“I think I’m going to do something that you’re not going to like.”

Julian slid his shoulder out from under my head and propped himself up on his arm beside me.

“What do you mean?” he asked as he looked down into my face on the pillow.

“I can’t keep living like this, knowing that my mom’s killer is walking around Lineage as a free man. I won’t ever have peace until I bring whoever it is to justice.”

“Lisette, what are you thinking about doing?”

Even I felt my eyes harden. “I’m going to infiltrate Lineage.”

Julian shook his head. “We already tried that twice, and it didn’t work.”

“No, I mean, I’m going to actually infiltrate them. I’m going to pretend to have feelings for Adam so that he can get me into their school. He told me that a current student can sponsor someone else. That’s how he got in. If he thinks I want to be with him, then he might be able to get Marta to approve the transfer.”

“No,” Julian said firmly. I think it was the first time in a very long time that I heard anger in his voice directed toward me. “You absolutely can’t do that. That’s literally the stupidest thing I think you’ve ever said. Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be? You’re thinking about breaking into an institution that you already suspect is responsible for killing your mother, and you want to go in there? Are you crazy?” said Julian.

"Absolutely not, why would you think that?” I asked.

“It’s way too dangerous to even consider doing. Besides, you don’t even really know this Adam guy. What if he’s the one who killed your mom?”

I don’t think I’d ever seen Julian get that mad over something with me.

“You can’t stop me,” I said stubbornly. “I’m a grown woman, and I’ll do whatever I want to do.”

He sat straight up. “Damn it, Lisette, can you cut the crap with the lone warrior bullshit? I know you’re a grown woman for Christ's sake. Don’t you think I’ve noticed? Just because we’ve been friends since we were kids doesn’t mean I can’t see you for who and what you are now. I’m not trying to act like your older brother; I’m trying to protect you from your bull-headed self before you rush headfirst into something that gets you killed. You don’t need to remind me that you’re all grown up now, I am tormented by that every time I look at you.”

“What?” I asked. “What have I ever done to torment you?”

Julian looked at me in a way that I’d never seen him look at me before, at least not intentionally.

“Every day, I have come here to make sure you’re in class, not because I care about your GPA, but because I can’t stand not being next to you for the whole day. Every time you get yourself into trouble, I come to rescue you, not because I don’t think you can take care of yourself but because I want to be the one to take care of you.” Julian hesitated as he tried to decide whether to continue on or not. “And every day that you change your clothes in front of me or ask me to stay the night with you because you don’t want to feel alone, I hold you and look away, not because I am immune to the fact that you have become the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, but because if I let myself think of you the way that I want to think of you, then I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from wanting to make love to you.”

I stared into Julian’s eyes and too many feelings washed over me. I didn’t know to what to say. He and I have always teetered on the edge of being “more than friends,” but we’ve never acted on any of the feelings between us. He wasn’t alone in what he’d said, though. I’d felt it too. There were moments lately that I’ve felt a pull toward Julian that I had trouble shaking off.

And once he’d said it aloud, I could honestly say that I’ve felt the same way.

“Julian—” I started to say.

I didn’t finish talking, however, because he leaned down to kiss me and all of my words became suddenly unimportant. All that we needed to know was on the tip of our intertwining tongues. The desire for each other that we’d been keeping inside for years was suddenly released, and as I tangled my fingers up in his messy brown hair, I pulled him over me in the way one would cling to their lover, not their friend.

Julian climbed over me and laid his body gently on top of mine. The more our heads turned from side to side, and our tongues pushed deeper into each other’s mouths, the more I wanted him.

“Lisette, you know that I want you,” Julian said as he lifted his head up. “But I don’t want to rush this with you now.”

“How is this rushed?” I laughed. “We’ve been waiting for years.”

“I know,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant. I want you forever, not just for this moment. Promise me that you won’t go through with what you were thinking about doing.”

I sighed. “Julian, can’t we wait to talk about this later?”

“No, we can’t. I don’t want to see you get hurt. I care about you too much, and I won’t let you put yourself in any more danger. Please promise me that you’ll forget about trying to get into Lineage and that you’ll forget about doing any sort of stunt with Adam.”

“I promise,” I said, accompanied by yet another heavy sigh. But as soon as the words came out of my mouth, I felt guilty for lying to him. Julian and I never lied to each other; it just wasn’t something that we did.

Not until right then, anyway.

We rolled over next to each other so that we could stare in each other eyes and kiss some more before we got up. It dawned on me that we almost had sex, and had he not stopped to ask me not to go through with my plan, we probably would have. The next time things were to get heated between us, I already knew that I didn’t want to stop. But I did think I wanted to tell Julian something.

“How many girls have you slept with?” I asked him.

He crooked his eyebrow. “Why?”

I shrugged. “I’m curious.”

He cocked his head. “That doesn’t seem like something that matters or something that you’d really want to know.”

“Well, I do,” I said.

He didn’t hesitate. “Four.”

I pouted a little bit without realizing that I was.

“Why?” he asked. “How many guys have you slept with?”

When I didn’t answer, he leaned forward and kissed my lips so softly that it tickled a little.

“You’re a virgin, aren’t you,” he said.

I don’t know why I was embarrassed to answer that with a “yes.” There were plenty of women my age that hadn’t had sex yet, at least I thought there were. I just hadn’t found the right person yet, or I hadn’t been looking. Maybe it was because I was waiting for Julian.

He smiled gently at me and ran his fingers through my hair. “You know how we always joke about how it’s hard to tell sometimes where your body ends and mine begin?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I like that about us.”

“I like that about us, too.” He smiled. “When I make love to you, Lisette, it will be the epitome of that feeling. Your body and mine will be one.”

“Is that how it was with the other four girls?” I asked.

I wasn’t trying to be hurtful. I was just hurt. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t like I had any right to be jealous about other girls that Julian had been with before we ever even admitted that we had those kinds of feelings for each other.

He stroked my cheek with his knuckles. “Anyone that I have been with was simply a diversion to keep myself distracted from how badly I wanted you. None of that matters anymore, okay? The only thing that matters now is us.”

“Okay,” I said as I leaned forward and kissed him back.

We laid in bed together for a while before I had to get up and go to class. I stretched out the time until I was too late to care and figured that I’d get to the lecture hall whenever it was that I arrived. Julian had a masterclass that day too, so I wouldn’t see him until later on that evening. Everything outside the door to my room was still awful chaos, but inside of my room, everything was perfect, and Julian and I were happy. That was why it was going to be so hard to do what I was about to do next. I had never been without Julian, and I never wanted to be. I had never lied to him or broken a promise we’d made, and I felt like there was a chance that there would be no coming back from this.

Aside from my mother, Julian was the most important person in the world to me. All I could do was hope that he would understand and that he cared about me enough that everything would still be okay. I should have told him that I was going to go to Adam and try to get into Lineage anyway, despite his advice and despite my promise to him. He deserved the truth from me and not to have to find out from someone else. But I knew that if I told him, he wouldn’t have let me leave at all. And as much as it terrified me to think about upsetting Julian or making him upset with me, I just couldn’t let go of my mother’s death. I couldn’t let my kind, hardworking mom, who had fiercely protected me every day of my life, die in vain.