14
L for liar or M for mysterious?
When I woke up, it took me a few seconds to realize that I wasn’t in my own bed.
As soon as I found my bearings, I took another look at the contract.
I reluctantly signed it, having no choice if I wanted to stay close to Aegan and make him believe I was really into him.
Of course, that signature wouldn’t silence or stop me, especially now that I knew Eli feared for her life and that the Cash brothers had a little secret that could damage their reputation at Tagus. Oh, Aegan, why do you do these things?
I left the room and headed to the kitchen.
Aleixandre, with his hair neatly combed back and charismatic smile, was dishing out scrambled eggs from a pan onto several plates.
Aegan, eyes fixed on his laptop on the kitchen island, snatched the toast that had just popped out of the toaster and quickly tossed a slice to Adrik.
All this while wearing his usual I hope everyone dies today face.
Perched on a stool, Aegan held the toast between his lips and kept writing in his notebook, likely trying to finish some pending assignment.
That bit of breakfast teamwork made them seem like close, devoted brothers who weren’t running a secret club.
I walked over, sat down, and placed the sheet there, right in front of everybody. Artie was also sitting there, spreading butter on some toast. The vibe felt a bit off; none of us had ever expected to be sitting around the breakfast table together.
I thought Aegan would be pissed off about what went down last night, but he didn’t say a word; he just took the sheet and stared blankly at me before turning back to his brother.
“The champagne should be imported,” Aegan said, returning to a conversation they’d been having before I shown up.
“I’ve already taken care of that,” Aleixandre assured him. Then he went over to the island to hand out the plates.
I grabbed a slice of toast too. I guessed they were talking about that charity event.
Aegan looked at Aleixandre and asked him, in a demanding tone, “When will your girl show up?”
With breakfast served, Aleixandre sat down to eat.
“She’ll be at the party, don’t worry,” he calmly replied. “Ah, we’ve got a suit-fitting today.”
“I’ll come by when I’ve got some free time,” said Aegan.
They both looked at Adrik. He didn’t look back. “I’ve got things to do,” Adrik said, his tone aloof, before he returned to chewing his bacon.
Aegan looked at him, frowning.
“Like what?”
“Like peeling my skin off inch by inch with a razor blade,” he said indifferently, “which would be better than trying on a suit I know will fit—and even if it doesn’t, I couldn’t care less.”
He then got up and left.
His response had pissed Aegan off. It was quite amusing, so I had to stop myself from laughing.
I expected Aegan to say something, but he simply brushed off his hands, closed his laptop, and said, “See you later,” before leaving too.
Weren’t we going to go to class together? I guess not anymore.
“Has he always been this intense?” I dared to ask Aleixandre.
“Our mom once told us that Aegan was intense even in the womb.” He started laughing. “He was always kicking her. When he was born, all he did was cry and look for attention.”
This made perfect sense. In fact, Aegan hadn’t really changed much. The difference was that now his “crying” was the sound of him giving orders.
“He bosses you about, so you have to deal with everything, right?” I said. “Doesn’t that piss you off?”
“I’m the only one with the patience for this kind of thing,” Aleixandre replied, shrugging. “And that’s just the way Aegan is. And you get it, right? You must really like him to put up with him.”
Oh, right. I loved Aegan; he fascinated me. In fact, I loved him so much that I’d love to watch him roast over a bonfire while screaming in agony until his skin was charred and . . .
“I think I might even be falling in love with him,” I said, acting like a silly little girl.
I was lying, of course, but I was getting a kick out of the acting.
“Things could get out of hand, Jude . . .” Aleixandre said, almost like he was giving me a piece of advice.
“What, you don’t think Aegan could fall in love with me?” I asked with some unease, like I was genuinely afraid of the answer.
Aleixandre’s smile was oddly mysterious; it was the kind of smile that seemed to say something yet said nothing at all. It intrigued me.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “It depends how many times someone can fall in love in their life.”
Was he saying that because of . . . Eli?
Had Aegan been in love with her?
Aleixandre started buttoning up his shirt, and I checked him out while I ate.
From his looks, I’d say he only worked out from time to time to make sure he didn’t lose muscle mass.
He ran his fingers along the waistband of his boxer shorts, like he was readjusting them.
As the fabric lifted slightly, I saw something.
Something was peeking out of his V-line.
“What’s that?” I wondered aloud, pointing to it.
Aleixandre lowered his gaze and used his thumb to shift the edge of his boxer shorts slightly. It was a small M tattooed in black.
“I got it done when I was sixteen, do you like it?” he replied, and looked at me with his sweet yet mischievous eyes.
“What does it mean?”
“It means whatever you want it to mean,” he said, like he was flirting.
He said no more and I didn’t ask anything further, but my curiosity had been sparked. M for what?
When Aleixandre went to get his shoes, I turned to Artie, trying to think of what to say.
I was pissed at the Cash brothers, not at her.
I wanted to tell her that, but I was finding this whole friendship thing kind of complicated.
Have I mentioned already that I’ve always been a bit of a loner?
Artie was the closest thing to a friend.
Besides, there was no point in making more enemies, and since she already knew about my plan against Aegan, I had to keep her on my side.
“Hey, we shouldn’t be fighting over this,” I said. “I respect your decision; I won’t try to involve you in anything like last night again.”
She looked at her piece of toast, lost in thought.
“Maybe you’re right about something, you know?”
“Right about what?” I furrowed my eyebrows.
“I should stop being so afraid.”
I sighed. “That’s tough to do, Artie,” I said. “Sometimes I forget.”
She smiled at me, and I wondered if something had happened to make her so fearful, but now wasn’t the time to ask. She’d tell me in her own time. We’ve all got our secrets. The important thing was that we’d cleared the air and still had the same goal: to take down Aegan.
