of Vandy’s soft breaths, the rustle of the sheets when she moves her legs, the gentle sweep of her fingers against the hair on my forearm.
I break it with a soft, “Hey, V?”
She looks up at me, but I can’t bring myself to tear my eyes away from her ceiling. “Hm?”
“Remember earlier,” I ask, “when you made me promise?”
Her hand goes instantly still. “Yeah,” she says reluctantly, voice small and full of something I don’t want to think about.
I swallow. “Never Sebastian, okay?”
There’s a long stretch of silence, and I’m afraid for a moment that she’s going to ask why, and I won’t know what to tell her. It’s not that I don’t like him. It’s not that I didn’t see the way he treated her back there, like she was just any other girl—like the way her leg is was nothing to him. It’s not even that I think he’d hurt her.
It’s because of all those things.
It’s not until she repeats, “Never Sebastian,” and presses a small, “I promise,” into my shoulder that I can finally close my eyes.
23
Vandy
“Don’t forget the meeting tonight,” Emory says, wiping his mouth with a napkin. Our lunch table has grown into something crowded and curious. My brother and Aubrey were one thing, but after the fight—the bonfire—most of the other Devils and Playthings began drifting to our table, too. People around us notice and I can feel their probing gazes, because Vandy Hall does not sit at the popular table.
Except suddenly, I do.
If someone had suggested this possibility on the first day of school, I would have thought they were high. Or that I was.
It’s not without its conflicts. Emory has made it clear that Sydney isn’t welcome. She pretends she doesn’t care, sitting over with the lacrosse boys, but the pointed looks directed my way are laced with tension and a bitterness that makes the back of my neck prickle.
Then there’s Reyn.
He’s not supposed to be anywhere near me, but the merging of our worlds has made that a challenge. And after those two nights in my room, it’s almost a physical ache to not be around him. It doesn’t help that he hasn’t been to my room since that night. It seems like his dad is always home now, so I’ve had to settle for the moments like these, clustered around the other Devils, watching him, pretending I’m not over-warm and restless and impatient, and yes.
Tired.
Sleeping without Reyn sucks.
It’s only been three times, but god. I already miss it. I miss the good dreams, the lake and the fireflies and the stillness. I miss the warm, solid weight of him beside me. I miss the way he looks when he’s sleeping, face slack, lips just barely parted. I miss the way he kissed me when he left those two nights—a soft, feathery touch to my forehead—believing I was still asleep, even though I was listening to him put his shoes on.
Admittedly, sleep is a doomed endeavor when night is the only time I can really talk to him. For the past week, we’ve met at our windows, phones pressed to our ears, voices low across the distance. It’s painfully insufficient, but at least I have that—the sound of his voice as he leans over the sill, face shadowed.
Sometimes, if I really work for it, he’ll raise his face into the light and give me one of those patented Reyn McAllister smiles.
“I’ll be there after practice,” Afton says. “We’re working on homecoming stuff.”
“I have a shit-ton of homework for Dr. Ross due tomorrow, but,” Emory says, lowering his voice. “I have the next rite.”
I discreetly glance across the table at Reyn. His intense green eyes are already fixed on me. It’s a thrill to know that maybe he shares this chaotic, bone-deep need to touch and clutch and have. He’s a lot better at this thing than I am, stealing his covert glances at the perfect times. Of course, Reyn is always good at stealing. His expression is always schooled into something aloof, disinterested, but I know better. He’s definitely interested. I can tell when those eyes roam to my mouth, my chest, my waist, my legs.
He’s infatuated with my thighs, and it isn’t fair. The thought that I can’t just give them to him, feel his hands grazing up my skin there, claiming it, marking it, is killing me. if I wasn’t being watched twenty-four-seven by my family, I’d get utterly lost in letting him fawn over them as much as