Chapter 28
ELLE
“I know it’s wrong and we could both lose our spots here,” I say, pacing a dent in the carpet of the Obeliskos’s thirteenth floor, “but it’s like there’s this insatiable need that just bleeds into my skin every time we’re near.
I can’t stop it, and it doesn’t help when he makes it so obvious he wants—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Noelle,” Asher groans into his hands, his head in Lucy’s lap where they’re sitting on a dark leather couch. Well, she’s sitting; he’s sprawled out lengthwise. “You have issues with impulse control, we get it. Can you please just let me nap in peace?”
Lucy tsks, pinching his nostrils shut. “You’re supposed to be helping me study for this midterm, pretty boy.”
“Did you take your ADHD meds this morning?”
“Yes.” She releases his nose and pokes the silver hoop piercing one nostril. “Someone never lets me forget on days I have classes.”
“Am I supposed to apologize for being helpful?”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re not being helpful now.”
“How can you even concentrate with my sister’s villain monologue going at lightning speed over there?”
I frown, pausing midstep to glare at him. “I’m not a villain.”
Asher snorts. “What do you think you are to him, Noelle? The heroine? Aren’t they supposed to be selfless and considerate?”
Ugh. I knew I shouldn’t have told them anything, but Lucy refused to relinquish me any of the Fury Hill lore or share the periodicals she found last fall unless I told her what was going on with Sutton, and it all just sort of tumbled out.
Asher’s right about that much—my impulse control is severely lacking. I shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss me at all, but I’m putty any time he looks my way. Even when he’s awkward and stumbling over himself to get a point across, I can’t help but be drawn to him.
“You’re right,” I admit, slumping into a chair against the wall. “Maybe I have been a bit of a villain. How do I make up for that?”
“Leave the man alone.”
Lucy clicks her tongue. “Don’t give advice you wouldn’t follow yourself.”
“Why not?” Asher grumbles, rolling so he’s facing the back of the couch. He wraps his arms around her waist, crawling closer as he buries his face in her stomach. “Isn’t that the point of advice? He’s a professor, she’s a student. End of story.”
“I guess he’s right. Wow, I don’t like saying that twice.”
“So don’t let him be right.” Lucy shrugs. “Asher doesn’t know everything.”
“Hey,” he protests, though weakly.
“Plus, the whole professor-student thing doesn’t make you incompatible. It just makes the situation forbidden, which makes things hot. Some of my favorite reality TV shows revolve around people who aren’t supposed to be together but find a way to make it happen.”
My stomach flips, a cramp making it seize up. I frown, pulling my legs into the chair, hoping the pressure might help alleviate the onslaught of discomfort.
“You said he likes you too, right? It’s not like you’re coming on to him out of nowhere.”
“No,” I agree. “Just after he explained how it’d affect him. God, I’m a bitch, aren’t I?”
“Yeah.” Lucy grins, lifting one shoulder. “But that’s nothing new. You’re also a great listener and strong. I didn’t have a crush on you growing up for no reason.”
Asher grunts, reaching up to slap his palm over her mouth. “Okay, time to go.”
I smirk. “Do you feel threatened by me, Ash?”
“Well, apparently you don’t always take no for an answer.”
“That’s not what…” I sigh, trailing off. I have no excuse for the way I’ve behaved. “I guess I just didn’t understand the severity of it all. I thought the rules were more arbitrary suggestions, and he was hyperbolizing the consequences for effect.”
I thought he was weaponizing reality to get more from me.
It hadn’t occurred to me to care either, which isn’t something I’m proud of. But if I didn’t care about his job or his feelings, he wouldn’t be able to use them against me.
The way his father had used mine over the summer.
“Maybe we should change the subject,” Lucy suggests, tossing a leather-bound journal at my feet.
“You said you were looking for more Fury Hill lore. That’s an old ecosystem major’s journal I found last semester while researching for one of my classes.
Lots of stuff about the layout of the Primordial Forest, how Lake Lerna was made.
They even detail some of the tunnels through the Tenarus cave, though a lot of those entries have water damage. ”
I flip through the pages, squinting at the chicken scratch writing. “And this helps me how?”
“There’s stuff about the curse too,” she says. “I don’t know. Maybe it won’t help at all.”
“Do we believe in the curse or not?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter what you believe,” Asher replies, sitting up.
He drags a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly.
“Avernia does, and that’s all that matters.
They’ll do whatever they need to to keep that ridiculous prophecy from coming true.
Last semester proved that much, so maybe you should focus more on studying and getting out of here than canoodling with that boring-ass professor. ”
“He’s not boring.”
“Half the school is in love with him, you know,” Lucy says. “You’ve got a lot of competition.”
Asher gives her a dirty look.
She grins, leaning her head on his shoulder. “Not me of course.”
He grumbles something under his breath, but his face softens slightly anyway.
“I’m not trying to be with him,” I tell her, my gaze falling to the journal again.
“Then what was the point of all that lamenting?” Asher asks.
“I don’t know,” I admit. I’m not sure what I want, and even if I did know, is it worth ruining our lives over?
Sutton seems to have had a change of heart, but that doesn’t change me.
Doesn’t he know I’m not worth the trouble?
Asher cocks his head to the side, then reaches into his pocket, pulling out a granola bar.
He tosses it at my head, and I swing to the side, barely avoiding the hit.
“Mom said to make sure you’re eating, by the way.
She said you looked like you’d lost weight in your last video call, and she was worried.
Ballistic, actually, is the better word here.
She’s terrified of you wasting away at this school, and I don’t know why, but for the love of fucking God, don’t make me be on the receiving end of her hysteria again. ”
I smother a grin, leaning down to pick up the bar. She’s right—I have lost a pound or two, but that’s mostly been from the stress of adjusting to school, not anything to really worry over.
Mostly.
Still, I appreciate Asher for changing the subject.