house. Through the house Connor owned, with the honeyed wood and the huge yard and the conservatory.
“Is there a problem?” Connor asked when we were alone.
I felt a thousand emotions at once. Surprise that he’d left the home shared by three generations of his family, shocked that he had the financial chops to up and buy a town house in Chicago, anger and hurt that he hadn’t thought to share either of those things—huge, life-changing things—with me.
My parents hid the AAM’s interest in me. Connor shut me out.
Was there anyone left I could trust?
“Left home,” I repeated. “Moved out. Bought a house. Those are huge decisions, Connor. And you didn’t tell me about any of it.”
“I’m telling you now,” he said, pulling his screen from his pocket, putting it on the counter—and avoiding eye contact. “It’s not a big deal.”
“So completely rearranging your life is just an average Tuesday for you?”
He looked up at me. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I glared at him. “Don’t minimize my feelings.”
“I’m not minimizing them. I’m trying to understand them.” He swore, put a hand on his chest. “It was time for me to get some space from the Pack. I need a place that’s mine. A place that’s away from the Pack. It was time,” he said again.
I could see in his face he didn’t realize he held the knife, and had just twisted it a little more. “And that’s it?” I asked.
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
I had to make a decision between flight or fight, between letting this go or pushing back. And letting this go wasn’t really my style.
“I want you to want to tell me when big things happen. Or when little things happen. I want you to need to tell me.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Isn’t it?”
He must have seen the hurt in my eyes, because his softened. “Look, this is not how I wanted this to go. But the sun’s about to rise, and I don’t want us to say things we’re going to regret. We can talk more at dusk.”
If I’d been human, that would have been unlikely. I’d seen Lulu bleary-eyed after a night of lovelorn sleeplessness. But the sun would put me under. On nights like this, that was a relief.
“Fine,” I said. “Where do I go?”
He looked at me for a long moment, jaw working while he considered the things he might say. “Second floor, second door on the right.”
I nodded at him, walked back toward the hallway and the stairs. Then I stopped. “Thank you for giving us a place to sleep tonight,” I said, without looking back.
And moved through silence up the stairs.
* * *
* * *
The second floor was more of the same. Gorgeous, warm, and an interesting mix of tech and antiques.
The door to the second bedroom was cracked, and I opened it, found Lulu sitting up in a large bed with an upholstered headboard in a tweedy gray fabric, gaze on her screen. I came in, closed the door behind me.
“You okay?” Lulu asked.
“Need a minute,” I said. I walked toward the door I assumed led to a bathroom, found a large closet. I growled, tried the other door. This was the bathroom, with blue-gray tile and a slate vanity. The shower was an angular tower of glass with more dark tile. It was oceanic, I thought, not unlike the video on the artscreen downstairs.
I washed up and changed into pajamas, and by the time I emerged into the bedroom again—and confirmed the windows were covered by thick blackout-lined drapes—I was ready to form coherent words. “He moved out of the Keene home and bought a damn town house.”
“From your expression, I don’t need to ask how you feel about it.”
“Angry. Hurt. Shocked. Confused.” I wished I could tell Lulu about my parents, about the things they’d hidden from me. But that would lead to uncomfortable questions about Testing and the reason for my fear.
“And what did Connor say?” she asked.
“That it was time, and he needed space from his family. Something that was his.”
“Okay,” she said, putting down her screen and crossing her legs. “That’s reasonable. Would have been more reasonable for him to tell his damn girlfriend about it.”
“Exactly,” I said and sat down on the edge of the bed. “What the hell, Lulu? We have all this shared history, and I thought we were going somewhere.” I turned to look at her. “Have I been reading this wrong?” The possibility reignited that ache beneath my ribs. And