Chapter 24 Sinners and Saints
POV: Carly
Getting back over the wall was easier than getting over it the first time.
She didn't need the boost. She grabbed the ledge on her own and pulled herself up and dropped down the other side and felt unreasonably proud of herself for approximately four seconds before she remembered she was sneaking back onto school grounds at nearly nine at night after lying to her boyfriend by omission and that pride dissolved fairly quickly.
Niko landed beside her without making a sound.
They moved across the lawn low and fast, the security flashlights already visible in the distance making their slow sweeping arcs across the grounds. She stayed close behind him and followed every turn he made without questioning it and tried not to think about how natural that felt.
They made it to Degrassi Hall without being seen.
She stopped at the front entrance and turned around.
He was looking up at the building with his hands in his pockets like he was seeing it for the first time. Which she supposed he was.
"So this is Degrassi Hall." He said.
"Don't." She said with a soft scoff.
"What." He looked at her.
"Don't do the thing where you make it weird." She said.
"I wasn't going to make it weird." He said. "I was going to say it's smaller than I imagined."
"It is not small."
"Compared to Silas it's practically a cottage."
"Nobody asked you." She said.
He smiled.
She looked at the entrance and then back at him and her feet were not moving toward it yet for reasons she was choosing not to examine.
"You really think Silas Stiles was a prick." She said.
He blinked at the subject change. Then went with it. "Objectively the worst vampire in Black River Falls history." He said. "Which is saying something considering the competition."
"Finally." She said. "Vampire hate we can agree on."
He laughed. "I think we agree on more than you're willing to admit."
She didn't argue with that.
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and shifted her weight and her feet still were not moving.
"For the record." She said. "I'm insistent on paying you back for dinner so don't forget to tell me what I owe you."
"Pay me back with time." He said.
She looked at him.
"You're not the worst company." He said simply. "And I actually enjoyed tonight. You can't tell me you didn't."
She pressed her lips together.
He took a step toward her. "We spent hours together and nobody bled. I count that as a significant achievement."
She laughed despite herself.
"And a start." He said. "To something that could be a genuinely good friendship."
"We're not-"
"Friends." He said. "I know. You've made that very clear. But whatever this is." He gestured between them. "It's not nothing anymore and you know that."
She had no response to that which felt like a response in itself.
"Come out with me again." He said.
She crossed her arms. "Another taco night?"
"There's a music festival in the park every Friday." He said. "Local bands, food, art. It runs late." He paused. "There's dancing."
She raised an eyebrow. "You dance."
"On occasion." He said.
She hummed like she was considering it which she absolutely was and was furious at herself for.
"How do you even know about all these things." She said. "Town events and local restaurants. You sneak off campus that often."
Instead of answering he took another step toward her until they were close enough that the cold night air between them had shrunk to almost nothing. She could see the faint moonlight catching the multiple necklaces at his collar and the light scruff along his jaw and those blue eyes that never seemed to do the same thing twice.
"Come out with me again." He said it softer this time.
She swallowed. "Let me think about it."
His forehead creased slightly. Like he wanted to push and was choosing not to.
She turned toward the stairs.
"Sinners and Saints." He said.
She stopped. Turned back around. "What."
"For homecoming." He said. "That's your theme."
She stared at him.
"You needed one." He said with a shrug. "And I got tired of watching you stress about it."
"So your generosity had selfish intentions." She said.
"I'm a man who knows what he wants." He said simply.
She looked at him standing there in the moonlight of Black River Falls with his hands back in his pockets and that smile that she was becoming dangerously familiar with and she thought about how three weeks ago she would have paid good money to never have a conversation with Niko Monroeson that lasted longer than thirty seconds.
"Sinners and Saints." She said quietly. Trying it out.
"You love it." He said.
"I don't hate it." She said.
He grinned.
She turned toward the stairs again before he could see her face do something she would regret.
"Goodnight Niko." She said over her shoulder.
"Goodnight Carly." He said.
She went up the stairs and did not look back and told herself very firmly that she was not smiling.
She was absolutely smiling.
POV: Tommy
He had been in the common room for forty minutes.
Not because he had anything to do there. He had his phone and his drink and a chair near the window that faced the courtyard and he had been sitting in it since eight thirty telling himself he was just unwinding after practice.
He had texted Carly three times.
He was not the kind of person who texted three times. He was the kind of person who sent one and waited and trusted that the other person would come back when they came back because that was what people who trusted each other did.
He had sent three.
Marcel had come through twice and given him a look the second time that Tommy had ignored. Enzo had offered him a drink and he had taken it and barely touched it.
He stared at the courtyard.
He was not worried. There was nothing to be worried about. Carly had a lot going on. She lost track of time when she was deep in something. She was probably in the library or running a coven meeting or practicing spells in the east courtyard the way she sometimes did late at night when she needed to clear her head.
She was fine.
He checked his phone.
Still nothing.
He thought about his father in the study room this afternoon. The hand on his shoulder in the hallway. The specific way he had said some things are just what they are whether we like it or not with that calm certainty that meant the conversation was over before it started.
He thought about the way Carly had looked when he came back. That small careful smile that said she had understood everything and was choosing not to make him say it out loud.
He loved her for that.
He also knew it meant she had been carrying it quietly ever since and he hadn't asked her about it because asking about it meant opening a door he wasn't ready to walk through yet.
His phone lit up.
He picked it up so fast he almost dropped it.
It was Carly.
Carly: Hey. So sorry. Lost track of time studying. On my way back now. You okay?
He stared at the message.
Then he typed back.
Tommy: All good. Come find me when you're back.
He set the phone down on the arm of the chair.
He looked at the courtyard.
A minute later he saw her crossing the path toward Degrassi Hall from the direction of the east lawn. Her bag on her shoulder, her curls slightly windswept, her cheeks flushed from the cold. She was walking quickly with her head down and her arms crossed over her chest.
He watched her until she disappeared through the entrance.
She had come from the east lawn.
The library was in the west wing.
He sat with that for a moment.
Then he picked up his drink and finished it and stood up from the chair and told himself it meant nothing. She probably just took the long way back. She did that sometimes when she needed air.
He walked back to his room and did not look at his phone again and lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
The east lawn.
He closed his eyes.
It meant nothing.
He was almost sure.