I’m about to go after her, maybe help her understand what’s going on in Ledger’s head, but I freeze.
Because she isn’t the only one who heard things.
He heard them too.
The man I’m in love with.
He emerges from behind the light-colored wall and stands where Tempest was standing only a moment ago. And his features are… stricken as well.
Stunned and tight.
But only for a second though.
After that, he loses that stunned look and then there’s simply tightness. A tight jaw. High and brittle cheekbones. Hard eyes.
With which he gives me a last look and leaves.
And then I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should go after him and tell him that…
Tell him what?
That I’m not interested in his brother. That he has no reason to be jealous or territorial. Because I know he gets that way. But then, that was before.
Before, when he wanted me.
Now he doesn’t.
Now he’s with someone else.
So I’m going to let it go.
Which is what I do for the rest of the party.
I mingle with people. I eat Callie’s cupcakes. I help her with things because it’s difficult for her to move around these days due to her pregnancy. Although I probably don’t really need to help her, since Reed somehow always appears when Callie seems to need things.
But anyway, once things wind down, I do my share of the cleaning up. When Poe accidentally cuts her finger on glass — because in her words, she isn’t made for manual labor — I rush to the bathroom to get the first aid kit.
Which is where he finds me.
Not only does he find me, he keeps me there for a little while as he enters and closes the door behind him. My back’s turned as I root around in the medicine cabinet for some band-aids, but when I hear the soft click, I spin around.
And there he is.
Standing by the closed door, arms folded, eyes on me.
Like he always did. Back then.
And I’m not sure what I should do.
My robust system doesn’t have anything in it about being shut up in a room with him.
In a room as small and confined as this.
So I have no choice but to focus on him. No choice but to look at him, really look at him.
Something that I haven’t done in three weeks.
And God, I can’t stop staring. I can’t stop looking. I can’t stop flicking my eyes over his features and wondering why they look so tired. Why do they look so strained? Why is he sporting stubble?
There was only one time when he looked like that.
Back when he said all those awful things at the library and he came to apologize for them at the tree.
And I can’t help but wonder if this is because of what happened at his office and…
I shake my head to break my own fanciful thoughts. “I need to bring them the —”
He cuts me off. “How are you?”
“What?”
His jaw tightens for a second before asking again, “You okay?”
I’m not sure why he’s asking me that. And why he’s doing it in that intimate tone of his that both cuts me and soothes me at the same time. But I still answer with as much nonchalance as possible, “Uh, yeah. Of course.” Then, with a slight smile, “How are you?”
His familiar response to my smile — the clenching of his jaw — makes me tighten my hold on the kit as he asks, “How are your classes?”
“Classes?”
“Yeah.”
Again I’m not sure why he’s asking me these things and why he chose to corner me in the bathroom, especially when it’s in a house full of people.
People we both know and care about and who don’t know anything about us.
“Classes are fine. The usual,” I tell him. “Uh, is there something that you wanted?”
“And homework,” he continues like I hadn’t spoken.
Frowning, I reply, “I really think I should go. Poe cut her finger and —”
“She’ll live,” he says, his eyes flashing and flickering with something unknown. “You’ve been doing a lot of it.”
“I’ve been doing a lot of what?”
“Homework,” he explains. “You’re always in the library. Doing homework.”
I swallow again.
I remember what Salem said the other day, about him asking after me.
And I’ve tried to not dwell on it. I’ve tried to forget it, chalk it up to normal concern on his part.
I mean, he’s not heartless.
He’s just in love with someone else. And when he got the opportunity to be with her, he broke off his relationship with me. So when I stopped showing up for lunch, he got a little worried.
Nothing else.
But I don’t…
I don’t understand this.
I don’t understand what’s happening here.
Shaking my head, I reply, “Yes, I have been. But I’ve also been prepping for finals and —”
“They are still four weeks away,” he tells me like I don’t know.