Chapter 15 Neve
FIFTEEN
NEVE
Isqueeze my thighs together as some song I don’t know—a metal and pop mashup—plays through his speakers, the bass hitting hard.
That’s what I try to focus on.
Not his hand over the fucking shifter.
But… it’s just so big—his hand—and there are so many gorgeous veins on the back of it, and when he switches gears, I can see the muscles in his forearm, the way his sweater is pulled back a little.
He has a watch on, too.
Silver, and my heart flutters when I read the brand.
Casio.
I know little to nothing about watches, but I know those are cheaper than most, and something about it makes my core heat which is absolutely fucking ridiculous but it doesn’t change the fact I’m sweating in this car.
Not to mention the red leather seats, the red thread on the black steering wheel, the fact the inside of his car is immaculate and smells like leather but not one of those nasty car tree air fresheners.
He drives slowly, in control, not trying to show off or gun it at the stoplights along campus. And, best of all, I actually have to tell him where my apartment is. Or rather, I said go to Midnight Blackwell’s Book Emporium, and his brows jumped, but he knew the way.
A man knowing the location of a used bookstore?
Also hot.
I don’t know what kind of bullshit Sylvan fed to him, but I’m fairly certain either Faust Darling is clueless about his psychopathic teammate’s antics, or he’s a God-like liar. But if I had to guess, it’s the former, which sends a slight chill down my spine despite the heat in my body.
If Sylvan Connor hides his crazy that well, he really just might be a psychopath.
Faust pulls into one of the parking spots in front of the bookstore, and I glance up at the old, black stone building jutting up into the night, spearing toward the full moon.
The car is idling, and I realize he’s looking at me as his hand comes to the back of my seat, but he doesn’t touch me.
Immediately, I press the button on my seatbelt to release it, but before I can stumble through an awkward thanks and a goodbye, his words cut me off.
“Do you feel safe here?” He glances at the windshield. The black and white ‘Closed’ sign is flipped over the bookstore, all the windows tinted, a skull doorknocker on the heavy front door.
This late at night, I wait until no one else is on the sidewalk before I open the door and head upstairs, but the streets are desolate here. A block down, it’s a different story, but with a coffee shop on one side of Blackwell’s and a goth shoe store on the other, no one is here.
I pull my sweater to my chest, conscious of my phone in my coat pocket. I checked it on the way here and Cynthia sent me a text to let me know she was still out with Tas.
Part of me wants to meet up with them.
I mean, someone just got killed at Drayton.
Someone I had a tenuous connection to.
And I’ll be alone here.
That wouldn’t bother me literally any other night.
The crime rate here is (usually) low. It’s never occurred to me to feel scared of being by myself.
In fact, I enjoy it. It’s a moment to breathe, when all the thoughts inside my head are already loud enough.
How much I ate, whether I went to the gym or not—not today, thanks—if I’ll get into the only Jungian certificate program in the province when I apply next year.
How long I can avoid responding to Nolan’s texts before he simply shows up at my door.
Solitude lets me think through everything in peace.
Now, though, I hate to admit I’m nervous.
“You don’t,” Faust says before I can answer his question. “Feel safe.” He drags his eyes to mine. “Do you?”
“How is the investigation going?” I blurt out instead of confirming his assessment. “You must be responsible for the fact none of us have been mentioned. I mean, even his death was barely a line in the paper.” I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear and note Faust’s dark eyes tracking the movement.
Then I squeeze both fists into the sweater again.
Faust takes a breath, his muscular chest rising and falling. He’s so big in here, it’s easy to see he’s a high-performance athlete.
He could lay me out across his seats with one arm.
That doesn’t help the warmth in my belly.
At all.
Neither does his side profile as he turns to look ahead, those full lips pushed together, his nose wide and gorgeous, his jawline clean shaven and defined.
Then those chains around his throat…
Get it together, Neve.
“No suspects,” he says softly. “All I know is they’re looking for someone, but they’re not looking for them.”
I understand what he’s saying. Obviously, Jackson didn’t kill himself, but the weapon wasn’t there, cameras didn’t catch the murder, and it sounds like they haven’t yet found the person in the truck whose engine we all heard rev from the front of the arena.
The one I thought was Jackson, until I found him, dead on the ground.
