Chapter 14
14
S leep eluded me after Heath dropped me home. I lay there staring at the chair I’d wedged under my door handle, just waiting for Nate to burst back in with that creepy fucking mask and robe on.
My first class of the next morning was utter torture. My eyelids felt like sandpaper and my focus was totally fucked. So when Carly asked if I wanted to go for coffee, I jumped at the opportunity.
For more than one reason.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked her as we walked across the lawn toward Dancing Goats.
She shot me a worried look, then quickly covered it with a smile. “Of course. What’s up?”
I bit my lip, hesitating a moment before throwing caution to the wind. “Were you there last night? On Cat’s Peak, I mean.”
The instant panic that flashed across her face gave me the answer I needed, even though I hadn’t seen her anywhere in the video. Carly was in the Devil’s Backbone Society, but I’d suspected as much even before Nate dragged me up there.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, pale as a damn ghost as she shook her head. “I had no idea.”
“Would you have warned me if you did?” After all, we’d only been friends for a minute, and she’d probably been in the society for years.
She wrinkled her nose. “I want to think I would have,” she replied with sincerity. “But I don’t know. There are rules…strict ones. But maybe I could have given you some sort of heads up or…I dunno. Maybe I could have made a strong suggestion to wear pants and a bra to bed?”
That made me snort with unexpected laughter. “That would have been nice.”
“But you’re in now, right? So…I can tell you shit?” Carly seemed a little uncertain on that subject, and I shook my head.
“No, I’m?—”
“Good morning, gorgeous,” Heath interrupted, draping an arm over my shoulders and kissing my hair. My whole body stiffened up in fright, and my pulse raced. I hadn’t seen him coming at all . “We going to Goats?”
Carly’s brows were so high, they practically touched her hairline. “So…that rumor about you two was true? Jade was running her mouth but you know how she is…”
“That we’re dating?” Heath asked before I could reply. “All true.”
“Yeah, about that,” I spoke up, recovering from my shock. “I’ve rethought that arrangement and decided it was an awful idea.”
“What? Why?” Carly protested. “You guys make a cute couple and I can vouch for Heath not being anywhere near as bad as Nate.”
“Careful,” Heath murmured.
Carly’s cheeks pinked and she gave a nervous laugh. “It was a compliment, dude. Chill.”
“It’s too late to change your mind, Ash,” Heath told me with a lazy grin as I looked up at him. “Word has already spread, as intended , so you may as well roll with it.”
“Roll with what?” I snapped, shrugging out from under his arm to create some space. “Your friends don’t think we’re dating, they think I’m on retainer. Which, by the way, I haven’t heard you correcting.”
“Does it matter? Either way they have to leave you alone, so it’s a win-win. Come on, let’s get coffee before your first class starts.” He snagged my hand in his, linking our fingers together and practically dragging me into the coffee shop, totally cutting the line.
I tried to pull free, but without causing a scene, he wasn’t letting go. And I did want coffee, so I gave up when we reached the counter. Heath ordered my usual, and his, but then I needed to elbow him to remember Carly’s order.
“Thanks, Heath,” she said sweetly when he paid.
“Mm-hmm,” he replied, locating some high stools for us to sit while we waited. He offered one to me, and then Carly slid onto the second with a wicked smirk, leaving him to stand. “You’re lucky I like you, Carly.”
She scoffed. “We’re related, dude, you have to like me.”
“Not true at all,” I disagreed. “Technically I’m related to Nate, but I’d happily watch him burn in an oil fire.”
“Mutual feeling,” the devil in question snapped from behind me.
Great, what is this? Sneak up on Ashley day?
I swiveled on my stool with a glare I was perfecting just for Nate. “Heathcliff, you haven’t been answering your phone.”
Heath repositioned himself so he leaned on the tabletop behind me, giving the impression we were a lot cozier than we really were. “Yeah, I was giving Ash my full attention. What’s up?”
The furious narrowing of Nate’s eyes and the prolonged eye contact between the two of them hinted at underlying tension and unresolved arguments, which was interesting. I did like that my arrangement with Heath was getting under Nate’s skin.
“Elders meeting,” he snapped eventually. “To discuss the problem.”
I rolled my eyes. “Cute.”
Heath gave a frustrated sigh. “Fine. I’ll meet you there.”
Nate shot me another filthy look, then stormed out of the coffee shop once more without another word.
“Dick,” I muttered, swiveling my chair once more to face Carly. Then remembered her history with Nate and gave her a sympathetic look. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “You’ve got nothing to apologize for, dumbass. I unfortunately can’t avoid him, but I can pretend he doesn’t exist whenever our paths cross. So that’s something. You should go, though,” she said to Heath. “One Briggs on Nate’s shitlist is enough.”
