Chapter Twenty
TWENTY
I blink. “Kiss me?”
“Is that a no? Because the pattern was established five years ago. I kiss you. Then Maddox kisses you.”
“And you compare notes?”
“Nah, we aren’t twelve. But I will ask one thing.” He leans in to my ear. “Please don’t make us flip a coin. That’s just weird.”
“And I can’t make you compete with gifts?”
Theo waves. “I brought you to the Quartz Gala. Unless Maddox can get you into the Met, I win.” He pauses. “No, wait. I could get you there, too. Also the Oscars, Sundance, Cannes. I think Maddox can get you VIP tickets to the big tech shows.”
“I might like tech shows. I could wear a full costume, with a mask.”
“Uh, that’s Comic-Con, Lil. Which, again, I can totally get you into.” He leans his head onto my shoulder, arms tightening around me. “We’ll put the kiss aside for now, because while you’re being very patient, I know you want to hear what I promised to tell you. The excuse for the gala trip.”
Right. I’d totally forgotten that. “Why you and Maddox are really playing not-friends.”
“Yep, and when I’m done, I probably won’t get that kiss, which is why I was trying to sneak it in. Also, possibly sweetening the pot with the idea of getting to date two very fine guys…if only you forgive them for one very lousy trick.”
“Uh…”
“Remember that we decided all this before we got to know you.” He clears his throat. “I don’t give a shit about being Optima.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“I would like to win, but only to tell those fuckers I’m not joining their little circle-jerk.”
I slowly climb off his lap, still processing what he’s saying as I sit down beside him. “So you—”
“Lied. Not going to dance around it. I lied.” He exhales. “Okay, that’s the confession out of the way, and now the context. For that, we need to roll back. What do you know about Maddox’s sister, Jenna?”
I take a moment to segue, while knowing it’s not really a segue—he’s suggesting these things are connected.
“I heard she died,” I admit. “Someone told me, and I hated knowing when Maddox obviously didn’t want that.”
Theo shrugs. “It’s not that he didn’t want you to know, Lil. It just wasn’t exactly going to come up in conversation. I’m glad you know, though. It helps. For understanding him. Where he’s at. So what do you know?”
“Only what I was told. That Jenna was a Westdale student. She went to an off-site party and died of an overdose. It hit Maddox hard, and he didn’t want to come to Westdale, but his parents made him.”
“Maddox did want to go to Westdale. He just doesn’t want to be there.”
I want to ask what Theo means by that, but he keeps talking.
“If he had refused, his mom would have insisted. Not his dad. His parents split long ago. Dad’s fine, but he works for the government, posted overseas.”
“He doesn’t talk about his parents.”
A humorless smile. “What’s there to say? Dad’s mostly MIA. Maddox barely talks to his mom since Jenna died. His sister was his family.”
“So she did die of an overdose.”
“According to the coroner’s report. We also have a contact in the legal system who confirms it. But ‘overdose’ might not tell the whole story.”
“Because Jenna didn’t do drugs?”
A soft laugh. “Oh, she did. Recreationally. It’s how she blew off steam. And not Maddox’s prescription edibles either. She partied. And she experimented. The official story is that it was an accident. She shot up heroin at the party, and her batch was laced with fentanyl.”
My heart beats faster, thinking of this girl, Maddox’s sister, just wanting to have some fun, try new things, explore. And then she was dead, and everyone was going to blame her, just another kid doing something stupid.
Theo continues, “I could buy the official story, but I’m not going to because Maddox is my best friend, and he has questions, and I want him to have answers.”
“What are his concerns?”
“One, Jenna didn’t do heroin. She was needle-phobic. She also never took anything she considered too addictive, and heroin is at the top of that list. She might have been a party girl, but she was very responsible.”
“Like Maddox. He acts like he doesn’t care about school, but he’s never late with an assignment.”
“Yes. He also doubts Jenna went to any party, because when he spoke to her earlier that evening, she said she had a project and was planning to pull an all-nighter. Maddox says she’d never skip out for a party, and she’d never lied about going out before.
In fact, she always sent him the address because she insisted on knowing where he went, for safety. ”
“Sounds like a good sister.”
“She really was. Maddox’s other argument is that getting Westdale passes is tough, and he can’t see them granting her one to leave so late. She was in her room, video-chatting with Maddox at eight.”
My gaze flies to his. “They gave her a pass? That’s on record?”