And his truck was still there. I had to point it out to the officers that night.
“How well do you know Sylvan?” I have to ask.
It doesn’t make logical sense, the timeline doesn’t add up, and I guess he could’ve thrown the knife but if he had, it would be found by now, and they’d have taken our prints, wouldn’t they?
It’s almost like they didn’t find any at the scene, so why bother with ours?
But that means someone knew what they were doing.
Faust doesn’t look at me. “Haven’t you Googled him?” His tone is despondent.
“No. I was worried, if I was a suspect… it might look weird.” Saying it out loud makes me feel stupid because it’s too paranoid to be rational.
I ran into two hockey players who, by all accounts, are loved and adored at Drayton.
It’s only natural I’d look them up, and maybe my mistake is not looking them up, actually.
But Faust only glances at me briefly before he goes back to giving me that hot as hell side profile angle of his face.
“We’re not friends. We’re teammates.”
“In other words, you don’t know him at all.”
Faust’s hand squeezes the shifter, but otherwise, he ignores me.
“He’s from Buffalo. He’s twenty, so not a young freshman.
Good chance of getting drafted. He could’ve, from Juniors.
He came here instead, probably to increase the chances of getting an offer from whatever team he wants to go to.
Or maybe he was running from something.”
“And you don’t know what?”
“No.” He turns to me then, those dark eyes piercing mine. “Do you know he’s colorblind?” He glances at the sweater in my hands.
That surprises me, and I shake my head. “He told you?” If they aren’t friends and they only talk about the game, I’m intrigued on how and why Sylvan told him. And yeah, maybe I’m also wondering if he’s full of shit.
Faust breathes a small laugh. “No. He was with me when I found the sweater. Never said anything about it.”
“So? It was dark. Maybe he just didn’t notice it.” Or maybe he was trying to protect me?
“Yeah, maybe. I asked Coach about him. He mentioned it.” Faust looks away again. “On account of wanting to understand my teammates better.”
A half-lie, but not a full one. Does that mean Faust is mostly honest? I catalog the information away for later.
Then I think of the blood from Will’s nose on my countertop. I don’t know anything about being colorblind other than there are different types, so it’s not like everything is always black and white. But even if it was, he’d have noticed the blood, wouldn’t he?
Of course he would. Something that wasn’t there before would still be there, no matter the shade. Besides, he had to have heard how hard Will’s nose cracked, that wrong sound, same as I did.
“Whose nose did he break? In your condo?” Faust jerks his chin upward, toward Darkmouth.
For some reason, I want to lie. Because Faust probably doesn’t know why Jackson was mad and the connection the reason has to his question.
I told the police, of course, gave them Will’s name myself, but since we were questioned separately, I doubt they disclosed it to either of the boys, and they clearly didn’t mention it to Will himself.
But Sylvan knew exactly who he was.
Fuck. How?
“Jackson’s best friend.” I resign myself to answering, even knowing the suspicion it’ll bring. The way it’ll make it seem like the lie Sylvan told Faust about sleeping with me might be true. I mean, Jackson already told them the night he died that I sucked his “best friend’s” dick.
It’s just the truth is so much worse.
Slut D.
It’s really not that far off, is it?
Faust turns to face me. His hand is squeezing the shifter again, making the veins pop up under his skin. They’re green. Gorgeous. But he looks angry.
“Why were both of them at your place?”
“I was fucking them both, wasn’t I?” I shoot the words out before I can think. I heard the insinuation in his tone. That’s what he thinks, because that’s the type of person he imagines I am. Fuck him.
I scramble for the door to his car and yank it open, cold air slicing into the vehicle.
But before I can get out, he plants his hand on my thigh and presses down, hard.
If I wanted, I could still leave, but the pressure, so close to where the heat in my body is from watching him drive, it stills me.
I slowly turn to him.
He’s leaned in close, our mouths a breath away.
“No.” He enunciates the word carefully. “You weren’t.”
I swallow, and I know the sound is audible between us.
“So tell me, why the fuck were they both there? What did they do to you, Neve?”
I sip in air through my nose, the scent of the car and of him lighting up in my blood. “Will cornered me. He’s grieving. He thinks it’s my fault Jackson is dead.”
Faust’s fingers curl around my thigh. “Why?”