Chapter 18 NOTHING HAPPENED
Hurt flashed first. Then I laughed softly, without feeling it. He was looking at his mug.
"Yes," I said. "The bond."
"Exactly," he said.
"We both know that," I said.
"We do," he said.
"So we do not need to discuss it," I said.
"No," he said. "We do not."
I nodded. He nodded, too. We drank our coffee in the bright quiet kitchen like two people who had not kissed on a sofa at seventeen minutes past midnight while soft music played and Jake slept three feet away.
Alexander's POV:
She was performing so hard I could see the effort of it.
Especially with that straight back and raised chin and those flexed hands around the mug and her eyes that looked everywhere except my face.
I noticed the way she answered in single syllables and nodded at appropriate intervals like she was following a script for a scene called "Everything Is Fine And Last Night Did Not Happen".
I was performing too. Fully aware of it.
Coffee, a simple shirt, a casual posture that suggested I had slept well.
We were both performing. We were both doing it extremely badly.
"You left the dress upstairs," I said.
She looked at her mug. "I did not want to take it."
"It is yours," I said.
"You bought it for the party," she said. "The party is over."
"Lily."
"Alexander."
I looked at her and she looked at her coffee.
"Keep the dress," I said.
She pressed her lips together.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
Jake was sleeping through the entire morning the way he always did after drinking. Completely unconscious for another two hours minimum.
I looked at Lily's hands around the mug.
Last night, her hands had been on either side of my face and she had looked down at me with an expression I had been collecting, studying and trying not to look at for months.
I drank my coffee.
"The plan," I said.
She looked up with a small frown.
"Jake is close to destroying the bond," I said. "Last night before he fell asleep. The things he said to you. The way he was with you." I kept my voice even. "It is working."
Some strange moved across her face.
"Yes," she said. "It is working."
"A few more weeks," I said. "Maybe less."
She nodded.
"And then the bond breaks," I said.
"Yes," she said.
"And we get what we want. What we need," I said.
She looked at me. For a long moment she just looked at me.
"Yes. I can't wait," she said.
Her voice was very quiet.
"Great," I said.
"Good," she said.
We looked at each other across the kitchen island in the bright morning light. Neither of us looked away for a moment too long.
Then she looked back at her coffee. And I looked out the window.
Lily's POV:
I don't know how but Alexander made breakfast for me and that had me sitting on the chair longer than I had planned to. And secretly, it was to my delight.
I told Alexander I would only wait in hopes that Jake would wake earlier.
Jake came downstairs at ten eleven.
I know the exact time because I had been watching the clock on Alexander's kitchen wall for the past hour telling myself I would leave in five minutes and then not leaving.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway with his hair going in many directions with a particular squinting expression of someone whose head hurt and who was making peace with that.
And even with that, Jake still had my heart racing.
He looked at me. He looked at Alexander. He looked at the coffee.
"Hey, man. How you doing?" Alexander said ecstatically and went to pat Jake on the back.
They stood there talking in guy code and laughing like long lost friends. Meanwhile, I just sat by like an old painting on the wall.
Then Jake suddenly walked up to me and placed a much more deliberate kiss on my cheek.
"Coffee," he said.
Alexander poured him a mug without being asked.
Jake sat down beside me at the island and drank half of it in one go and then set it down and pressed his fingers to his temples.
"How much did I drink last night, Lily?" he said.
"Six bottles, Jake," I said.
He groaned, caught between hurt and embarrassment. "Why did nobody stop me?"
"You are a vampire," Alexander said. "You told me vampires do not get drunk. I believed you."
"I lied," Jake said.
I pressed my lips together. Jake looked at me sideways. His brown eyes were tired but warm. He reached over and tucked my hair back with one hand, slow and easy.
"Sorry I abandoned you," he said.
"You did not abandon me," I said. "You fell asleep."
"Same thing," he said.
"It is really not," I said.
He smiled, tired and genuine and very Jake.
"Were you okay?" he said. "Last night. After I fell asleep."
"I was fine," I said. "Alexander kept me company."
Jake looked at Alexander. Alexander looked at his coffee.
"Did you now," Jake said slowly.
"We watched something," Alexander said with a shrug.
I looked at the counter and said nothing.
"Right," Jake said.
He looked between us.
I could feel it. The particular feel of Jake's attention when he was paying more attention than he appeared to be.
He was perceptive in ways people would never believe because he was so easy, nonchalant and social on the surface. Underneath he noticed things.
I knew him by the day.
"I should head home," I said. "Mom will be up."
"We can drive you," Alexander said immediately.
"I can walk," I said.
"We will drive you," he said again.
Jake looked between us again.
"Lily, let us help," he said.
"You need rest," Alexander said.
"I am fine," I said.
"Lily, don't do this.... please." Jake said with a sigh.
"Okay. I agree," I said simply, not wanting to tire my dear Jake.
The car ride was three people with one silent and the other two hooked in a foreign conversation.
Jake sat in the front this time. I sat in the back alone.
It was immediately, obviously different.
Jake turned around once in a while to talk to me and Alexander drove and talked more than I had never heard him before and I sat in the back where Jake and I usually sat together and felt the space beside me like a presence.
Jake was telling a story about his first ever hangover from three years ago. I laughed at the right moments.
Alexander's eyes did not find mine in the rearview mirror once. Not even a glance.
I looked at the back of his head.
The dark hair, the straight posture and both hands on the wheel.
He was doing it deliberately.
I looked out the window.