Because how dare he? How. Fucking. Dare. He.
I hadn’t even admitted it, but the asshole had still decided to use yet another truth of mine against me.
I wasn’t sure where he was, but I was determined to find him.
Walking inside the library, I heard two girls in the year below me snicker, and I glared at them. “Is there something wrong with watching porn?”
Our librarian, Mrs. Crossly, gasped. “Miss Denane, I’ll have you watch your mouth, or else you can go visit Headmaster Taurin.” She lifted her compact mirror back up, though I wasn’t sure why, as she gave me the stink eye while coloring her lips dark red with expert precision.
I was sure she could apply it in her sleep.
I pursed my lips, not bothering with an apology. I was too pissed off. Unfamiliar yet not entirely surprised by the piercing sensation leaking poison inside my chest, I stormed to a table in the deepest corner to sulk alone.
I never did catch Jude.
I saw him. Oh, I saw him plenty and did my best to glare at him until he could feel the heat of it trying to scorch holes into the back of his head. Every time, he was unaware and on his way to somewhere that obviously didn’t involve me.
The porn rumor didn’t stand on its legs too long as the denizens of Peridot Academy were used to hearing much more sordid and juicy tales. By lunchtime, people were discussing who’d blocked who on social media and what they were drinking, smoking, or snorting tonight.
“Remember that time Romeo Breen got caught screwing around with his girlfriend’s mom?”
In the passenger seat and flicking through her phone, Cory laughed. “Yes.” She hummed. “What happened to him?”
“He graduated last year, I think.” I clicked the button to lower the volume of the music a little. “Didn’t they still go to prom together, though?”
“They totally did,” Cory said. “Bianca didn’t come back, though. Pretty sure she transferred.”
I wondered where she went. Perhaps the public school. I was sure I’d see her again if she planned on attending Ardent Falls University. The only one on the island.
Ardent Falls wasn’t exactly on the island per se but attached to it by a drawbridge. Ardent Falls Isle.
“What brought that up?”
“Just thinking about the stupid porn rumor Jude tried to get going.”
“Oh, it got going,” Cory said with a snort that made me reach out and smack her arm. “Sorry.” She laughed. “You’re right, though. It’s no Bianca and Romeo, so it’s already dead.”
Satisfaction filled me if only for a mere minute. I slowed when we turned the crest, heading back down the cliff to the other beachside homes around the bend from mine. As I leaned forward a little, the cars parked on either side of the road up ahead came into view.
Melanie’s parents must have been way stricter about people parking on their lawn than Gina’s. Not that most parents wanted their kids to party in their home, but most were hardly here, so party they would.
I pulled over behind a black SUV and killed the ignition. “How do you even know he’s here?”
“There’s nowhere else he’d be. This is the only party tonight.”
We’d already driven past Silas’s house. His truck hadn’t been there, and we weren’t about to ask his parents where he might be.
“So he for real didn’t tell you what he was doing tonight?”
“Nothing,” she said with a resigned breath. “I’ve barely heard from him.”
Yikes, and nor had she seen much of him, hence the wild goose chase.
We got out and checked the road before darting across it to the two-story white and blue Hamptons-style home. The thud of the bass coming from inside bounced through the open windows and down the long drive to greet us. The land was slim, narrow, and the front door was situated on the side of the house.
We climbed the steep flight of stairs, and I gripped the railing as gross images of someone falling on account of being too wasted and breaking their neck entered my mind.
I shook it off with a shiver and replaced it with picturesque, if not somewhat evil, bottle-green eyes.
No one stood guard at the door. It was almost nine, which meant people were too busy and loaded to care who showed up and whether they’d been invited or not.
Bodies bounced and drifted around the living room by the foyer. Girls were dancing with guys I’d never seen before, and other girls, one I recognized from physics, were sprawled over the leather sectional with two guys from the swim team.
I wondered, yet ultimately doubted, if Jude would be here.
It seemed too cozy, too social for his taste. No, my dark and damaged prince preferred solitude or giant crowds, the latter so he could roam and hide away as he so wished.
After trying to search the downstairs living areas, kitchen, and bathroom to no avail, we looked at one another and nodded. It was highly likely if Silas was here that we’d miss him if he was moving around.
“I’ll take upstairs,” I said.
“Meet outside in ten minutes, or,” Cory said, waving her phone, “call me.”
I double-checked I hadn’t left my phone in the car, relieved to feel its weight in the back pocket of my jeans. In skinny whitewashed jeans with tears in the thighs and a black Arctic Monkeys T-shirt, I was so totally not dressed for the occasion. Thankfully, I’d made the last-minute decision to don my heeled boots and ditch the Vans I’d almost walked out of the house in.
My hair was down, but it was a crazy half-dried mess of spiraling red curls, and my face was bare of mascara and lipstick.
For once, I was hoping I didn’t run into my private lover slash public tormentor.
And so, of course, that was exactly what fate would serve me.
After checking each room upstairs, most of them locked, and the half library, half theater room, I only had the bathroom left to glimpse before I waded back downstairs.
I twisted the handle—another locked door.
About to turn away and narrowly dodging a flying throw pillow aimed at a ducking dude, I froze.
“Jude.” His name was giggled. A giggle I knew had to belong to Marnie.
Call me a glutton for punishment, but I stalled for too long, trying to decide if I wanted to know what they were doing behind that locked door, and if I wanted him to see me.
Right as the door swung open, I decided none of the above. “Wait,” Marnie said to him.
Stepping back, I sucked in a breath and held it, not entirely sure why. I heard Jude grumble something, and I inched forward, unable to see anything but a blue-tiled shower with a giant circular head.
Jumping to the other side of the door, I peered inside.
Jude was pressing Marnie up against the vanity between the twin basins, her legs around his waist, her hands under and lifting his dark blue T-shirt. Kissing her. He was kissing her.
Rage curled my fingers into my palms and ignited a wildfire inside my heart.
Was he just another guy playing around, seeing how far he could take things with as many girls as he could for as long as he could?
But as far as I was aware, I was the only one besides Marnie he’d been messing around with. And I prayed to every god out there that he hadn’t been messing around with her the way he had been with me.
My stomach sank to my toes when I realized I was even more of an idiot than I already knew I was.