Heath chuckled. “He couldn’t stay mad at me even if he tried. See you later, Ash?”
“Nope, I have assignments to do.” And more research into Abigail’s life to be done. Because, fuck, I was hooked on that mystery now more than ever. Except the ever-present fear of ending up like Abigail, not to mention the intense animosity from Nate, had me reluctant to actually get closer to the society.
Heath didn’t seem deterred. “Cool, meet you in the library at five then?” The barista called out his name, and he went to collect our drinks and delivered them back to us.
“Umm…” I tried to think of a reason why he couldn’t join me in the library but came up blank.
Heath took my chin in his fingers and tilted my head back, smacking a quick kiss on my lips, then swaggered his fine ass out of the coffee shop before my head even stopped spinning.
“Uh…that didn’t look fake to me,” Carly commented with a giggle. “What is the deal?”
I groaned, my lips still tingling. “I don’t know. I think I had a brain malfunction and now I don’t know what the hell I’ve got myself into. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” I paused, frowning at myself. “Nope. No, it was never a good idea.”
My friend just laughed, sliding off her stool and picking up her bag. “Okay well, I like it. Heath’s not like the others…not really. He just pretends.”
“Two-faced is not typically an attribute I find attractive,” I grumbled, grabbing my own coffee to follow her out the shop. “But I’ll happily keep taking the free coffees. You heading over to class now?”
She nodded. “Yep. I’d better run, Professor Johnson is a dick if anyone’s late.”
I smiled but didn’t make the obvious childish joke about Johnson being a dick. We bid a quick farewell and went our separate ways.
My next class was in Bard Hall, but for some reason I found myself autopiloting across campus to the drama department. Was that where Nate and the others were meeting with the elders? Whoever the fuck they were.
“Can I help you, dear?” an older woman asked, startling me as I wandered into the building. She smiled in a polite way as I stared back at her.
“Oh, um, sorry I was just…” How the fuck did I explain that I’d come looking for a secret society meeting that might be discussing my fate? Or that I wanted to see if the robes and masks were still hanging in the costume department as though there was nothing to hide?
“Sorry,” I said again, shaking my head. “I was looking for a restroom.”
The woman arched a brow but indicated along the hallway. “Second door on the left.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, following her direction and slipping into the ladies’ room.
I waited a minute, staring at myself in the mirror and asking what in the fuck I was hoping to achieve being inside the drama department. Did I seriously think I could just stroll into the meeting and demand to know who’d pushed me last night? To what end? I didn’t want to be in the society so I just needed to let sleeping dogs lie.
Decided, I pushed aside my curiosity and left the drama building once more. I needed to focus on my classes, and nothing more. End the weird fake-but-not-so-fake situationship with Heath, make a truce with Nate, and just ignore everything about the DBS.
I held on to that decision all through the rest of my day. But somehow as I pulled out my laptop in the library that evening, I found myself typing Abigail’s name into the search engine once more.
Damn it.
By the time Heath arrived, my head was fully immersed into the mystery. It was like a drug I just couldn’t quit and knowing he was neck-deep in the society only made me more invested.
“Hey,” I greeted him, still distracted from the new evidence I’d just uncovered about one of the other students Abigail had mentioned. The finer details of her diary were becoming really foggy in my memory, now that I no longer had the journal to read, but I’d remembered this student’s name.
Apparently Clara Devine had died in a tragic car crash when her car skidded on black ice. Sure, it could have been an accident…but Abigail had thought otherwise, so now I was questioning whether it was a cover-up. I shut down the search window so he couldn’t see what I had been working on and tabbed back to my homework.
Heath dropped his bag across the table from where I sat, but then circled around and grabbed my face in that already familiar way he liked to hold me. Before I could formulate a protest, his lips were on mine.
Fuck .
I gasped as he kissed me hard, and he took advantage of my shock to take it deeper. My whole body flushed with heat as his tongue stroked against mine, his lips caressing me in the perfect balance of sweet and spice until my head spun and my pulse raced.
“What…” My question was a breathy croak as he released me, and I cleared my throat to try again. “Um, what…no one is here to see.”
He just grinned and took his seat on the other side of the table, smug as a damn cat. “I know. I just like kissing you. So, what are we working on?”
Shock saw me tripping over my words as my face flamed, and I mumbled a brief explanation of my Early Modern Europe research assignment. Heath, apparently, was all-in on the fake boyfriend role and spent the next several hours shamelessly flirting while I got flustered every damn time.
It wasn’t until after he walked me back to my room late at night that it occurred to me. I hadn’t even tried to ask about his DBS meeting. Was that his intention all along? Shit, I had fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.