Benji hugged me, careful not to squash the baby.
“No more keeping shit from each other, okay?” Benji said.
The image of Adriel and I flashed into my mind. The night of passionate, hot sex. Then it disappeared like a puff of smoke.
It’s not lying if he didn’t ask about it,I thought.It was a one-time deal. It won’t ever happen again.
“Agreed,” I said.
“By the way, what happened with your pills?” Benji asked.
“Huh? Oh - the heat suppressants?” I said. “I grabbed some from the store.”
Benji looked relieved. “Oh, good. So it stopped, then?” He sniffed the air a bit and I blushed.
“Cut it out!”
“Sorry,” he said. “I can smell the remnants of it on you, is all. It must just be the hormones trickling away because you took the suppressants.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling an inkling of dread in the pit of my stomach.
“Anyway, I’ll let you go now,” Benji said, then he winked. “You must wanna go hang out with Adriel some more.”
I decided now was not the time to lay out my whole set of issues. On the scale of things, my brother having to drink blood for his unborn child was more important than my roommate drama.
“Yeah,” I said with a small laugh. “It’s been pretty wild so far.”
Benji quirked a brow, and for a panicked moment I thought he would press the issue, but he dropped it. “Okay. See you, Cale.”
I caught up with Adriel at the front door and we made our way back to the cottage. He caught my eye and held it.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said quietly. “Except that you lied to your brother.”
My skin prickled with discomfort. “About what?”
Adriel unlocked the door and pushed it open. “About wanting to be here with me.”
I stood in the threshold, staring at him. My mouth hung open stupidly but I didn’t know what to say. There weretoomany things to say and I was afraid I’d choke on my own tongue if I even tried to speak.
Why is he acting this way?I thought.It’s almost as if -
The thought hit me like a truck.
Adriel continued to stare at me with dark, unblinking eyes that were intense, full of pressure. Then, slowly, he turned and left, disappearing into the darkness of the stairwell.
A predator cornering its prey and then simply walking away.
It dawned on me, so painfully obvious, that I felt like an idiot for not noticing sooner.
Adriel was trying to push me away onpurpose.
* * *
As soon asI realized that truth, my mind raced with questions - the most important of all being,why?
If he was pushing me away, there had to be a reason. He’d always been a bit cold and awkward to be around, in that intelligent-tormented-artist type of way, but nothing like this before. Something must have changed.
