His eyes flashed. “You make a convincing argument. What time should I pick you up?”
“Six. At the apartment, so I have time to change.”
He looked up at the sky before returning his gaze to my face. “That’s in too many hours.”
I smiled. “Want to bring us lunch?”
His lips curved. “I can most definitely do that.” As he leaned in for a kiss, my phone vibrated inside my bag. I disregarded the call, giving August’s addictive mouth my full attention.
A while later, he drew open my car door, and I settled behind the wheel. And then he backed away and watched me leave, the rope between us stretching like spun sugar. At a traffic light, I dug my phone out of my bag to call Sarah, but then remembered I couldn’t make contact with her.
My disappointment was quickly superseded by apprehension when I noticed Liam’s three missed calls.
Bracing myself, I dialed him back.
It was Lucas who answered. “We’re waiting for you in the gym.”
“I thought you said I had the day off.”
He sighed, then dropped his voice, “Just get here quick, Clark.”
“Did the Creeks-”
“Not over the phone.”
“Okay. I’ll be there in twenty.” Pulse skittering like claws on pavement, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and tore down the streets toward my apartment.
Showered and changed, I banged on the gym doors. I hadn’t been convened to train, so I’d donned a plain crop top and a pair of overalls I’d purchased to work on the house. A small part of me was hoping the burned-plastic smell of the paint primer dappling the denim would conceal August’s scent.
But I quieted that small part of me.
I wasn’t here to hide what I’d done; I was here to defend my actions. If this meeting was even about August.
Lucas opened the door, and I strode in, muttering a quick hello, but then I did a doubletake when I caught sight of a bruise purpling his jaw.
“What happened to your face?” I asked. “Did you get in a fight?”
His blue eyes shone like lapis. “No. I walked into Alex Morgan’s fist for the fun of it.”
I stiffened. “Alex Morgan?” My gaze jumped to Liam to see if he, too, had gotten hit. His face was shiny with sweat but unblemished.
As he set down the weights he’d been curling, he speared me with a look that had my heart banging harder. “Thanks to your little message, the Creeks followed Lucas and Matt to where we’d stashed the Sillin, and ambushed them.”
I gasped. “Ambushed?”
“It was a fucking set-up, Ness! They had no clue where we’d hidden it,” Lucas hissed.
“Sarah sent you the message, didn’t she?” Liam asked.
My lips trembled too hard to answer.
He rose from the weight bench and strode over to me, his gait so brutal I took a step back. “I told you she was using us, and you didn’t listen.”
“Sarah wouldn’t have done that . . .” I whispered.
“How can you still defend her?” Liam hollered.
I pressed my palms against my ears. “I can hear you fine. Don’t shout.”
“You didn’t hear me fine the first time I said it. Maybe this time, if I say it loud enough, you’ll listen!” Spittle smacked my nose.
I gritted my teeth. “Stop it, Liam!”
Would Sarah have set me up to gain the Creeks’ trust? I couldn’t imagine her doing such a thing.
I prayed she hadn’t.
“I trust Sarah. She wouldn’t have betrayed us, not willingly anyway. Maybe they set her up. Maybe-”
Liam’s eyes flashed like hammered copper. “Funny you should mention trust.”
I sucked in a breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You broke your promise.” His voice was chillingly flat, but his expression wasn’t. His expression was a medley of sharp angles. “I can smell him all over you.”
My lungs contracted, but then I crossed my arms. “Don’t you think we have more important-”
“We had a deal,” he snapped.
“That deal went both ways.” Underneath the hot musk and fresh mint of Liam lay another scent, a feminine one. “I’m not the only one who spent the night with someone, so don’t you dare tell me off. You don’t get to tell me off!”
His Adam’s apple jostled in his throat. He hadn’t shaved in days, which made him look older, more severe.
“How’s Matt?” I asked, his wellbeing mattering more than this stupid feud over who we’d spent our night with.
“What?” Liam blinked.
I turned toward Lucas. “How is he? Did he also get banged up?”
“He looks better than I do. Fucking Alex Morgan. I was this close”-his index finger hovered a breath away from his thumb-“to killing him. This. Close.”
“I’m really sorry you guys got jumped,” I said, “but I stand by my conviction. Sarah cozied up to Alex Morgan to get us information. Not to give them any.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes at first, but then he shook his head, tossing his shaggy black hair. “I don’t buy that, Clark. She’s a Creek through and through.”
Tension whirred as loud as the AC vents blowing cold air into the high-ceilinged room. It was interrupted by the ringing of a cell phone.
Lucas pulled it out of the pocket of his black mesh shorts. “It’s Frank.”