KDBookOnline
Share Us
But despite working around the clock in the underutilized lab, we were running out of time to find answers and both of my friends were on the verge of collapse. So much for my brilliant plan.
“And”—Haley continued—“Garcia keeps trying to give him lab work to do. He’s going to figure it out, but I’m not sure how much longer you guys have. We’re only getting away with it because Sirius is squeezing in the lab work. But if Garcia realizes what Sirius is actually doing, he’s going to call Lachlan Gage. So I have to ask. Does he know what you’re up to?”
“Let me worry about Lach.” He might be a bomb, but I knew exactly how to defuse him.
Haley and Ciara shared a knowing look. “Still refusing to admit you two are dating, eh?”
“We aren’t.” Not exactly a lie. I hadn’t seen him for more than five minutes at any given time in the last week. Although he’d made very good use of those five minutes each and every time, that hardly qualified as courtship.
Ciara snorted, hitching a thumb at me. “Look at that stupid grin. She crossed that bridge and burned it behind her. She is fucked.”
That snapped me out of my daze. “I already told you that—”
“I didn’t mean literally.” She looped her arm with mine, but she winked at Haley. I’d grown used to Ciara and Haley discussing my sex life like it was a matter of public record. Nothing I said dissuaded them, and it had brightened Ciara’s mood.
“Just invite me to the wedding.” Haley paused, biting her lip. “Has your brother called you back?”
My stomach began to churn as I shook my head. I’d been calling and texting Channing since I discovered he was out, but he was clearly ignoring me.
She shot me a sympathetic smile. “He’ll come around. Don’t worry.” Haley glanced at the coffee cup she was holding and cringed. “I guess I should try to drop this off. Maybe I’ll just slide it on the table and run.”
We took her advice and left before she even attempted the delivery. Ciara teased me relentlessly about my relationship status as we returned to her Porsche, but she grew quiet again on the way back to the court. Her driving was erratic and fast—very fast—but, thankfully, she kept her eyes on the road. I checked my seatbelt as she raced past a twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit sign.
She finally broke the silence as the car skidded through a left-hand turn. “Why do you act like nothing is going on with you and my brother around her?”
I blinked, surprised she was worried about my…whatever this thing was with Lach. “Haley doesn’t know what you are.”
“And what are we? Charming? Gorgeous? Talented?” She flashed a dazzling smile in my direction.
Apparently, egotism ran in the family, but I grinned anyway. “Fae.”
“Oh, that.” Ciara laughed, glancing out the window with a breezy shrug. “Why does that matter?”
I didn’t know where to begin with that question. There were a million reasons why it mattered that he was fae—a million reasons we would never work. But I knew she was talking specifically about why I wouldn’t talk about him with my human friends. “Because it’s hard to talk about him like he’s human. If I slip and say the wrong thing, she’ll know something is up.”
“So, you’re just going to act like you two aren’t together.” She rolled her eyes, reaching to fiddle with the radio station.
Well, there was no other way to interpret that. “I don’t think anything about us qualifies as being ‘together,’” I said with air quotes. Nothing had happened. Not really. Not for lack of trying, a little voice said in the back of my head, and I told it to shut up. “We just have a bargain.”
“I seem to recall something happening last week.”
She tossed a saucy smile at me.
“And nothing has happened since.” Almost nothing.
“Every time I see him, I smell you.” She scrunched her nose.
“He’s always in meetings.” I tried and failed to sound nonchalant. “Sometimes we run into each other in the hall.”
Her eyebrows lurched up, something triumphant lifting the corners of her mouth. “When you say run into each other—is it against the wall, like repeatedly, without clothes on?”
I wished. “I don’t kiss and tell.”
“Look, I’m all for it. Nobody needs to get laid more than Lach.”
I bit my lip, torn between saying something that would only lead to more questions and wanting to ask one of my own. Curiosity won out. “Does he…not…often?”
Her eyes flashed from the road to me. “If you’re trying to ask if he sleeps with a lot of women, yes and no.”