“Oh God, I’m getting blood all over your tux.”
James laughed. “I don’t care about my tux. But why exactly are you covered in blood?”
I made sure not to wipe my face as I pulled away from him. “We went upstairs and found Isabella’s dog dead on our bed with the words, ‘You’re next,’ written in blood on the wall.”
“We?” James asked. “You mean you and Matt?”
I wasn’t sure why that was the part that he was questioning. I nodded.
“And he left you?”
“He left me with Mason. But then Mason saw Isabella and I told him to go after her.”
James ran his fingers through his hair. “Are you okay?” He shook his head. “Sorry, that was a stupid question.”
I tried to blink away my tears.
“We should probably take a shower real quick to get you cleaned up,” he said.
I laughed, which made him laugh too. “What are you dressed as?” I asked.
He looked down at his ruined white tux jacket. “James Bond. FromThe Man With the Golden Gunspecifically.”
Oh.That made sense. And Rachel was one of his Bond girls. “Where’s Rachel?”
“Dancing. I just stepped out for a second. I needed some air.”
Air?I wasn’t blind. I’d seen all the smoke in the air out here. “What were you smoking?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “What does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
He smiled. “Because I matter to you? Last time I checked, you turned down my proposal.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”
“I’m Rachel’s problem. Not yours.” He sat down on the step.
I didn’t really know how to respond to that. “So are you two good?”
He exhaled slowly. “You mean do I think she actually likes me instead of just wanting my money?” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t make me like her any less. I don’t know how to quit her. She’s like a freaking drug.”
I nodded. I didn’t really understand, because I never did drugs except that one time I accidentally had pot cupcakes. But I was more addicted to Matt than I think I even knew.
We both sat in silence.
I was glad James was staying with Rachel, even though his words were slightly disturbing. I wanted him to be happy. But as I thought about happiness, I realized that there was one thing holding me back from it. Isabella. She’d always be standing in my way. And I needed to make a stand. Enough was enough. I wasn’t going to suffer the same fate as poor Sir Wilfred. I was not going to benext.
“I want to do the prank,” I said into the cool autumn night.
James smiled. “Yeah?”
I nodded. I didn’t tell him that I wished that Isabella was just dead. Hopefully an innocent prank would get this feeling out of my stomach. I just needed Isabella to know I wasn’t rolling over. I wasn’t going anywhere.
“You sure? I thought you didn’t want to stoop to her level.”
“I’m not threatening to murder her. Although I don’t know why Rob keeps asking me for blueprints to my dad’s apartment.”
