The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

“How old were you in this picture?” I said. It was so strange that Jack had known Mr. Emerson at the same time I had—it was like we’d been living parallel lives.

“It was my fourteenth birthday.” Jack’s voice was muffled. “Fitz always said birthdays were the most important holidays, and I could do whatever I wanted if I was with him.”

Mr. Emerson had said that to me, too. For my ninth birthday, he’d taken me and my mom to see The Wizard of Oz, my favorite movie, at this tiny independent theater that served macaroni and cheese while you watched. It was my favorite birthday of all time.

I stepped into the bathroom but glanced back in time to see Jack’s white button-down shirt hit the floor in the doorway. I stared at it for a second too long, then turned on the sink and splashed cold water on my cheeks.

“If I’d wanted to lie on the couch and watch television all day, he would have let me,” Jack went on. “But when I turned fourteen, I wanted to climb Mont Blanc.”

I dried my face and dug my contact drops out of my bag. I put a drop in each of my tired eyes. “That’s in the Alps, right?”

“The peak of the Alps. He told the Saxons it was a training trip. He said he would have taken his own grandson if he’d had one. It was worth it, even if the sunburn lasted for days.”

I could see the edge of the picture out the door. Both their noses were bright pink, but Mr. Emerson wore a huge smile.

Jack walked out of the closet, tugging a clean white V-neck T-shirt over his head, and my fingers paused partway through raking my hair back into a ponytail. Then my gaze found the ridges of muscle above his hip bones and I turned back quickly, concentrating hard on twisting my hair tie.

Still, out of the corner of my eye, I could see him study me. He pulled a black blazer from the closet, and held up a cream one for me.

“You should put this on,” he said.

I looked down at my skimpy dress, and realized that we were very much no longer in a club. “Yeah,” I said, holding out my hand. “Muslim country and all.”

I could swear he blushed. “It’s pretty progressive here, actually, but it’s just that you’re, you know.” He studied his shoes, but waved a hand in the general direction of my body. “And that dress is . . . and we’re trying not to draw attention . . . and I guess it would be respectful . . . Never mind.”

He shoved the blazer in my hands.

The last time I’d seen him anything less than perfectly poised was when he was asking me to prom. Was it possible that invitation hadn’t been entirely fake?

“Thanks,” I said. I pulled the blazer on and rolled the sleeves so they wouldn’t cover my hands.

Jack leaned over the sink. It felt weirdly intimate, washing up together. I’d done this at sleepovers, of course, but Jack washed his face differently, less carefully. Like a guy. I tried not to stare at the way he splashed water everywhere, at how he ran wet fingers through his hair, at the drops of water resting on his eyelashes.

I looked into my own eyes in the mirror again. “Why the eyes? If the Diadochi were his generals, and not relatives, how do the families all have purple eyes?”

“It is odd, genetically, but the prevailing theory is they were all distantly related to start with, and interbreeding over the years concentrated the gene for the eyes.”

I handed him a clean towel. Jack scrubbed his hair and it stuck up in all directions. For some reason, right then, I realized why what he’d said about that picture seemed off.

“Wait. You said Mr. Emerson would have taken his grandson hiking if he had one. But he does,” I said. “His name’s Charlie.”

Jack stopped still, and slowly lowered the towel. His dark hair hung damply over his forehead. “Did you say Charlie?”

The famous Charlie Emerson. “He used to tell me stuff about his grandson.” I backtracked to the dresser and picked up the picture. “We were about the same age, and it’s like he wanted us to be friends from afar . . .”

Like a few years after we moved away, Mr. Emerson’s Charlie update was about how they went on a long hike for Charlie’s fourteenth birthday, and they both got sunburned.

I looked at photo-Jack’s pink skin. Real Jack opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again.

No.

“Is your favorite ice cream pistachio with frozen Thin Mints, by any chance?” Jack finally said, tossing the towel on the sink.

It had always been my favorite, and Mr. Emerson said my suggestion had made Charlie a convert. “Is your favorite movie The Godfather?” I countered.

“Yes. I—”

I set the picture down with a bang. “You’re Charlie Emerson?”

He walked past me into the bedroom, a stunned look on his face.

“How? And how did you not realize who I was, if he told you about me?” I went on before he could answer.

“Jack is my middle name. I—” He cleared his throat. “Charles was my father’s name. But I already knew Fitz before I started going by Jack. He calls me Charlie. He never showed me your picture. He said your name was Allie.”

Charlie Emerson was real, standing in front of me, and he thought my name was Allie. “He said you were his grandson.”

“He said you were his great-niece.” Jack turned around. “I can’t believe I’m meeting the girl who thought the first Godfather movie was the best. So many people prefer the second, and are obviously wrong.”

“What? No! The second was so much better. He told you I agreed with you about the first?”

“He did.”

“So did you even like my sundae?”

He bit back a smile. “I’ve always been partial to coffee ice cream.”

My mouth dropped open.

“I’m sorry!” he said, almost laughing. “Looks like Fitz lied to us.”

A laugh escaped my throat, and the moment of lightness felt so unexpectedly good, I could have cried. “I can’t believe you’re—we’re—”

Voices came from the other side of the wall, and Jack’s head snapped up.

“It’s the neighbors,” I started, but Jack put a finger to his lips.

“They’re speaking English,” he said.

Of course. It hadn’t sounded strange to me, but here it would. These were people who didn’t belong in this building.