down, just a little. Or maybe it’s the forced normalcy of it all—pretending to be nothing more than a proctor walking an injured student home. Maybe when we’re playing these roles, he can relax into something that feels less dangerous than what we become in the dark.
“What?” he asks, and I realize I’ve been staring.
“Nothing. It’s just... you’re different during the day.”
His expression shutters slightly. “Different how?”
“Well…” I pause, thinking. “You seem far less likely to spontaneously combust from suppressed emotions.”
He stiffens, his walls going up in a second, as if he never let them down in the first place.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said anything.
