19. Juliet
19
JULIET
T he second Lex’s tinted SUV pulls up outside of Roquel’s house, I hop in the backseat and yank the door shut. “Heat,” I bark. “Now.” I toss my duffle and backpack behind the seat and shiver as Lex smirks back at me, leaning forward to crank the heater up.
Next to me, Gio smiles as he hands me a to-go cup of what I pray is steamy hot coffee. “Cold?” he asks with an arched eyebrow.
Cupping the to-go cup between my frostbitten hands, I shudder as a wave of warmth steals across my near frozen limbs. The temperatures were no longer full-on fall, but creeping into winter territory, and another shudder works through me as I lean over and breathe in the scent of fresh coffee coming from the slit in the cup’s lid.
“What the hell?” Nolan turns around in the passenger seat in front of me and looks back at me, taking in my chapped fingers and rosy cheeks. “How long were you waiting outside?”
Roquel had warned me that her parents might come sometime in the night and she’d been right. Unfortunately, that meant I’d had to sneak out of her room to avoid them spotting me the same way Gio had, and I’d been standing on the street for the last hour, waiting for them since I had nowhere else to go.
I grimace instead of answering and take a long, slow sip of the liquid in the cup. A moan nearly bubbles up my throat as the heat seeps through my limbs. My shaking grows worse for a few moments as Lex pulls away from the curb and then, finally, after a few minutes settles.
“Here.” Gio reaches over the seat and pulls free a blanket that he unfolds and settles on my lap.
I sink back into the car seat and sigh. “Thanks.”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Nolan reminds me.
My upper lip curls back from my teeth and I offer him a narrow-eyed glare. “Then take the hint,” I say. “I’m not going to.”
He frowns at me, but when Lex nudges him, he turns back around. Gio snorts. “Way to not make shit awkward, Prep Girl.”
I’d flip him the bird, but I’m pretty sure if I try to pry my fingers off the heat of the cup, they’ll fall off. So, I settle for a bland stare in his direction. He merely smirks and after a few beats, turns to watch the neighborhood fly by out his own window. I do the same.
Lex drives us out of Roquel’s neighborhood and then further, out of Silverwood. After about an hour, I realize that I never actually asked Gio where they were taking me or why. Peering at him out of the corner of my eye, I finish the last of the coffee. Once it’s gone and I no longer feel like a piece of ice, I look around for where to put the now empty cup.
“Here.” I jump as Nolan leans back and offers me a grocery bag. Looking into it, I find that they’ve already collected a bit of trash, and I dump the cup inside gratefully.
“Thanks,” I murmur, sitting back.
“No problem.”
Silence stretches on as he turns back in his seat, the trash bag disappearing up front with him. When the second hour passes and the only sound is the soft rock music from the radio, I give up on waiting for one of them to give me information without prompting.
“Where are we going?” I finally ask.
Lex’s eyes flick up to meet mine in the rearview mirror. “Eastpoint,” he says.
Eastpoint? I frown. “The city or the college?”
His eyes go to the man next to him and this time, Nolan responds, turning around to face me. “Both,” he admits. “We need to go to Eastpoint and figured we could tour the college while we’re there. Have you ever been?”
I shrug. “Once or twice,” I say. “My dad used to go to Eastpoint. I went with him for a reunion or something. I…” My words drift off as I clutch at the blanket over my lap. “That was my plan after graduation—to go there.”
Was my plan. Now, my only plan is to ensure I graduate at all.
“Ours too,” Gio says, surprising me. When I whirl to gape at him, he merely smiles in return. “Why so shocked?” he asks. “Didn’t think we had plans after high school? Or maybe you don’t think we’re smart enough for Eastpoint.”
“No!” Is that what they think? “No, it’s just—it’s an expensive university. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to go now either.”
“They have a program for underprivileged students who have special skills,” Nolan says.
I arch an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What’s your special skill? Pissing me off?”
His snort makes all the tension in my shoulders relax. I’m still mad at him. I still don’t trust him. I can’t let myself—not again—but it’s nice to forget about my thoughts of revenge and anger for a little while.
Lex grins at Nolan and shakes his head, the black locks of hair he has pulled back away from his face making his sharp jaw all the more eye catching. “She’s got a point,” he tells him. “You’re damn good at that.”
Gio groans and stretches, his arms going out in front of him as he cracks his neck to the side. “Ugh.” He grimaces. “I’m getting hungry, any way we could pull over for a quick break and grab some food?”
The others agree and a few minutes later, Lex is pulling off the highway and into a strip mall with a variety of small shops and a couple of restaurants. Gio leans over the front seat and points to one with a skeleton out front wearing a sombrero.
“That one!” he demands.
A snort escapes me, and I cup my hand over my mouth as I listen to the three of them argue. Lex grunts and jerks his shoulder up to try and cast off Gio’s grip. Nolan gestures to another restaurant that looks like a burger place. In the end, though, Gio’s insistence leads Lex to park in front of the fun hat wearing skeleton and G jumps out of the back seat, practically racing for the front door before anyone else has made it out of the vehicle.
“What a fucking child,” Nolan grumbles hopping out of the car as I, too, slide from the back seat. One look back, though, and he slows his gait. When Lex pauses and looks over his shoulder with a frown, Nolan waves him on. “We’ll catch up—make sure he gets a booth.”