“It is. The pass says she said she was going to a movie in Savannah with local friends, leaving at six and back by eleven. It’s signed, allegedly, by Jenna.”
“Allegedly? You think it’s forged?”
“Maddox does.”
“If Westdale forged an evening pass, after a girl died off-site—”
Theo lifts his hands. “If Jenna snuck out and died, there’d be a huge uproar about security. By claiming she had a pass, Westdale could be covering its ass. But, yes, Maddox thinks it’s suspicious. When I said he doesn’t want to be at Westdale, but he wanted to go to Westdale, that’s what I meant.”
I rock back. “He believes Westdale had something to do with Jenna’s death. He hates being where she died, but he’s there to investigate her death. With your help.”
“Yes.”
I sit with that for a second. “That’s why you’re faking the not-friends routine.
So no one catches you whispering and conspiring, but also so you can investigate independently.
If you ask questions, no one thinks you’re asking for him, because you aren’t friends anymore.
If you take an interest in, say, the process of issuing passes, they won’t connect it to Jenna. ”
“Yes.”
“Okay.” I think some more. “But how did befriending me help you with this case? Because it must, if this is your explanation.”
“It’s more like an incidental connection. Cecilia claimed Maddox needed to help you because he owed her for getting him out of trouble. That’s half right.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Cecilia didn’t get him out of trouble. Maddox doesn’t get in trouble. Even his edibles are prescription.”
“After Jenna died, Maddox found Cecilia’s business card in his sister’s things. He knew Cecilia does legal work for Westdale. Jenna having her card seemed suspicious. Turned out to be something completely unrelated, but Cecilia was…”
He shrugs. “Cecilia is badass and takes no shit, but she has a soft spot for kids with problems, especially Westdale kids. She figured out that Maddox was concerned about Jenna’s death, so she gave him everything she could.”
“Does she think he has reason to be suspicious?”
“She never says. That woman plays her cards so tight to her vest they’re practically glued on.”
“So she asked him to watch out for me in return for what she’s given him on his sister.”
I remember that first day, when Cecilia and I drove up, and Maddox just happened to be reading on the front steps…which I’ve never seen him do since. He knew Cecilia was coming and why.
“Did she ask you to help out, too?” I say.
“Nah. Maddox asked because…” Theo rubs his mouth.
“Jenna’s death has made him super-careful.
He thought it was strange how Cecilia stressed that she wanted him looking out for you.
Not just showing you around but watching over you, reporting any trouble, however small.
Cecilia’s concern made him concerned, so I came up with the Optima competition idea to explain why I was being helpful. ”
“You could have just pretended I was irresistible,” I say with a smile.
He laughs. “You’d have run the other way.
” He looks at me. “So that is why we were both watching out for you, but it’s not why we were hanging out with you.
Our attention could have tapered off once everything seemed fine, except by then we wanted to be with you. In case that’s not completely obvious.”
Silence sits there, between us, until he says, “I’m sorry, Lil. For lying.”
There’s a moment where I’m not sure what he means. Everything else he’s said has buried that lie, and I dig it out again now, examining it from every angle.
Does it make any difference why he got to know me?
He admitted to having an ulterior motive from the start, and if that actual motive was a lie, it’s not as if the truth was something dark and devious.
He’d already confessed he started hanging out with me to help Maddox.
It’s just the reason that’s different. He didn’t do it because Maddox owed Cecilia; he did it because Maddox was worried, and that’s the best reason of all.
“Lil?”
I turn to him, seeing his worry etched there, his breath coming slow and shallow, as if he’s waiting for me to stand and walk away. And I do the only thing I can think to do. I lean over, and I kiss him.
Then I realize my mistake.
I don’t know how to kiss.
Okay, yes, I’ve kissed boys, but we’re talking middle-school kisses and a few times when a male friend tried to kiss me.
This is Theo Dubois, who has all the kissing experience, plus experience in things I haven’t gotten anywhere near and, oh god, this is going to be so embarrassing and I should stop before he realizes…
Except he doesn’t seem to realize anything’s wrong because I’m doing fine, following his lead.
Only then it’s like someone tossed me in the water, and I started dog-paddling instinctively, only to remember I don’t know how to swim, whereupon I stop swimming.
My lips stop moving.
Theo pulls back, his breath coming fast, his pupils dilated. “Lil? No?”
Do it, Liliana.
Do not think about the thing.
Do the thing.