22
Ah, Jude, you’re playing with fire
You won’t get burned right away, but you will get burned
Aegan had killed Eli.
And I was riding in a car with his brother.
I wondered if I’d run into him on his way to the club, but he looked like he’d just come from the gym. He had earphones hanging around his neck and wasn’t dressed like he was going to a nightclub.
“What were you doing?” I asked Adrik, like he hadn’t just been about to run me over in the middle of the road.
Maybe he didn’t think it was that weird.
“Working out,” he said. Then he pointed to a bag right in front of me that I hadn’t noticed. “And that’s food. What about you?”
“Don’t ask. Not now.”
I couldn’t stop going over it in my head. She’s dead, the girl is dead, and Aegan killed her, just like Artie had suspected. Everything was spinning; suspecting it was one thing but confirming it was . . . utterly terrifying.
I realized we’d arrived when Adrik opened his door.
I instinctively did the same with mine and walked behind him until we entered the building.
We started climbing the stairs in silence, though at one point I was struggling.
I covered my face with one hand. I lost my composure, and stupid tears started streaming down my face.
As my eyes were closed, I didn’t realize that Adrik had stopped too.
There was silence.
“Jude,” he finally said. “I don’t know what to do when people start crying, but you can tell me what happened.”
I shook my head, unable to contain myself.
“Did something happen with Aegan?” he asked.
I rubbed my eyes, but I couldn’t stop crying.
“I can’t promise I’ll say anything helpful,” he insisted, “but maybe talking about it will make you feel better.”
I sniffed hard, pulling back the snot that threatened to make me look even more pathetic.
But instead of telling him what had happened, I gave in to the strange impulse that suddenly took hold of me.
I stepped closer and rested my head against his chest. That’s how bold and confident I felt.
I was still afraid and had already started to feel less courageous than before, so I needed that strange sense of safety again—the one I’d felt when Adrik had hugged me in the treehouse.
That’s what I wanted to feel again, even if just for a minute to steady myself, because, for some reason I couldn’t explain, he was comforting.
And yeah, it was wrong, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable. I couldn’t even feel ashamed, after sleeping half-naked next to him and getting high on incense. It was inevitable; something had changed.
He was kind of shocked, but he quickly rested his hands on my back. He smelled of sweat, but it was a subtle, masculine scent, not unpleasant. Yeah, he’d been working out.
“Adrik . . .” I whispered, with my head buried in his neck.
“Yeah?” he replied softly, sounding slightly surprised, like we were sharing an intimate moment.
The moment that fell apart when I said, “Are you going to eat all that food on your own? Do you want to share it with me?”
He moved back and threw me a strange, yet amused, look. His face softened with a faint smile. Fuck. He was so hot. There was no doubt about it.
“Fuck, you’re really strange, Jude,” he said.
We reached the apartment. I kept the stuff about the club to myself, of course.
I had to lie to him, like always. I told him I’d gone to a crazy party I shouldn’t have gone to and that they’d played a big prank on me.
He bought it. As far as he was concerned, I was always doing really strange stuff, so nothing I said really shocked him.
At the apartment, I had to wait for him to have a shower. I sat on the sofa with restless legs and biting one of my nails. My heart was pounding.
What if Aegan showed up? I would tell him me and Adrik were working on an assignment. I’d have an alibi. There’s no way I could’ve been in the club.
Adrik reappeared a few minutes later, clean, with wet hair and bare shoulders lightly speckled with water, having put on a sleeveless shirt. I noticed a chain around his neck, adorned with a silver pendant shaped like an M. Hmm. What could that mean?
We sat down to eat on the sofa right in front of the huge living room window.
He was on one side, and I was on the other.
The sky was filled with stars, and the only sound was the chirping of crickets.
There was a slightly chilly breeze, but wow, his apartment had the best view in all of Tagus.
You could see the building rooftops, clusters of trees, and stretches of green space. It was beautiful.
“What did they say to you exactly?” he asked, about to put a forkful of noodles into his mouth.
“It was bad enough for me to end up coming here with you, so you can probably imagine!”
Adrik let out a calm, teasing laugh.
“What?” I raised an eyebrow. “What’re you laughing at?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “I thought Jude Derry stood up to everyone. I never thought I’d see her cry.”
I was surprised he saw me that way: strong and brave.
I couldn’t look at him the same way anymore, all because of that fucking kiss.
