Tighter (Page 30)

In answer, the rustle of a warm wind in the trees.

The butt of the cigarette was pinched. I leaned down and picked it off the flagstone. It was cold and stale, discarded months ago.

Then I saw it, scraped hard into the slate: J + P 8/16

The day they died. My heart was slamming around like a racquetball against my ribs. Who’d done this? When? As if you didn’t know. The J looks exactly the same, a perfect match to the third floor.

Aidan was on my heel. “Was it anyone?”

Using my foot, I quickly pushed over a couple of stray magnolia leaves to conceal the letters. “Nobody,” I told him. “False alarm. And seriously, Aidan. I think you’d better go. Now that you’ve seen me up close in the light of day, you can tell beyond all doubt that I’m not Jessie, right?”

“It wasn’t about …” His roundly handsome face looked baffled, then just plain annoyed. “Guess I can’t compete with the laundry boy,” he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets and, thankfully, backing off for the first time.

“Oh, don’t worry. It was never a competition,” I told him, keeping my tone bright. “And last I checked, you were officially seeing someone else.”

“It’s what you’re doing unofficially that makes life interesting,” Aidan quipped lightly. Still, in some bizarre way, trying to charm me.

“I’m sure Emory would be fascinated to hear that,” I said. Not lightly.

His eyes narrowed. I held my ground and my gaze. After all, he’d started it. No matter who he wished I were or what he wanted me to be. But I was relieved when Aidan finally gave up on me and left.

EIGHTEEN

“Who was your last boyfriend?”

Isa and Connie had gone up to bed hours ago. But Milo and I had stayed down in the family room, watching a spy thriller now gone to commercial.

The smack of his question had me on immediate guard. “Why’re you asking?”

Milo’s face was sly. “Just, if you’re into Sebastian Brooks these days, I hope you’ve had some experience. Sibby isn’t gonna like a tease.”

In answer, my yawn. But I was a coiled spring.

Until this moment, we’d had a good night. Surprisingly. I’d let go of my paranoia about Milo, that he was testing and undermining me. I wanted to make the effort for Isa, who’d noticed the change enough to comment on it.

“Good, you’re talking to Miley again,” she’d said. “Everyone’s friends.” Though I could tell that Connie was less enthused, since any of our allegiances tended to shut her out. But it had been an easy evening, as we’d all helped Connie prepare a pasta-salad dinner, followed by fresh rhubarb cobbler, and then even indulged in a few of Isa’s disorganized, boring rounds of twenty questions.

But now Milo was at it again. Expertly jabbing at the place where I was most vulnerable. “You think a guy like Brooks only wants to hold hands with you, you’re on the wrong side of wrong.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?”

Lazily, he began cherry-picking objects—a plastic cup, his wallet, and one of Isa’s sandals—to juggle. I watched them spin, seemingly lost to the laws of gravity. Juggling also kept Milo from having to look me in the eye directly as he continued talking. “I’ve got private intel about that guy. Insider stuff, the kinds of things an outsider like you wouldn’t have a clue about.”

“Uh-huh, sure.” But I was listening. Waiting for it.

“Like, for example, he’s totally gone on this college girl. Some blonde. I remember last year how she’d come down—”

“You know what, Milo? You’ve got a big ole yap. And it’s gotten you in trouble in the past, right? So, before you say anything markedly stupid, think about it.”

“Hey, I’m only trying to protect you. It’s not my fault you’re working that sulk.”

“What sulk?”

“That sulk of a chick who’s been burned. Who was it—some football tool who threw you over for a cuter pair of pom-poms? Or a sensitive hipster boy? Or maybe your teacher. You can tell me. How’d he break your heart?”

“Word of advice—don’t become a private investigator, Milo. You’ll go out of business in a month.” Though once again, I was in a pure reaction state as Milo worked his uncanny ability to whittle me down to my weakest self.

“Look, I’m only warning you, Bass has seen some lovin’, no doubt—hey!” As my foot, acting almost with a mind of its own, suddenly kicked up and sideswiped him, buckling his knee, throwing him off balance. The plastic cup fell out; he tried to catch it back and couldn’t. Cursing, he dropped back on the couch, nearly on top of me.

“What’s your problem?” As I scooted out from under him, Milo jettisoned himself forward, smoothly pushing up and over my body and pinning me into the couch cushions.

My hands pummeled him. “Get off me, you loser. I’m not in the mood to deal with any of this.”

“Who’s the loser? I’d be doing you a favor. And you should get in some practice. He’ll smell that inexperience on you.” I could feel the warmth radiating from Milo’s skin as his hand smoothed my hair from my face. “If it’s not me, your next best bet is up in your bedroom, making out with your pillow, am I right?”

I shoved him with my feet, hard, then sat up, breathing out my anger in bursts. “Thanks but no thanks. I think I’ll be just fine without your tutorial.”

The next moment was silence. I waited for him to go first.

“You might need it more than you think.”

I went rigid. Milo’s voice wasn’t his own anymore. It was low, an entirely different cadence and octave. But I couldn’t look at him, I couldn’t even speak. I waited. “After all, we both know you’re the crazy one, Jamie.”

“I’m not crazy,” I whispered. “Stop talking like that.”

“You’re onto what happened here,” he continued in the same hollowed tone that didn’t belong to Milo at all. “How it all went down. They say that the crazy people can always see clear down to the ugliest truth. Problem is, nobody believes ’em. But all you need’s a little proof, right?”

“Stop it.” When I forced myself to glance over, Milo looked exactly the same. It was his expression—his daredevil smirk—that belonged to someone else. “Seriously, stop it, Milo. I know what you’re doing.”