Again.
“We back off,” I said, then raised a hand when all of them gaped at me. “Not leave her alone. Not abandon her. But we stop trying to tell her what to do. We let her breathe. Let herchoose, without all of us breathing down her neck.”
“And if she chooses none of us?” Jake asked, his voice rough.
“Then we let her.” Sure, it sounded simple. Except… “Even if she doesn’t pick me, I’m still her friend. I’malwaysgoing to be her friend. But I won’t assume anything unless she tells me to my face.”
Period.
They didn’t argue. Not anymore.
“Well,” Archie said. “Jeremy ordered pizzas. We should map out the rules for this so we avoid pissing each other off.”
“Much,” Jake said dryly. Yeah, he might not be mad anymore but he was still irked.
“Much,” Archie said almost agreeably. “Sometimes it’s fun to poke the bear.”
I rolled my eyes but left them to snipe. One of these days, that bear might just punch Archie.
Chapter
Twenty-One
FRANKIE
The air outside still held onto the day's heat like a grudge. Somewhere, someone was mowing a lawn too late, and the scent of cut grass mixed with the smell of whatever was burning on someone else’s grill.
Mathieu’s host family’s garage always smelled like gasoline, old pine from the shelves, and the faint lemony cleaner someone used to clean up the mess. Somehow, despite the scent cocktail, it had become one of the few places that felt neutral.
Safe. The overhead fan clicked with every rotation, blades wobbling just enough to make me glance up every so often to see if it was about to fall.
Mathieu was cross-legged on the concrete, wearing one of my old band tees and a pair of jeans with paint flecks on the knee. I didn’t ask if the shirt was deliberate. He had spent the night at the apartment a couple of times when Mom was gone. Once he really needed a shirt to borrow and he’d left me one of his. That should mean something, right?
“You're thinking too loud,” he said, breaking the quiet with his soft, accented voice that had a way of making everything sound like a lyric.
“Not possible,” I muttered, tugging at a loose thread on my cuff. “I barely think at all.”
He smiled, dark lashes dipping low as he leaned back on his hands. “Then I’m listening too hard.”
I snorted. “That I believe.”
The silence between us wasn’t bad. Not yet. But it was weighted. Tense. Like the kind of quiet that comes before a question you don’t want to answer. Or one you’re not sure how to.
Despite ditching with Archie, the day before, I’d managed to scoot out of the apartment after I fed the cats and head over here to meet Mathieu without the guys snagging me. It was hardly my first trip here, but it was the first time I felt like I was actuallysneakingoff to see him.
“So.” I licked my lips. “Archie’s party is tomorrow.” If he hadn’t mentioned it that morning, the text messages he’d sent over the last hour made it clear. Saturday afternoon, his place, pool party, pizza, music, and fun.
Mathieu’s head tilted slightly, just enough to make a piece of dark hair fall into his eyes. “Yes. You want to go?”
I hesitated. “Doyouwant to go?” What did I want his answer to be? The fact that I hadzeroidea worried me more than the question.
He shrugged, which on anyone else might have seemed indifferent. But with him, it was thoughtful. “It is the senior party. It would be a good thing to do, no? Meet more people. See what this big American school experience is all about.”
I sighed, staring at the oil stain near the door that looked suspiciously like a bear paw. “It’s not just a party.”
“I gathered.”
He didn’t press. That was the thing about Mathieu. He never demanded. Never pushed. He waited. And that, somehow, was worse. Because the pressure wasn’tonme, it wasinme.
