Rogue Descendant (Nikki Glass) - By Jenna Black Page 0,36
a trip to a museum. But I think Jamaal needs to get out of his own head for a while.
“That’s your professional opinion, eh?”
I bristled, but managed to refrain from making an angry retort. “It’s my opinion as a fellow human being.” I didn’t think telling Steph about Sita’s walkabout was going to incline her to see things my way, though it was that more than anything that convinced me Jamaal needed more human contact. “We’re not meant to be solitary creatures. Or didn’t they teach you that in psych class?” Steph had been a psych major in college, although she’d chosen not to pursue a career.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “No reason to get testy.”
“I’m not!” I protested, though I knew I was.
Steph ignored me. “If I have to listen to you telling me Blake isn’t good for me, then you have to listen to me telling you that Jamaal is bad news for any woman.”
I slumped in my seat. I thought I’d been getting better, refraining from editorializing about Blake, but maybe I hadn’t. “You don’t listen to me about Blake,” I pointed out.
“That doesn’t stop you from sharing your opinion.”
“When was the last time I said anything to you about him?” I honestly couldn’t remember. I’d bitten my tongue more times than I could count.
“You don’t have to say anything to make your opinion clear. All I have to do is take one look at your face when I’m talking about him.”
I glanced out the side window to orient myself, hoping we were almost at the mansion so I could escape this conversation. No such luck.
“I’m doing my best to keep my opinions to myself,” I said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have opinions, and I can’t just turn them off like a light. Sorry.”
Steph’s hands had tightened on the wheel, and I hated the tension that radiated from her. She was a genuinely nice, good person, and she deserved to be happy. Ever since I’d become Liberi, I’d been dragging her down, and I wished I could make things better. But I knew Blake was bad for her. Eventually, they would both get tired of a relationship that didn’t include sex, and then one of two things would happen: either Blake would sleep with her, thereby tying her to him for the rest of her life, or he’d dump her, breaking her heart. Neither of these alternatives was acceptable.
“I just want you to stop treating me like a child who’s not capable of making her own decisions. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I don’t need your guidance.”
“What do you want me to do, Steph? Stop caring about you? Stop worrying about you? That isn’t reasonable.”
“Oh, but it’s reasonable for you to ask me not to care that you’re falling for Jamaal?”
“I’m not falling for him!” I snapped, which probably cemented her opinion that I was. I took a deep breath to calm my temper. Steph had seen me make a lot of bad relationship decisions over the years, and I couldn’t blame her for trying to warn me away from what she saw as just one more. I took a second deep breath just for insurance, then continued in what I hoped was a calmer, more reasonable tone.
“Jamaal is a different story. I live in the same house with him, and unless the Olympians turn over a new leaf and decide to live and let live, I’ll be stuck with him for the rest of my life. And in case you’ve forgotten, I’m immortal.” Despite already having come back from the dead once, those words sounded almost laughably absurd. I supposed I’d get used to it someday, but that day sure hadn’t come yet. “It’s in my own best interests to try to help him, because I have to live with him either way, and he’s not good to live with right now.”
Everything I said was true, but it wasn’t really the reason I wanted to help Jamaal, and we both knew it. Steph tapped her fingernails against the steering wheel, but the gesture seemed more restless than angry. Maybe we were making progress.
“Why does it have to be you who tries to help him?” she asked, and I decided we weren’t making progress after all. “Why don’t you let Anderson handle it? He’s supposed to be in charge, right?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Anderson had certainly known Jamaal longer than I had, and Jamaal respected him a hell of a lot more. But