I can’t help but return his beautiful boyish grin as he tells me, “I love you too, Amelie.” Then he leans in and kisses me, with more tongue than is appropriate for our setting, but I don’t stop him.
We finish our meal and the plates get cleared away, and thankfully, a disco starts up. Kalen drags me onto the dance floor and pretty soon he has most of the room up dancing. Even some of the old crusties. I try to have a good time, mostly for their sake, but I’m anxious.
“You could smile, you know,” Baxter murmurs when I break away from Kalen for a drink.
“My feet are killing me,” I lie.
“Bullshit. You’re worried. Why?”
“It’s fine.”
“I thought this friendship thing was about confiding and shit,” he presses. I sigh and give him the side eye.
“I have a sister.”
“Half-sister,” he corrects.
“You knew?” I blink at him in surprise
“I know a lot of things.” He shrugs.
“And you didn’t think to say anything?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“From now on you don’t keep anything from me. I mean that from an Order point of view, and a friendship one. And we have to talk about your file at some point.”
“I won’t keep anything from you, but we arenotdiscussing that. Ever.”
He turns and walks away, leaving me to wonder if he’s even going to turn up tomorrow for the board meeting. I sigh and chastise myself for fucking that up.
“Hey, sis. Why so glum? Who was that, another boyfriend?” Aadi grins at me.
“Just a friend. Are you having a good time?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
“Oh?”
“Well, Kalen seems even more…Kalenthan when he visited.”
“Yeah. He was mostly on his best behaviour in Aus.”
“Christ. Slate seems okay and I’ve spoken to that teacher guy quite a bit over the last few weeks. Apologised for Smalls and I hitting him. But that other guy? He just keeps eyeballing me like he wants to gut me. Why?”
“That’s Onyx. And he’s super protective. Don’t take it personally, if anyone is going to gut you it’s the guy who just left.”
“And you think my friends are bad news,” he mutters.
“So…Bex, eh?”
“We’re not…she’s not…I don’t…”
“Jeez chill out, I just meant…we have a sister, huh?”
“She’s not my sister,” he insists vehemently and way too quickly for someone who’s ‘not’ anything with my friend.
“I guess not.Ihave a sister then. Did you know?”
