“Your face did.”
“Well, ignore my face.”
“Can’t.” His lips twitched. “I’m looking right at it.”
“Well, stop looking.” I turned around and walked faster toward the field.
He chuckled as he walked after me. I didn’t know why, but the way he went zero to sixty when he thought I could potentially be in trouble, rattled me. It was the same earlier today. Logan had gotten between us before I could even tell his brother to fuck off. And now this? It was nothing. I shook it off. I took the cap off the camera and walked to the sidelines, snapping pictures of the guys as they ran drills, drank Gatorade, and huddled around the coach. It was a series of snaps that lasted about fifteen minutes, but they’d do. I closed the cap on the camera and shot a text to Max, telling him I was done with this and would send over the pictures in the morning.
“You don’t want to stay for the entire practice?” Logan asked as I walked back to him.
“For what? To look for my replacement sleeper for when you’re gone?”
The amusement left his face. “No.”
“The quarterback is cute.” I glanced over my shoulder for show, not that I cared or even knew what the QB looked like underneath his helmet. “I guess he’ll do.”
“He has a girlfriend.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know him.”
“Well, maybe this time next year he won’t have a girlfriend.” I shrugged.
“This time next year you won’t be here. Aren’t you graduating next semester?”
“Good point.” I laughed. Damn it. Logan didn’t laugh though. I watched him as we walked back to his car. He was so serious half the time and so flirty the other. “I think you’re jealous.”
“Of what?” he sounded genuinely surprised.
“Of the thought of me sharing a bed with someone else.”
“I am not jealous.” He scoffed. “Please.”
“Okay, you’re not jealous.” I shrugged as I got in his truck.
He started driving toward campus, making a left at the library. I thought he was going to go into one of the houses that sat nearby, but he passed those as well, and drove down a street that went on and on, until there were no more houses in plain view and all I could see was forest. In the rearview, I could see that we were driving upward and wondered if this was where the first house I’d been to was, on top of the fall. It seemed like we were going in the right direction but I couldn’t know for sure without the map and address. He took another turn, and houses finally came into view. They were far apart from each other though.
“Nolan told me he had an interesting conversation with you,” he said as he slowed his speed.
“What conversation?”
“About you sleeping with him.”
“Oh.” I laughed. “He called that interesting? He was trying to get me to sleep with him. Or both of you. At the same time, I think.”
“Are you into that?” His lips turned up on one side.
“Absolutely not.”
“You sure? You’re blushing again.” He looked like he was trying not to smile.
“Positive.” I hated that I was still blushing. I put a hand up to my temple to shield my face from him.
He chuckled louder. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a threesome with the two most popular guys in school.”
“I don’t want to have a threesome. Jesus Christ.” I groaned, covering my face with both hands now. My words were muffled by my hands. “Maybe I’ll use him for his bed.”
“Fuck that,” Logan growled. I lowered my hands and looked at him.
“You were literally just asking me if I wanted to have a threesome with you, but you don’t like the idea of me sleeping beside Nolan?”
“Those are entirely different things.” He was still scowling as we stopped at the very end of the block. He pushed a button on his rearview that opened up the iron gate we were in front of and we continued driving up an expansive driveway, with beautiful trees canopying on either side. “When we get there, you have to stay by my side at all times. Not behind me. Either in front of me or beside me. No exceptions.”
“Why?”
“I can’t help you if you’re behind me.”
I was too shocked by what I saw once the enormous castle finally came into view. Judging by the cars that were already there, the castle was at a distance from where we needed to park. I wanted to say something about it, but my mouth dropped and I hadn’t been able to recover as I examined it. It looked like they’d gotten a sketch of Cinderella’s castle from Disney World and put a Gothic flare on it. Like a creepy castle that had been dropped in the midst of the modern homes around it. There was nothing beautiful about it, except everything. I continued gaping at it as we got out of the car and walked over to it, our shoes crunching the pebbles beneath us. When we reached the long bridge that led to it, I froze. It was cobblestone and they clearly had covered up a previously existing moat. My head whipped in Logan’s direction.
“We’re in a castle,” I said.
Logan chuckled. “Yup.”
“Who owns this?”
“We do.”
“But . . . how is there a castle here? Does anyone know about it?”
It was covered by a heavily wooded area on either side. Even the drive in here didn’t give it away. When had it been built? What had been the purpose of it? Did someone actually need a castle in upstate New York? My heart pounded faster at all of the possibilities as we stared at the huge oval wooden door.
“No one knows about it. If they do, it’s because they’ve heard rumors about it and they all think the land is haunted anyway so they probably wouldn’t come near it,” he said. “Besides, the only way to get here is through those gates, or through the backwoods. You’d have to be crazy to try either one.”
“Wow,” I whispered, looking around.
“I’ll give you a short tour now and a longer one later,” Logan promised as he took out the skeleton key that opened the front door. Even that was the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
“Can I see that?”
“You’ll get your own.” He chuckled as he handed it to me.
It was heavy. Engraved on it was: LMF and the words The Eight beside it.
“I guess you can’t lose this key.” I raised an eyebrow.
“They take the money out of your account when they have to replace it. Let’s just say, most of us wear it around our necks, underneath our shirts.”
He pushed the door opened and for a moment, I stood in the threshold completely shell-shocked, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself into.
Chapter 27
“The house is, by design and historically known, to be the perfect spook house,” Logan said as we stood right at the entrance. I eyed the staircase at the far corner, that seemed to only lead to a single gold door. There were sconces that held candles. It gave the castle a dim orange glow throughout.
“That’s random,” I noted, looking at the stairs.
We continued walking, down a corridor that seemed endless. There were busts and paintings alongside us as we walked. It was just what you’d expect in a castle and it seemed like the people of the society hadn’t changed much of it.