“The bread knife, right?”
I burst out laughing. “Nice. Says the person who came over here empty-handed.”
I stared as his full parted lips turned up in a mischievous smirk. “If you knew what I was doing when you called me, you wouldn’t talk to me like that. I left all that fun just to come here. To your house.”
I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, so I kept my mouth shut at that millionth innuendo.
“Are you still scared?” His question took me by surprise.
“No. You?”
“I’ve never been afraid,” he affirmed, his head held high.
I saw him put on a mask for the first time, one of self-confidence. He was lying.
As much as he didn’t show any signs of fear on his face, I’d seen him shaking when he’d faced those two.
“Don’t you have anything to put on?” I asked when I saw him throw my robe onto the easy chair wearing only his boxers.
He shook his head, so I took off his hoodie.
“Here.”
He put it on without saying a word, then got up. I let my eyes drift along on his long legs, down to his sculpted thighs, then had to avert my gaze.
James turned around and looked at me curiously.
“Is that your brother?”
I saw him with his nose in the air, looking at my living room wall. There was a photo, the only one my mom let me hang up.
“You told Taylor what I told you?” It was way too sore of a subject.
James turned around and shot me a sharp glare.
“I didn’t tell her shit.”
“And why should I believe you?”
“Fine, don’t believe me, but I didn’t tell anyone.” I saw him bend his head back, almost like he was embarrassed. “I didn’t even tell Will,” he admitted in a whisper.
James didn’t seem like someone who liked to keep secrets from his best friend and if he didn’t even tell Will, maybe he wasn’t lying.
“Yeah. It’s him.”
James paused attentively, scrutinizing the photo of me and August in the snow.
“He looks like you.”
“A lot.”
He used the present tense, as if he was still here. A lump formed in my throat, and James seemed to notice because his cavalier, insolent expression changed.
“I shouldn’t have brought them here.”
I cleared my throat to banish that feeling of powerlessness.
“You couldn’t have known, it’s not your fault,” I answered, without even having to think about it. I saw him sit back on the couch next to me, and the more I watched him, the less I understood how James had ended up here with me. He was none other than the school meathead, and here he was in his underwear, drinking chamomile tea on my couch.