That day Adrik showed up late to literature class. He sat down beside me and barely said a word. At one point, the teacher asked him to stand in front of the class and read two pages from Post Office by Charles Bukowski, which actually turned out to be the most interesting few minutes of the day.
The author’s raw words, spoken in Adrik‘s bitter, indifferent tone, captivated the entire class, including me.
Suddenly, the image of Adrik in his room came into my head; half-naked, smoking, reading.
He was so hot that I even noticed how good his disheveled hair looked and thought it was really nice of him to teach me to ride a horse, and . . .
I snapped out of my daydream as soon as he stopped reading and closed the book.
The teacher even looked entranced. Given half a chance, I swear I’d have pinched her ass.
Adrik sat down and I tried to hide that I, too, had been momentarily hypnotized.
“Adrik,” I said at the end of class, as he was putting his books away.
“Mmm,” he said, with the trademark disinterest he was known for. I tried to keep my voice down.
“Do you not go to . . .” I didn’t know what to call it, so I just said, “That part of the club?”
“Didn’t they make you sign something last night?” he asked right back.
“Yeah.”
He zipped up his backpack, then leaned in toward me with his hand resting on the table. “Well, one of the clauses says you can’t mention the place to anyone outside of it, not even another member,” he whispered to me. “Otherwise, the other person must report it.”
“And will you?” I asked, surprisingly a little nervous. “Will you grass on me?”
For a minute he said nothing, just staring at me so intently that I wanted to give him a slap . . .
Why was his gaze so intense and so captivating?
He stuck his hand into his trouser pocket.
“By the way, don’t step foot in my room again,” he said sharply. “Stay away.”
And then he put my cell phone down on the table, which I’d apparently forgotten in the wardrobe last night.
Shit.
He put on his backpack, turned around, and walked away.
I was left feeling a mix of shame and stupidity for forgetting my cell. Besides, I was afraid he’d think I was some kind of crazy voyeur, spying on people. I really shouldn’t have cared, but I did, even though I tried to make myself think otherwise.
I had something more important to do anyway: go to the car rental agency.
I had to take the bus from Tagus to the center of the town nearest to the university, since there was no way I could ask anyone for a ride, let alone rent one of the campus bikes. I put on black sunglasses and a headscarf Audrey Hepburn–style, just to be on the safe side so nobody would notice me.
It took me twenty minutes to get there. I went in and straight up to the counter. A young girl in her twenties, with Rita Roman embroidered on her shirt, asked if she could help me.
I activated my Super Saiyan–level lying powers.
“I’m a journalism student at Tagus University,” I introduced myself, flashing my ID quickly so she wouldn’t catch my full name. “I’m writing an article about cars that were rented and never returned to the agencies. Could you help me with some information?”
She pointed with her thumb toward an office in the back and said, “Okay, but I must let my—”
Before she could finish, I cut her off. I needed her help. “It’s just three quick questions. It’ll only take three minutes.” She hesitated for a minute, seeming uncertain. But she didn’t need much convincing.
“Well, I suppose so,” she accepted. “What do you need to know?”
I started by asking my cover-up questions. “What happens when someone doesn’t return a vehicle?”
“It depends. If there’s a good reason for it, they have to pay a fine. Otherwise, we report it as a stolen vehicle.”
“Do you know what the annual nonreturn rate is?”
“It’s not that high. We always make a point of requesting specific information from renters, and there are certain requirements they must meet. You can see them here.”
“I’ll make a note of it.”
I pretended to jot it down, but what I actually wrote in my notebook was “Aegan Cash eats his own snots and plays with his own saliva.”
“A friend rented a car from here last year. She suggested I come,” I said as I was writing.
The girl smiled. “Oh, great.”
Then, I launched straight into what I needed.
“Okay, lastly, I want to rent the same car my friend rented. Is that possible?”
“Only if it’s available.” She hesitated. “Let me check. What’s your friend’s name and what date did she rent the car.”
“Eli Denvers. February 25.”
She put the information into the computer, staring at the screen. Meanwhile, I looked around. Nobody came out of the back office, and the other workers’ booths had customers.
“Here it is,” she said at last. “Well, she rented it in her name, but someone else came to pick it up.”
“Is that possible?”
“In special cases and by paying a premium.” She nodded. “She must’ve signed an authorization allowing someone else to pick it up.”
“Ah, but was it returned?”
“Yeah.”
Hmmm . . .
“Maybe it was her boyfriend and she didn’t tell me,” I said, acting like I knew, but with a tone as if to say, Can you confirm it?
And she did.
“Well, it says here it was picked up by somebody called Mick Jagger,” she said, smiling. Hilarious.
I was so stunned that I didn’t notice someone coming out from the back office and quickly joining the girl on the other side of the desk. It was a man wearing a Ryan Tompson T-shirt with large sweat stains under his armpits. And he didn’t look very friendly.
“What’s going on?” he asked, immediately acting like a demanding manager.
“This girl is writing an article about car rentals, and she chose us,” she explained, clearly proud of herself. But that was short-lived.
“You should’ve sent her to me. Did she provide you with signed authorization from the university to request the information?”
“No . . .”
He gave me a stern look. I got the feeling he was one of those guys who’d pick a fight with his own shadow.
“Can I see your ID?” he demanded.
So, I did the only thing I could think to do: got the hell out of there ASAP.
“I got what I needed,” I said, and scampered toward the door shouting, “Thanks!”
I ran across the road in case the man was running after me. I darted into a clothing shop to throw them off.
Maybe she was . . .
Dead?
And who the hell was Mick Jagger? Because it sure as hell wasn’t the singer.