I swallowed.
If he knew that nothing felt uncomfortable with him except the fact that I couldn’t tell him everything...even having to lie to him.
My heart jumped without me asking it to.
I couldn’t help but smile at his words.
“You seem to have fun.”
Startled, I looked toward the door where Larissa was leaning in her black leather jacket with her arms crossed, grinning at me with amusement.
She seemed to have a talent for catching me texting with Erik.
“I’ve got you to myself now, by the way,” she said, with a broad grin, as if she had planned an assassination attempt on me and came straight toward me, only to drop onto my bed.
“I’m allowed, right?”
Larissa was the epitome of graceful extraversion.
But maybe it was just me. I was too quiet for this noisy world.
I couldn’t help but nod.
She grabbed me by the shoulders and I looked at her in surprise.
“Now tell me, who is this mysterious Erik?”
“Now I want to know who this Erik is, too” it came from the door.
Bayla Adams looked first at Larissa, then at me, a thousand question marks above her head, before looking back at Larissa with a smirk.
Thank you, Larissa. Really. Thank you.
“Julie has a secret boyfriend.” She looked at me as if I had some information for her that everyone was dying to know. “Does Grace actually know about this?”
“No, and I want to keep it that way,” I said, giving Larissa a serious look.
“Ooh, seems to be something very secret indeed.”
She winked at me.
“Not anymore,” I sighed.
I looked at Bay, who raised her hands with a grin. “Sorry.”
“Wow, now that’s what I call deep talk.”
I looked at Larissa, who was grinning and holding my laptop in her arms.
Startled, I snatched it out of her hands and immediately felt my cheeks heat up.
“Does he go to university here, too?”
“Larissa, stop interfering in other people’s lives. There are things you can’t always stick your nose into.”
Bayla made it sound as if Larissa’s behavior was nothing out of the ordinary.
Just the way she’d talked to the DeLoughreys earlier had scared me. And I was worried that this guy was serious and might even turn up here and cause a bloodbath.
Even if the Ruisangors were playing by the rules of the treaty here in Blairville, they couldn’t be trusted. They were gradually buying up parts of our territory, and that was slowly making them a bit too powerful.
“Larissa, leave her alone now!”
“It’s all right, Bayla.”
“No,” Bay looked at me. “You have to tell her if something’s bugging you. Larissa likes to overstep boundaries.” Bayla paced around the room. “And you can call me Bay.”
Exhausted, she dropped onto her bed. Somehow, she looked paler than usual.
“Don’t talk like I’m not here.” Larissa looked at me, rolling her eyes. “I just want to help Julie.”
“I’m fine on my own,” I refused with gratitude, but something told me I wasn’t going to get out of this one just like that.
“So, how is it that you’re never seen making out on campus?”