Lex’s cool gunmetal gaze finds mine, and after a beat, he nods and then heads inside. I stop on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant as the doors open and a family of four comes out, stepping into the parking lot as each parent attempts to hold on to one of their kids to keep them from running into the street. Once they’re out of earshot and both Lex and Gio are inside the building, I meet Nolan’s gaze.
“Go on,” I tell him. “Say whatever it is you want to say.”
Nolan watches me, his lips pinching down as if he’s unhappy with something. I don’t know why, though. He and the guys got what they wanted. Me. Here. With them.
“I’m … sorry.”
I blink. Of all the things that I’d expected Nolan to say, it hadn’t been that.
“You’re sorry?” I repeat.
He nods.
“For what?” Is he actually going to admit to burning down my apartment?
Nolan blows out a breath and scrubs a hand down his face. I hadn’t noticed in the car, but now that the day has warmed up and the sun has come out, I finally see the bags under his eyes. The long shadows and the scruff of an unshaven jaw that tells me he hasn’t been sleeping well.
“I’m sorry for making you feel like you didn’t have a choice,” he says. “I know you think that Lex and I burned down your place, but we didn’t. I was at the hospital nearly all day. Lex can probably get footage, but…”
I wait, and when he doesn’t go on, I step forward. His gaze jerks to mine. “But what?”
His nostrils flare and he drops his hand. “But I don’t want you to take it only to throw it back in our faces and say we faked it somehow.” I almost flinch. It’s definitely something I would do. Something I’d already done with Gio and that damn document from the fire department.
What if they really had nothing to do with the apartment? A part of me wonders. What if I really am just cursed with bad luck?
“And, to be honest, there’s another reason why Gio asked you to come with us this weekend,” Nolan continues when I don’t respond to his earlier statement.
“What’s that?” I watch him carefully, searching for any sign that he could be lying. It’s hard, though. I’ve proven to be an absolute horrible judge of character. I can’t trust my instincts anymore, not even when they’re screaming at me to trust him, to just … give in with them and try .
“We want out of Silverwood,” Nolan says. “It’s a dead end for guys like us.” He gestures back to the restaurant where both Gio and Lex wait for us inside. “We can’t get stuck there like our parents. We won’t be .” The conviction in his tone makes my spine straighten. It’s the kind of determination in his gaze that I’ve seen before—the night my whole world came crumbling down.
I’d looked into the mirror of that bathroom and told myself that I’d never let anyone take advantage of me again. I’d never deal with the kind of betrayal that my so-called friend and boyfriend had given me. That was why it’d hurt so fucking much when I thought that they had done the same thing.
If I’m well and truly honest with myself, I’m fucking tired. I’m tired of second guessing everyone around me. Of trying and failing to make it on my own. Of not being able to rely on anyone. Of dealing with the backlash of what my parents have done and being nothing more than a Donovan. Not Juliet. Not a girl. Not even a person. Just a figure of hate.
“Eastpoint’s program…” Nolan continues. “It’s a good opportunity for us, and I think it’d be a good opportunity for you too.”
My eyes find the ground and I stare at the cracked sidewalk beneath our shoes. When he doesn’t say anything more, I realize it’s my turn to talk.
“I…” I suck in a breath. “I don’t know if I trust you,” I admit, still not looking at him. “But I’m fucking tired of fighting you. I was fucking angry after I came back to find my apartment gone.” My words are an understatement, but he doesn’t call me out on it. “I took it out on Lex and I took it out on you.”
Ergo, I’d fucked Lex to try and get back at the rest of them. But they’d surprised me. They knew about each other—knew that I’d had sex with Lex, and they probably knew about Gio too. Yet, there was no jealousy. What had Gio said before? That they shared their toys?
A part of me had hated those words because it’d been equating me to a toy passed around between the three of them. Yet, when they do shit like this—pick me up, bring me coffee, take me to tour a college with them—I don’t feel like just a thing.
I don’t feel like I did as the Donovans’ daughter before my life blew up. A picture-perfect daughter with good grades. A cheerleader. An empty shell of a person masquerading as someone else.
“I know.” Nolan’s words are quiet and they finally make me look up at him. I’m not sure if he’s responding to my words or if he can read the thoughts going through my head on my face.
“Are you really going to Eastpoint to tour the place?” I ask.
His eyes turn distant. “That’s… one reason,” he hedges, which tells me the real answer. They’re likely going to Eastpoint for something else—probably something having to do with what kind of work they do for Darrio Vargas.
I sigh and my stomach grumbles. Turning away from him, I peer into the front window of the small restaurant, spying both Lex and Gio through the glass sitting on either side of a booth. Their heads are bowed, but Gio’s hands are gesturing wildly as he points to something on the menu.
It’s only the weekend, I remind myself. Just a few days of forgetting Silverwood and all the bullshit that comes with being who I am. It’ll be over soon enough, but maybe for now, I can just pretend that we’re what we seem in this place. Just a few teenagers out for a day, having a good time, touring a college we might all go to one day.
“Juliet?” Nolan’s heat reaches me a moment before his body with my name on his lips. His chest touches my back as he comes up behind me. “Are you okay?”
No. I want to scream the word until my lungs burst. I’m not okay. I haven’t been okay in months, possibly years.
Today, though. Today, I want to be.
Tipping my head back, I give him a soft smile and his eyes widen in surprise. “Yeah,” I say. “Come on, let's go in. I’m hungry.”
Then without waiting for him to stop me or ask me any more questions that I don’t want to answer right now, I take his hand and lead him into the restaurant that smells like salsa and taco meat.