In fact, I’d started picking up on things I hadn’t noticed before, like how he wasn’t as smug as Aegan, or as arrogant; he didn’t feel the need to be the center of attention or control everything or have everybody look up to him.
He couldn’t care less about coming across as hateful or indifferent.
And he didn’t need to pretend he was likable.
Adrik acted like he didn’t care about anything, yet I suspected he cared about far too much.
He was different, and I’d been rude to him when trying to defend myself.
“Judging you based on your surname was slightly unfair,” I said at one point, twirling my noodles.
“It’s not the first time it’s happened, Jude,” he assured me, shrugging. “And having money doesn’t make life any easier, like you think. You know what, all the money in the world couldn’t stop our dad from being an asshole or stop me from feeling like shit.”
That caught me off guard.
“Do you not like Tagus?” I asked, completely taken aback.
“I don’t enjoy most of the things I’ve got to do just because my family expects me to do them,” he admitted.
Then he shook his head, and I noticed the tension in his jaw, like speaking about it really pissed him off.
“I’ve always been able to choose. It’s not like I’m a victim, but it’s also always been made very clear to me that my own choices would only lead to problems, and I can’t be bothered dealing with them. ”
I couldn’t understand how the hell he could impress me so much just by sharing something about himself. It felt like discovering someone who didn’t belong to the Cash family, like everything I thought I knew about him and his family had been a carefully crafted lie.
“But it always seems like you do whatever you want,” I pointed out.
“Sometimes I get my way, but not always,” he admitted, sounding kind of deflated. “I try not to argue with Aegan, because I’d rather he be kept busy than have him constantly nagging me about leaving our mark or how important we are . . .”
Aegan must know something about Adrik that he used to control him. I wondered if it had anything to do with Eli’s death. But even if Aegan had been solely responsible, did Aleix and Adrik know what had happened, and were they covering it up?
I didn’t like the thought of Adrik being an accomplice.
“You let him win so he leaves you alone,” I said, to make sure I’d understood.
“Something like that,” he said bluntly.
“It’s not fair. In the end, you’re doing what he wants.”
Adrik stared at me. I wanted to ask him why he looked so tired. Was there something keeping him up at night? Who or what was causing those bags under his eyes?
“I’m a Cash at the end of the day, as you say,” he said.
“I’d rather not confront anything, so I just let it slide.
When there’s a problem, I only deal with it when it’s on my doorstep, and only if I’m asked to do something, I do it because I can’t be bothered arguing or getting into something I don’t want to put up with. ”
I looked at the bottle frowning, annoyed by what he was telling me. Did Aegan always get what he wanted, in every possible universe? Keeping his brothers under his control was utterly despicable.
“But you—” I started saying, then pressed my lips together in disgust. “You don’t have to play that ninety-day game just to keep Aegan happy. Although I suppose you’re in love with the girl in the photo because . . .”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew I’d put my foot in it. Adrik looked at me surprised, as if to say, How the hell do you know that?
“Forget about it,” I said quickly, but of course he didn’t ignore it.
“What girl in what photo?” he asked.
Well, I’d already let the cat out of the bag . . . I wanted to smash a rock into my mouth. Today really wasn’t my day. I took a long, frustrated swig and mustered up the courage to go on.
“The one in your room,” I replied. “I saw it, and I also know you let out some stinking farts.”
Adrik exhaled and let out a bitter, not-at-all-funny laugh. And at the same time, he shook his head.
“I’m not in love with the girl in that photo.”
He clenched his jaw tighter and frowned slightly. He looked annoyed, so I thought I’d lighten things up a bit.
“Look, I’m not going to ask you for anything, okay? The fact that we even kissed wasn’t . . .”
“She’s my cousin,” he cut me off. I shut my mouth on the spot. “Well, she was like a sister to me.”
Okay, I hadn’t seen this coming. I didn’t even know what to say until it dawned on me that he’d used the past tense.
“Wait, did you say ‘was’? Did something happen to her?”
“She left; she’s no longer here,” he replied, and looked out at the street, this time serious and expressionless.
I could still tell that this was affecting him. Which is why I tried to make up for starting this mess.
“Shit, sorry I reminded you of it, Adrik. I . . .”
“Relax, it doesn’t matter,” he interrupted dryly, suddenly the usual out-of-reach Adrik.