We decide on sharing a pizza, and once our pizza is done, we find an empty round table off to the side, where we bust into it. “Thanks again for coming with me,” I say. “And for paying. I really don’t know where I’d be if you wouldn’t have reached out to me last semester.”
“You took a chance on me just like I took a chance on you.” She shrugs. “It could’ve blown up in either of our faces, but I am glad it didn’t. It feels almost… normal, talking to you. You know where I come from, and you don’t judge me.”
“It’s not my place to judge,” I say. Besides that, I think growing up around other people with lots of money is the reason she was so judged to begin with. Rich people can be dicks. Then again, most people can be. “Speaking of not judging…”
Sloane lifts a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, waiting.
“Um, don’t freak out, but when you and Elias went out the other night, Logan came to the house.”
Her expression changes instantly. “He what? That rotten asshole. I don’t remember the camera going off.”
“He snuck around the back of the house to avoid setting it off, I think.”
“Guess I need to install more cameras, then.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m not telling you so you can freak out. I just… I don’t know. Everything he said has been weighing on me lately, especially after my date with Reese.” I’d be a liar if I say I haven’t thought about Logan since his declaration.
Her feelings on Logan are abundantly clear, and yet she still asks, “What did he say?”
“Short version: I’m all he can think about, supposedly. He wants me. I make him weak. That sort of thing.” My voice quiets when I add, “He said it way better at the time, and I… I believed him.” That last part is difficult for me to admit.
“Believed, as in past-tense? You come to your senses when it comes to that guy since then?”
I take a slice of pizza and bite into it. “I don’t know. A part of me knows I can’t really trust anything he says. I wouldn’t put it past him to lie through his teeth just to get what he wants from me again, but—” Gosh, why is talking about him such a tough thing? “—at the same time, I’ve never heard him that raw before. If none of that was true, then he’s the world’s best liar.”
Sloane only eats, watching me like she knows there’s more I want to say.
“Do you think a guy can change? I mean, really, do you think anyone can change? Someone who’s used to the life he used to have—I don’t fit into that kind of lifestyle. I don’t want to.”
She says, “I used to think people can’t change. I still don’t know if they really can, but if somethingcanchange them, it’s probably the desire to be with someone else. I used to think no one would ever love me the way I am, but then I met Elias and everything did change for me. Everything changed, and at the same time, nothing did.”
“That’s confusing.”
My roomie chuckles softly. “Yeah, I guess it is. So, let me ask you this: if you still have feelings for Logan—which I don’t know that I support, by the way—where does that leave Reese?”
A good question, and I don’t know if I have the answer. That says nothing about the masked man I met at that party the other week and how electric things were between us. I never told Sloane about that, and I don’t think I will.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “I think I still like him, too. Is it bad to like two guys at once?”
Sloane hums. “I’m not the best person to ask about something like that. I never really had any sort of feelings for any guy until Elias, but if there’s one thing I know and accept, it’s that you feel what you feel. Your heart wants what it wants, even if most other people would think it’s wrong. Most people would never see Elias and I as a couple that should be together.”
I’m dying to know why. She’s mentioned it a few times now, and every other time I’ve let it be, figuring she wanted her privacy and that it was none of my business. But now, well, she knows pretty much everything I’m going through, and she just said I’m not judgmental, so why not try to ask?
“Why?” I ask quietly. “I mean, if you still don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to. I’m just curious.”
She cocks her head at me, letting her long blond hair fall in front of her face. “You might think of me differently once you know. Then again, you did take the whole serial killer father thing in stride, so maybe not. Fine. Are you sure you really want to know? Once you know, there’s no going back.”
Oh, dear. The way she’s saying all this makes me wonder if I should tell her never mind. At this point, I don’t know what she could say that would freak me out, but I’m also so curious it’s burning a hole through me.
I mean, really, how bad could it be?
With a nod, I say, “Tell me.”
“My mom and Elias’s mom…” She pauses as she squints her eyes, as if she’s still unsure whether or not to tell me. “Sisters.”
It doesn’t hit me right away, what she said or what it means. It takes a good sixty or so seconds of me staring at her, of my mind putting it together, for me to realize what that means. If her mom and his mom are sisters, that means…
Holy crap. They’recousins?