Page 10 of Hidden

“You love taking pictures?” Maya asks.

“Yeah, I want to remember my life when I’m old, show my kids the crazy friends I made. The memories I made.” I reply and send Dan a message.

Sadie

Making friends 🎉

“I like it, you’ll have to send some to me,” Maya says.

“I will.”

"Okay." Juno sets her elbows on the table and looks between us all. "We have to do the briefing."

Cara doesn't look up from the menu. "We really don't."

"Campus orientation is a public service." She waves this away as if she has to mention them but doesn’t care. "But most importantly, we need to talk about the Crawford brothers."

Bree takes a slow sip of her coffee; her eyes are wide open.

"Who?" I ask.

“The Crawford brothers,” Bree says, like it’s meant to make sense to me now. I look between them, hoping one of them will tell me who they are and why they're important.

"There are four brothers, and one sister." Juno ticks them off on her fingers. "Hayden's the oldest; he's already graduated, but he's still around. He's got a girlfriend, Olivia. They're very…" she makes a gesture that somehow communicates established, untouchable, and not worth approaching. "You know, a done deal." She makes a sad face, and Cara pretends to cry. "Then Miles and Mason," she continues, and something shifts in her voice without her seeming to notice it. "They're the older twins. Mason, well he’s a closed book when it comes to knowing who he is, but if rumors are true, no girl is ever unsatisfied with him.” Oh my God, the smile on her face right now. Actually, all of them. “Miles is…"

"Juno," Cara warns.

"I'm just giving her the facts." Juno turns to her and smiles

"You're going to say something mortifying," Cara jokes.

"Miles," Juno continues, "is someone who walks into a room and everyone looks at him. He demands attention. I can't explain it better than that. The air just… changes." She picks up her menu. "You'll understand when you see him."

"And the others?" I ask; they’ve missed two of them out.

"Declan's one of the younger twins. He's got a girlfriend; nobody actually knows her name; she just materializes beside him.” She pauses. "His twin sister is Lileah." I wait; it’s like they can’t talk about them but can at the same time. Another one of those glances passes between the three of them.

"Lileah is complicated," Bree says quietly, beating Juno to it.

"Not bad complicated," Juno adds. "Just, she's the smartest person in most rooms and she knows it, and she genuinely doesn't care whether you know it too."

"I think I'd like her," I say. I like people who aren’t scared to know how good they are.

Cara looks up from her menu for the first time. "She might simply decide you don't exist. It goes either way with her."

The food arrives, and the conversation becomes less formal, and the morning settles around us. Juno’s telling a story about her roommate and a missing kettle that keeps getting funnier the longer it goes on.

I pick up my camera and shoot them, just like that, mid-laugh, mid-bite, mid-everything. This is the part I'll want to remember. Right here.

I'm still smiling at the viewfinder when Juno's eyes lift over my shoulder, and the way she’s looking makes me look over.

They come onto the terrace from the street, There’s four of them, then a fifth. They don’t adjust to spaces; it's the spaces that adjust to them. Two of the guys walk ahead, one talking, one not. They must be the older twins, and all I can think is wow. Now I’ve seen sexy men, mostly in movies and on TV, so seeing someone this good looking in real life, I have no words for it. Behind them, there’s a couple: her head tilted toward her phone, his hand at her back, and beside them a girl who moves like she's already assessed the entire terrace and found it mildly beneath her attention.

What kind of genes do the Crawford family have?

I turn back to the girls, and I feel it. It’s the weight of being watched, not someone just glancing over at me. I definitely feel like I’m being watched.

I look back.